[Chapter with more than 12,000 words]
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'She looks familiar...' Andrew thought, narrowing his eyes as he looked at this last girl named Paige.
The young woman raised a hand lazily in a general greeting toward the group. Her features were delicate and symmetrical, with pale, clear skin completely free of visible makeup.
Paige's eyes lingered on Andrew for a few seconds longer than on the others, showing a faint trace of curiosity toward the star quarterback. There was neither the media-driven nervousness of her friends nor Sam's calm politeness in her demeanor.
Howard, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow at the girl's attitude. She seemed even calmer than Sam, though bordering on bored. 'She's really pretty,' he thought, immediately drawn to the combination of her attitude, her golden hair, and her blue eyes.
Eventually, everyone entered the house and settled into the living room, taking seats on the available couches. The background music wasn't too loud, allowing people to hold conversations.
As the host, Steve offered each of the newcomers the classic red plastic cups filled with beer.
Sam, Paige, and the others accepted the cups, but the former couldn't help looking at her boyfriend with a raised eyebrow and a distinctly critical tone.
"How did you get this?" Sam asked, examining the contents of the cup. "You're not twenty-one, and in this state it's considered a violation of the law to allow a minor to consume alcohol on private property. The legal consequences in California can include severe fines and even the suspension of a driver's license."
Steve let out a small laugh and raised a hand to downplay the issue, amused by his girlfriend's analysis. "Relax, future lawyer. I promise nobody in this neighborhood is going to report us tonight."
"Otherwise, fraternities would've all been shut down already," Howard added with an amused smile, earning nods from the others.
Sam eventually gave in to Steve's smile. She let out an amused grin and dropped the subject.
After all, even though she was studying law and knew the state's basic regulations, she had no intention of being a killjoy, nor was it as if this were the first time in her life she'd had a beer on a Saturday night.
Paige, who had been watching the scene in silence, brought the red cup to her lips and took a small sip.
Instantly, she suppressed a subtle grimace of disgust. She still couldn't understand the appeal of beer.
The bitter taste was unpleasant to her, and besides, getting drunk simply wasn't part of her plans. She had already gone through that rebellious phase.
She preferred to come up with a quick strategy: as soon as she had the chance, she would discreetly hand the cup over to Chloe, the heaviest drinker in their group, if that select circle of brainiacs could even be categorized that way.
While planning that, Paige felt someone staring at her. She slightly turned her head and discovered that Andrew's eyes were fixed on her.
"Do I have something on my face?" Paige asked directly, looking him in the eyes while raising an eyebrow in a challenging gesture.
Andrew was a little surprised by the firmness of her tone. Generally, given his enormous notoriety on campus as the star quarterback, whenever he stared at a girl and she noticed, he would usually get reactions filled with nervousness, shy smiles, or flirtatious glances.
It wasn't that he sought that kind of attention arrogantly, but his social experience at Palisades, Mater Dei, and now UCLA had taught him that it was the common pattern.
The fact that this girl maintained such an absurdly calm and neutral composure caught his attention a little.
"No, it's not that," Andrew replied, quickly making up an excuse. "It's just that your face looks familiar to me. Have we met before? Maybe we share a class."
The hypothesis wasn't far-fetched. Although they probably belonged to different departments, many freshmen often ended up in the same classrooms while taking their General Education requirements.
In fact, that's how Steve had met Sam during the summer. He hadn't chosen law as his major like she had.
Paige shook her head.
Both her friends and Leonard, Howard, and Steve had already noticed Andrew's attention toward her.
"No. First, I have a very good memory, and I would definitely remember if we'd shared a class. You're kind of well-known around campus..." Paige replied, using the word kind with obvious sarcasm.
To the second she added confidently, "And second, you join UCLA as an early enrollee in January, right?"
Andrew nodded silently.
"So, you're academically ahead of any normal freshman," Paige concluded.
Her logic was flawless. Although Andrew could have taken summer courses just like Steve, Sam, or herself, his classes would have been at a much higher level.
While the girls were only just getting their introductory freshman prerequisites out of the way, Andrew had already cleared his general education credits during his first two quarters and would have spent this summer focusing on advanced courses within his major.
Steve, Leonard, and Howard exchanged slight smiles, all thinking the same thing: Andrew was definitely interested in smart girls.
Being part of Sam's group, Paige had to be intelligent, just as Steve had mentioned earlier when suggesting that he might find and have chemistry with one of these brainiacs.
With the ruthless logic Paige had just laid out, it was impossible for them to believe that Andrew was staring at her because she looked familiar. He had simply come up with a quick excuse to avoid making it obvious that he was interested in her.
And although they still knew nothing about Paige's true background or just how intelligent she really was, the fact that she responded with such ease had already caught their friend's attention.
Andrew had always preferred women who challenged him intellectually and could match him in conversation, rather than girls who seemed easy or became excessively nervous just from talking to him.
Andrew, for his part, had no intention of backing down from his argument. Otherwise, what excuse would he have for staring at her so intently in front of the entire group?
Especially with his friends' nosy gazes fixed on him.
"I retook a class and took it this summer. So there is a chance we shared a class," Andrew argued immediately.
Steve, Howard, and Leonard glanced at one another. They instantly knew that was a lie.
Andrew hadn't failed or retaken any college classes, but none of them were going to expose that detail and ruin their friend's play or leave him completely exposed in front of Paige.
Paige hadn't expected him to continue the debate. "Well, even so, UCLA admitted more than five thousand new students this year. The statistical probability that we happened to share the exact same basic freshman class is still low," she replied.
"But possible," Andrew said, raising a finger.
"Yes," Paige conceded, a slight smile beginning to form at the corner of her lips, amused by his stubbornness, "but low. And I already said I would've noticed if I'd shared a class with the starting quarterback of the team, don't you think?"
"You said it yourself, there are more than five thousand new students," Andrew replied. "There are huge classes held in massive lecture halls with more than three hundred students at a time. Considering you don't seem very interested in football, I doubt you would've noticed I was there if I simply sat in the back wearing a low cap."
At UCLA, the required core courses were taught in enormous lecture halls where the professor simply delivered the lesson as usual.
No matter how famous an athlete might be, if he kept a low profile, he could easily pass as just another blurry face in the crowd to someone who didn't follow the NCAA season.
Paige was about to fire back immediately.
She knew that argument about blending into a massive lecture hall might apply to any other athlete, but definitely not in Andrew's case.
With his enormous fame and millions of YouTube subscribers, combined with being labeled the 'Prospect of the Century,' his face was practically impossible for anyone to ignore.
However, before she could destroy Andrew's cover story, Sam raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. "Alright, let's set this discussion aside for a moment."
Paige snorted through her nose but decided not to press the matter. She was still convinced that none of it made sense.
Even if Andrew had retaken a class, the odds that he would have ended up in the same one as her were still small.
Howard, meanwhile, seemed far more interested in another topic and began asking them more about themselves.
After all, they were university classmates.
Sam was the first to answer. Her goal was to become a lawyer, so she was majoring in Political Science.
It was one of the most common paths for pre-law students.
Unlike in many other countries, the United States did not have an undergraduate degree called Law. Students first earned a bachelor's degree and only afterward entered law school to complete their professional graduate education.
That was why Political Science was one of the most popular majors at UCLA among students aspiring to become lawyers.
Chloe, Megan, and Harper had chosen majors within the humanities and social sciences, such as philosophy, history, and English literature.
When it was Paige's turn and she said she had enrolled in astrophysics, it especially caught Andrew, Leonard, and Howard off guard.
First, because within that group of five college girls, she completely broke the mold by being the only one leaning toward the hard sciences, and second, she said it as if it were no big deal.
Astrophysics was not just any major.
It was considered one of the most demanding majors in the entire university, surpassing several engineering disciplines in terms of theoretical mathematics. With acceptance rates in the single digits.
Moreover, judging by her clothing, her notable natural beauty, and her relaxed posture, Paige did not fit at all with the classic, rigid stereotype people usually associated with a laboratory scientist.
On the contrary, she blended perfectly with the aura of Sam and the others.
Despite belonging to a completely different department from the other girls, UCLA required all students to complete certain blocks of general education courses known as General Education.
Humanities students had to take science courses, and science students had to take humanities courses.
The university believed that a complete education required more than simply staying confined within a single discipline, and it was precisely in one of those mandatory classes that Sam had met Paige.
Howard saw that it was now his turn to speak, and he had no intention of missing the opportunity to show off in front of this group of beautiful girls.
Settling into the couch with a self-satisfied smile, he took a sip of his beer and said, "Before you ask, I got into engineering. More specifically, Undeclared Engineering."
'Show-off,' Steve, Andrew, and Leonard thought.
The revelation sparked a wave of genuine surprise from Sam, Chloe, Megan, and Harper.
Getting into any engineering program at UCLA already meant overcoming an extremely low acceptance rate, but being admitted under Undeclared Engineering was even more difficult and highly selective.
To secure one of the scarce 140 seats available on the entire campus, you had to be one of the best high school students in the country. Far from being an easy option or a refuge for the undecided, within the university's demanding system it functioned as a genuine elite pass.
Paige seemed the least impressed.
But Howard was no longer paying attention to her. He was pleased by the impact he had made on the others, who, intrigued, began bombarding him with questions about his academic record in high school, wanting to know the exact numbers behind his GPA and SAT score.
Howard answered everything while savoring the moment.
Normally, talking about exams and grades was not exactly a way to flirt with girls, but with this particular group, the dynamic was completely reversed.
As the questions directed at Howard gradually died down, Chloe turned her attention toward Leonard.
"And you?" she asked curiously. "What major did you choose?"
Given Leonard's nerdy appearance, he could easily be another surprise.
"I'm not at UCLA..." Leonard began, but he didn't get any further.
"Then where are you?" Sam interrupted, visibly interested.
"Caltech..." Leonard replied, adjusting his glasses with a slightly uncomfortable gesture as he anticipated the reactions he was about to get.
And he wasn't wrong.
"Seriously!?" Chloe exclaimed, straightening up in her seat.
"Caltech..." Sam repeated under her breath, looking at him with a completely different level of respect.
"That's amazing!" Megan added, exchanging an incredulous glance with Harper.
As Andrew's close friend for years, Leonard was much more accustomed to interacting with the opposite sex than the average guy of his type. He had had girlfriends, dates, and flings like any normal high school student.
However, it was the first time in his entire life that simply being intelligent had served as a lethal tool for impressing and attracting women.
Even Paige shifted her gaze toward him, observing him very differently from how she had looked at Howard moments earlier, though for a completely different reason.
Howard, feeling as though the spotlight was being stolen from him and wanting to outshine his friend, quickly jumped in, raising his voice.
"Well, if we're going purely by this year's admissions statistics, getting into Undeclared Engineering at UCLA is technically harder."
'Seriously, dude?' Leonard thought, though he didn't challenge the comment out loud.
The girls began a small debate among themselves, analyzing the admission numbers, and everything indicated that Howard wasn't lying.
Because of the enormous volume of applicants flooding UCLA's admissions process, obtaining one of the incredibly scarce 140 general engineering spots was, percentage-wise, statistically more selective than making it through Caltech's annual admissions filter.
Seeing that the analysis supported his argument, Howard crossed his arms on the couch, displaying a victorious smile. After years, he could finally beat Leonard at something intellectually.
However, Andrew, who always preferred to tilt the scales in Leonard's favor during these kinds of games, smiled faintly, stretched out an arm to pat his friend on the shoulder, and casually said, "Yeah, Howard, whatever you say, but Leonard has an IQ of 173."
Howard's victorious smile vanished instantly. He made an annoyed face and looked at Andrew as if he were sabotaging him.
Sam and the others widened their eyes, completely speechless for a second.
Standing in front of someone with an IQ of 173 meant standing before a genuine genius, a one-in-a-million anomaly.
"Why did you never tell me you had a friend with an IQ of 173?" Sam asked, looking at Steve in an almost scolding tone.
"I... I'm sorry?" Steve replied with an odd expression.
Chloe and Megan immediately began bombarding Leonard with questions, wanting to know whether the number was official, what kinds of tests he had taken, and how his thought process worked.
Leonard, feeling somewhat embarrassed by the sudden attention but secretly happy about the impact he was making on the group, scratched the back of his neck and tried to downplay it shyly.
"Well... yeah, it's true, that was the result of the tests. Though, honestly, I don't think an IQ test is exactly an absolute reflection of everything a person is capable of."
"In general terms, you're right," Sam said immediately, crossing her legs and nodding seriously, "but in the field of the hard sciences, that metric is a crucial indicator."
In the realm of hard sciences, an IQ of that caliber was not viewed as a mere vanity trophy, but as an extremely powerful engine.
It represented a tremendous cognitive advantage that gave the mind brutal speed when processing abstract concepts and learning independently in record time.
The conversation in that corner of the living room completely shifted toward IQ scores, grades, and academic rigor, leaving Andrew and Steve entirely out of the game.
Neither of them focused that heavily on academics, although they were by no means poor students.
Paige, meanwhile, wasn't joining in either. She remained on the sidelines.
Steve shot Andrew a knowing look. His expression said it all: an amused complaint that clearly conveyed, 'Seriously?'
He hadn't imagined that after introducing his girlfriend and interacting with her group of friends, he would end up overshadowed when they had just played an epic game at the Rose Bowl and won on the final drive.
Andrew merely shrugged with a smile while listening to the discussion without getting involved.
It was then that he noticed someone staring at him. He turned his head and discovered that Paige was watching him.
The moment she realized she had been caught, the girl's eyes started to dart away, but Andrew reacted quickly.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" he asked, throwing back the exact same question she had asked him minutes earlier.
Paige froze for a fraction of a second, but immediately regained her composure. Far from becoming intimidated or blushing, she offered a faint smile and replied, "No. I was just surprised that you have two such anomalously brilliant friends."
Andrew raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms as he leaned back against the seat, "Why? Because I'm an athlete, I can't have intelligent friends?" he asked in a mock-offended tone.
"I don't mean that," Paige replied immediately, holding his gaze. "It's not a prejudice against athletes. I'm just saying it's rare to see such a mismatched group. That's all."
Andrew nodded slowly, conceding the point because deep down he knew she was right.
They were a genuinely strange mix to anyone looking from the outside.
Especially if you then added Haley, Rachel, and Monica to the equation.
"Why the double last name? Pritchett-Tucker?" Paige suddenly asked curiously.
"I was adopted by a gay couple when I was a kid. They both wanted me to carry their surnames to keep the family balanced. Actually, they made a similar deal with my younger sister, but since they put Pritchett first with me, she ended up with Tucker first. It was a very serious and very funny matter at the time," Andrew explained with a faint smile as he remembered it.
Paige blinked in surprise at the story.
This revelation surprised her more than Leonard's IQ of 173 or Howard getting into engineering.
In the hyper-masculine, rigid, and often conservative environment of football, homophobia and prejudice were almost inevitable obstacles that Andrew had surely encountered throughout his years playing the sport.
The fact that the star quarterback, and now the most talked-about player in NCAA football, spoke about his two fathers with such naturalness, calmness, and obvious pride instantly shattered every stereotype she might have had about athletes.
"And your last name?" Andrew asked, taking advantage of the opening in the conversation.
"Swanson," Paige replied, leaning back into the couch. "Unlike your parents, mine had a completely normal, monotonous, and boring marriage that, like the vast majority of them, ended in a predictable divorce," she added with irony.
Andrew let out a small laugh at the sharpness of the remark as he pieced together the full name in his memory.
And he found it.
'Paige Swanson from Young Sheldon,' Andrew thought, freezing imperceptibly while keeping his composure on the outside.
Although he had never watched the entire spin-off series and only retained blurry memories from random clips, he remembered that Paige Swanson was the child prodigy from Texas, the only person capable of competing intellectually with Sheldon Cooper and even beating him.
Andrew discreetly looked her up and down, processing the magnitude of what was sitting in front of him.
If the logic of this alternate reality held true, the girl sitting beside him was not simply a diligent Astrophysics student.
She was an absolute genius with an intellect capable of competing with Sheldon himself, a future Nobel Prize winner.
Andrew's heart beat differently, as if activating that unconscious attraction people claimed he had toward exceptionally brilliant female minds, something he preferred to deny or completely ignore.
'She's supposed to be almost as much of a genius as Sheldon?' Andrew thought, carefully measuring each of his reactions so as not to arouse suspicion.
Unlike Sheldon Cooper's eccentricities and his distinctly strange, rigid, and sometimes obnoxious personality, or even Leonard's reserved and shy nature in his early years, Paige carried herself like a completely normal person. She showed no difficulty whatsoever communicating, reading the room, or socializing.
Then her circumstances raised questions.
First: what was a girl originally from Texas doing studying in California?
Andrew couldn't remember how Paige's storyline had ended on television because he had never watched the full series.
But with cognitive abilities of that caliber, the logical place to find her would have been Caltech, Stanford or one of the prestigious Ivy League universities, not UCLA.
In the field of physics, from everything Andrew had heard Leonard say, Caltech surpassed every other institution and stood firmly as the number one university in the world.
Harvard and Princeton were also global titans in astrophysics, competing directly just one tier below Caltech.
Of course, UCLA was a spectacular university, solidly positioned within the Top 10 in the United States in the general rankings for physics and astronomy.
However, in the specific niche of elite astrophysics, the Bruins were clearly a step behind those three academic monsters.
If Paige had moved to the West Coast and wanted to maximize her intellect, she could have walked straight into Caltech.
Why choose UCLA?
Second: why did she seem so strangely normal?
Her friends treated her as an equal, without any hint of mystique. When Andrew had revealed moments earlier that Leonard possessed an IQ of 173, Sam, Chloe, and the others had practically drowned him in praise and amazement, yet none of them had jumped in to brag that Paige carried an even more terrifying number.
The conclusion was simple: they didn't know.
Paige was deliberately hiding her status as an absolute genius.
Getting into Astrophysics at UCLA proved that she possessed an exceptional mind, but nothing beyond the ordinary for that environment. She fit perfectly into the profile of the typical brilliant high school student who studied relentlessly to get into a major with a low acceptance rate.
No one would suspect what kind of intellect she truly possessed.
With her actual capabilities, Paige could have graduated from college while still a teenager, just as Sheldon had.
Apparently, Paige had chosen a path similar to Leonard's: preferring a more normal transition, entering college at eighteen, and flying under the radar in order to experience a normal student life.
Though Leonard didn't hide his genius label, he didn't flaunt it either. But if people asked, he would tell them.
The other curious detail was that Paige didn't have a single trace of the classic, distinctive Texas accent in her voice.
Andrew could recognize that Southern dialect with complete ease.
Andrew's curiosity about Paige grew even more with all those questions running through his head.
Now he understood why she had seemed so indifferent to the display of academic accomplishments being discussed by Sam, Leonard, Howard, and the rest.
For someone with her mind, a high GPA, a strong SAT score, or getting into general engineering were probably child's play.
That was why she wasn't impressed.
It would be like someone telling Andrew that a high school quarterback had thrown four touchdowns against a Division I powerhouse.
Yes, that was a great achievement, but to him it wouldn't be a big deal.
For two years he had thrown four, five, six, and even seven touchdowns against historic high school powerhouses such as Servite, Bosco, and even De La Salle itself in a state championship game.
With a specific idea in mind and eager to test his theory, Andrew shifted his gaze toward his friends and raised his voice to join the conversation.
"Hey, Leonard," Andrew said.
The instant he spoke, the group of girls fell silent. His presence and status naturally made everyone stop talking and listen whenever he decided to speak.
"There was a genius our age at Caltech that you told us about, right?" Andrew asked.
Leonard nodded immediately, adjusting his glasses since this was a serious topic, "Yeah. His name is Sheldon Cooper. From what I read in an article, his official IQ is 187..." he began.
That alone drew a collective gasp from Sam and her friends.
'Should I increase my IQ?' Steve thought, stroking his chin. It seemed Sam found that attractive.
Leonard didn't stop there.
"But the number isn't the most impressive part. At eighteen years old, the guy is already a full-time researcher employed by Caltech. He graduated from college at fourteen, earned his first doctorate at sixteen, and has spent nearly two years publishing scientific papers and working on his own research projects," he concluded in a tone filled with respect.
That proved Sheldon wasn't simply a kid with a high IQ and exceptional aptitude for standardized tests. He already had tangible accomplishments in the real world: an approved doctoral thesis, funded research, and an active scientific career.
Sam, Chloe, Megan, and Harper were left speechless, completely stunned by the scale of what they had just heard.
It wasn't surprising that none of them had ever heard of a genius as young as Sheldon. Although all four took academics very seriously and earned excellent grades, their academic interests were focused on completely different fields.
"That's insane," Chloe murmured, shaking her head. At only eighteen, she was still adjusting to life away from home, and imagining someone with a doctorate at sixteen seemed completely unreal.
Andrew, however, couldn't have cared less about the astonished reactions.
He focused entirely on Paige's reaction.
They were supposed to have shared part of their childhood in Texas and had been rivals. She had to react to that exact name.
And she did.
Barely, but noticeably. Her features immediately tightened, and her thin lips formed a subtle expression of deep annoyance.
'Bingo,' Andrew thought.
That slight display of restrained exasperation was the definitive confirmation he needed.
Why would Paige show such irritation?
Andrew deduced that it was probably for two reasons.
First, anyone unfortunate enough to know Sheldon Cooper personally and deal with his incredibly insufferable, arrogant, and literal personality would display exactly the same reaction of chronic annoyance upon hearing his name.
And second, if Paige was trying so hard to hide her own intellectual abilities at UCLA, the last thing she would want was to encounter Sheldon, however unlikely it might be, or have people start associating her with that kind of eccentric genius oddball.
"It must be fascinating and incredibly interesting to know a genius of that caliber in person," Sam commented, breaking the brief silence.
Leonard immediately nodded, "Yeah, absolutely. It would be fascinating to see up close how a mind like that works," he said with genuine enthusiasm.
Andrew looked at him with an amused, mocking grin.
'Don't speak too soon,' he thought, suppressing a laugh as he remembered the series from his previous life and knew perfectly well the daily nightmare awaiting Leonard if fate ever brought them together as roommates.
Watching that mind operate would stop being interesting very quickly and become a nightmare of Roommate Agreements, egocentrism, unchangeable schedules, and countless other issues.
"Cooper..." Steve repeated aloud, savoring the surname as if trying to solve a puzzle.
Sam looked at him, puzzled by his sudden fixation, "What is it?"
Steve didn't answer. He turned his head, scanning the crowded room until he spotted his teammate, friend, and rival.
"Hey, Amari! Come here for a second," he called loudly enough to cut through the background music.
Amari, who had been chatting animatedly with Andrus, Jordan, and the other players a few yards away, turned his head curiously. He excused himself with a gesture and walked over to the group by the couch.
"What's up, guys?"
"Do you have a brother named Sheldon who's a genius with an IQ of 187 and a doctorate?" Steve asked.
Amari blinked a couple of times, completely thrown off by the question, and immediately shook his head, "No. Why would you ask that?"
"There's a guy here in LA named Sheldon Cooper who's a genius. Are you sure he's not your brother, cousin, or something?" Steve insisted, narrowing his eyes like a detective.
"Man, I promise you, if I had a brother or cousin that smart, I'd know about it," Amari replied, laughing.
"That's weird. You both have the last name Cooper, but you're not related," Steve muttered, refusing to let go of his supposedly brilliant connection.
"Cooper is an extremely common surname in this country," Paige interjected. "It ranks among the Top 100 most common surnames in the entire United States. Top 71, to be exact."
"That's a random fact," Chloe commented, surprised that she had that kind of demographic statistic at her fingertips.
Paige shrugged slightly and improvised a quick excuse so as not to raise suspicions about her photographic memory, "I like reading articles about surnames and census data. I find it interesting, I guess."
That was a lie.
Paige simply remembered that one afternoon, out of boredom, she had come across a digital article about the statistics of the most common surnames in the country.
After reading it only once and in passing, her brain had absorbed and permanently archived 99% of the information, preserving the data intact despite the years that had passed.
Finding the topic interesting, Steve settled back in his seat and looked at Paige with a smile.
"And what about mine? Is Rice a rare surname?"
Paige shook her head, "Not really. It's fairly common. It's within the Top 200 most popular surnames," she answered from memory.
Steve clicked his tongue, somewhat disappointed that he didn't possess some exotic lineage.
"Well, that makes sense," Andrew commented. "After all, there's Jerry Rice."
Jerry Rice was an absolute NFL deity.
Widely regarded by experts, fans, general managers, and players from every era as the greatest wide receiver of all time, he had spent most of his legendary career with the San Francisco 49ers, winning three Super Bowls and a Super Bowl MVP award before officially being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010.
Steve nodded, pleased that he at least shared the legendary surname of such a player. In fact, he was a huge fan, which was why he wore number 80.
The same number Jerry had worn throughout his career.
Andrew, Howard, and Leonard asked Paige about the rarity of their surnames.
All three surnames were uncommon, especially Howard's and Leonard's within the country. As for Andrew, Pritchett was the rarer surname. Tucker, on the other hand, was more common.
The girls joined in.
Chloe's, Megan's, and Harper's surnames turned out to be fairly common across the country, with no major statistical surprises.
"And mine? It's Jackson," Sam said, being the last person in the group left to evaluate.
"It's the most common out of all of them by far. Jackson ranks among the twenty-five most popular surnames in the entire United States," Paige replied.
Sam made a resigned face.
She had already suspected her surname would turn out to be generic and common, but she definitely hadn't expected it to be at that level.
At least the others' surnames, like Rice or Cooper, fell somewhere between the Top 70 and Top 200, giving them a bit of uniqueness.
"Wait... what's your middle name?" Andrew suddenly asked, locking eyes with Sam as a spark of sudden brilliance appeared in his eyes.
Sam looked at him somewhat strangely at the unexpected question.
"Leslie," she answered, waiting to see where this was going.
"Oh, my God!" Andrew exclaimed with a grin and a tone of genuine excitement, immediately turning his head to exchange knowing looks with Steve, Howard, and Leonard.
The three instantly put on expressions of surprise. Steve couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.
"Then you're Sam L. Jackson," Andrew said, pointing at her and laughing.
"That's fucking great. I can't believe it," Steve blurted out in amazement. He never would have imagined that the intelligent and proper girl he was dating shared, phonetically, the full name of one of pop culture's greatest legends.
"Just like Samuel L. Jackson," Howard added, nudging Leonard as if he still couldn't believe the coincidence.
The four of them laughed at the revelation, but the girls were completely confused.
Sam, Chloe, Megan, and Harper frowned, not understanding the joke at all, with the exception of Paige, who merely displayed an amused half-smile, having caught the movie reference in the very first millisecond.
Sam gave an awkward smile, completely lost amid the commotion and unable to understand why the guys viewed this as the greatest achievement of the night.
"Who's that?" she asked innocently.
Andrew's laughter stopped instantly.
Steve's, Howard's, and Leonard's smiles vanished just as quickly.
The four of them stared at her, convinced they had misheard.
"You ever seen any movie ever?" Andrew asked, feeling almost personally offended in the deepest part of his cinephile soul.
"He's the black guy," Steve said completely seriously while looking at her.
Sam kept blinking blankly, having absolutely no idea who they were talking about. Chloe, Harper, and Megan shrugged beside her, sharing the same cultural void.
"Pulp Fiction, Unbreakable, A Time to Kill..." Andrew began rattling off, listing classic '90s films one after another to see if any of them would trigger a memory in the future lawyer's mind, but Sam wasn't recognizing a single one.
"Avengers... Nick Fury," Leonard offered, resorting to the role that, in 2012, was probably the most commercially recognizable thing on the planet.
"Oh! The guy with the eye patch!" Harper exclaimed, snapping her fingers excitedly as she finally connected the dots.
The Avengers had premiered in theaters in April of that very year and had become a massive phenomenon, shattering box office records on its way to earning a staggering amount of over $1.5 billion worldwide. It was impossible not to have seen at least a poster.
Even so, Sam continued looking lost, unable to associate the actor's face with his name.
Andrew let out a long sigh of resignation, reaching into his pocket with the clear intention of pulling out his phone to search for a photo on Google.
However, Paige, visibly amused by the dramatic reaction, intervened.
"Don't bother, Pritchett. She doesn't know anything about this stuff. She's a pop culture ignoramus," Paige said.
"And those are very good movies, by the way... except Avengers," she added, surprised by Andrew's taste in film.
Paige liked movies. She had watched classics like Pulp Fiction more than once.
As for Marvel's mega-hit, she definitely wasn't a fan of straightforward superhero stories, though she had to admit that coordinating an entire cinematic universe and bringing so many stars together in a single film was an achievement worthy of respect.
"Looks like someone here actually has film culture," Andrew said, mildly satisfied that such a brilliant mind validated his taste. "But Avengers is a good movie. It's still cinema, even if it's large-scale entertainment," he added confidently in rebuttal.
Paige raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, ready to launch into an intense film debate.
However, before she could fire off her first argument, Howard cut in loudly, staring directly at Sam, unable to accept that someone in the twenty-first century could be so disconnected from mainstream pop culture.
"Alright, don't tell me you've never heard of Jurassic Park or Star Wars either," he said, genuinely horrified.
Sam shook her head, earning more incredulous exclamations from Howard, Leonard, Andrew, and Steve.
"Rocky? You know Rocky, right?" Steve jumped in, his voice carrying one last shred of hope as he desperately clung to the idea that his girlfriend knew one of his favorite franchises of all time.
"The boxing movies, right?" Sam replied, cautiously raising an eyebrow.
"The boxing movies!" Andrew repeated in a tone of profound indignation, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose.
Then Andrew stood up, shaking his head.
"I'm going to talk to the guys," he muttered, walking away toward the other side of the living room.
Paige watched the scene and couldn't help smiling, letting out a small restrained laugh at the group's genuinely offended reaction.
At that moment, everything clicked into place in her mind.
Now she understood why Leonard and Howard, with their distinctly geeky personalities, were friends with Andrew and Steve. He shared that same core of passions and obsessions that held the group together.
'He's much more interesting than I thought,' Paige reflected.
The preconceived image she had formed of Andrew, a one-dimensional, predictable elite athlete, had completely fallen apart within minutes of her arrival.
Meanwhile, Howard and Leonard remained for a few more minutes, burning through their final attempts in a desperate effort to find even the slightest trace of pop culture knowledge in Sam, but it was a completely futile endeavor.
Once they realized the battle was lost, they exchanged a frustrated look, got up from the couch without saying much more, and ultimately walked away.
Chloe, Megan, and Harper watched the scene with expressions of absolute disbelief.
They couldn't believe that the two guys who had seemed to be having such a great time talking with them only minutes earlier had now abandoned them without hesitation after discovering how ignorant they were on those topics.
"I think I somehow offended your friends," Sam commented, making an odd, slightly guilty face at the boys' sudden exodus.
Steve crossed his arms and stared at her, "We definitely need to do a massive movie marathon the first time we have a free day, Sam. Especially Star Wars and Rocky."
"I don't have free time to sit around watching that many hours of movies, Steve," Sam complained immediately, letting out a small resigned laugh as she scooted a little closer to him on the couch.
At that moment, Haley, Rachel, Monica, and Alex arrived.
The latter two didn't take even five seconds to walk over to Andrew and the others, openly complaining about the delay and blaming the former two, who had treated getting ready as if they were preparing to walk a red carpet.
After the cultural fiasco with Sam and her group of friends, the duo found themselves much more comfortable integrating with Haley, Rachel, Monica, and Alex.
With them, the atmosphere changed completely. There was already a sense of familiarity that made everything easier, allowing them to talk freely without the constant pressure of trying to impress anyone or carefully measuring every word before saying it.
And while they weren't absolute experts on superheroes or Star Wars, they possessed a very solid level of pop culture knowledge by general audience standards.
In the specific cases of Alex and Haley, they knew quite a bit simply because they were Andrew's cousins.
Monica, meanwhile, knew a lot about the subject because she had spent her entire life living under the same roof as Ross, who was also passionate about this kind of thing.
The real surprise, however, was Rachel, who had recently watched the entire Star Wars saga in a marathon.
"How is it possible that she doesn't know Star Wars?" Rachel huffed, casting a sideways glance toward Sam in the distance with genuine disbelief.
"Exactly! The only people who don't know Star Wars are the characters who actually live in Star Wars!" Howard said, gesturing dramatically with his hands.
The cultural void possessed by Steve's girlfriend crossed every acceptable boundary.
With the girls Howard had successfully flirted with in the past, the situation had always been very different.
No matter how far removed they were from geek culture, they at least immediately recognized the name Darth Vader, knew perfectly well the famous "I am your father" scene, understood what a lightsaber was, or admitted to having caught one of the movies on television during a boring Sunday afternoon.
It was basic global pop culture knowledge.
But with Sam, there was absolutely nothing.
'Wow, they really are upset about this,' Haley thought.
Alex, meanwhile, watched the scene with her arms crossed, considering the whole reaction a bit exaggerated, though she agreed that it was genuinely surprising to find someone so illiterate in such a massive and global subject.
Taking advantage of the fact that the conversation had drifted toward Star Wars, Rachel decided to bring up a question that had been bothering her ever since she finished the marathon, asking Andrew directly why he had recommended such a particular viewing order.
Beyond genuinely enjoying the space opera, Rachel had realized that talking about this universe unleashed an enormous amount of passion in Andrew, and she wanted to use that knowledge as the perfect bridge to connect with him.
Andrew immediately began explaining the famous method known as the Machete Order.
'He's so cute when he talks about something he's passionate about,' Rachel thought, resting her chin on one hand as a sweet smile formed on her lips, completely captivated by the light in Andrew's eyes.
Beside him, Leonard and Howard nodded solemnly like two high priests of science fiction validating a sacred thesis.
The goal of this method was to preserve the surprises of the original trilogy while using the prequel trilogy as one giant flashback to understand Darth Vader's origins before the saga's conclusion.
"But why skip Episode I?" Rachel asked, bringing up a question that had lingered since the marathon and that they hadn't had time to discuss in depth. "I watched it the other day and, okay, I know it's not the masterpiece of the century, but I found it pretty entertaining."
"Because from a structural standpoint, its plot is practically irrelevant to the redemption arc," Howard answered seriously.
Leonard instantly joined the explanation.
"Exactly. As you've probably noticed, most of that movie's storylines die right there. By Episode II, it re-establishes from scratch that Anakin comes from Tatooine, that he deeply misses his mother, and that he's a talented but dangerously impulsive Padawan. You don't miss anything crucial for moving forward."
"Besides, it has elements that most classic fans find unbearable," Andrew added. "Characters like Jar Jar Binks stripped away all the seriousness, and the scientific explanation of the Force through midi-chlorians ended up destroying the spiritual mysticism that the original trilogy had. A lot of old-school fans hated that."
"Mm, I see," Rachel nodded.
Though internally she would have preferred to be having this conversation alone with Andrew, she found the enthusiasm of the others entertaining.
Rachel tilted her head and added casually, "Although I have to admit, I thought Jar Jar was cute. I liked him."
"Cute?" Howard repeated, staring at her with a look of horror and profound disapproval.
"No, please, let's not start this again," Leonard intervened quickly, knowing that Howard harbored a deep hatred for that character.
Before the conversation could continue expanding into prequel territory, Steve raised his voice to get Andrew's attention.
"Hey, man!"
Andrew looked at him and noticed Steve gesturing with his head toward the front entrance. He followed his friend's line of sight and spotted Pippa, Cana, Zach, and Naomi coming through the doorway.
At this hour of the night, approaching one in the morning, the house was already quite full.
It wasn't at the chaotic level of a massive fraternity party, but there were easily more than fifty people spread throughout the living room, kitchen, and hallways.
Andrew briefly excused himself from the group, leaving the Star Wars debate behind, and walked over to greet the newcomers.
As he made his way through the crowd, Pippa and the others noticed him almost immediately.
Andrew's eyes landed on Pippa. She did the same, holding his gaze.
The last time they had seen each other had been at Josh's birthday party, Pippa's stepbrother and one of Luke's close friends.
Andrew had needed to pick Luke up directly from their house, and it had been Pippa who opened the door.
It hadn't been awkward since they had ended things on good terms a long time ago.
There was a reason Pippa had texted him, worried about the loss against Nebraska.
Completely ruining the visual reunion, Naomi rushed ahead toward Andrew with overwhelming enthusiasm.
She slapped him on the shoulder despite being at least two heads shorter than him and exclaimed with a loud laugh, "Great game, Andrew! Go Bruins!"
"Thanks..." Andrew replied with an amused smile. "Are you a Bruins fan?"
Andrew mainly remembered Naomi as Cana's older sister and as someone several academic grades ahead of them.
"Of course! I'm in my junior year!" Naomi replied, speaking at a dizzying speed and wearing a huge smile. "I swear, watching you play live at the Rose Bowl is a completely different experience. I almost had a heart attack during that last drive. Thank God you guys pulled it off and it didn't end in a tragedy like the finish against Nebraska."
Cana, visibly embarrassed by her older sister, stepped closer to Andrew and whispered apologetically, "Ignore her a little. She came straight from another gathering and she's a little drunk. But seriously, it was an incredible game. Watching it from the stands was something else."
"Yeah, that damn run at the end was insane, man!" Zach jumped in, joining the circle with a look of absolute disbelief on his face.
Zach knew Andrew's talent perfectly well.
He had watched him dominate at Palisades and had later followed his televised games during his time at Mater Dei.
But seeing him perform at that level in college football felt like an entirely different dimension.
It had been over ninety rushing yards, breaking tackles and outrunning Oregon State defenders at full speed, with the added drama that the ball had slipped out of his hands at the beginning of the snap.
Andrew was surprised by how enthusiastic his ex-girlfriend's friends were.
The fact that they were celebrating UCLA's victory so personally, combined with Naomi attending the university, pointed toward an obvious answer.
"You guys got into UCLA too?" Andrew asked, shifting his gaze between Zach and Cana.
Both nodded at the same time with broad smiles of satisfaction.
"Yeah, we got in," Zach replied proudly. "We're officially moving into the dorms in a week. It was a huge headache getting tickets for today's game even with student status, but it was definitely worth it."
"Sounds complicated," Andrew said, sympathizing with them over the ticket situation.
He knew that with the excitement surrounding the team at the start of the season, the student section sold out within minutes and resale tickets were being offered at heavily inflated prices.
"If you want, for future Rose Bowl games, I can get you some of the complimentary tickets they give us through the program," Andrew offered.
Cana's, Zach's, and Naomi's eyes widened immediately. They looked at each other before staring back at him, stunned by the offer.
"Seriously?" they asked in unison, almost unable to believe it.
Andrew nodded, mentally calculating how many passes he still had available through the system.
"Yeah, of course. But only for you three."
The three accepted immediately, nodding enthusiastically while thanking him at an almost reverential level.
Naomi looked like she was on the verge of hugging him from sheer excitement.
Even though Andrew was the face of UCLA and, in practice, the most high-profile player in all of college football despite having played only three games in his freshman season, NCAA regulations were extremely strict.
To prevent illegal competitive advantages, universities were required to provide the exact same number of complimentary passes to every member of the roster.
It didn't matter whether you were the starting quarterback in the Heisman Trophy race or the last backup kicker on the practice squad, the limit established for the era was exactly the same for everyone.
However, the way to legally game that system existed within the locker room itself through ticket exchanges.
Many of Andrew's teammates came from distant states and didn't have family members who could afford to travel to Los Angeles every week just to attend games.
For example, Amari, who came from Florida, practically never used his allotted passes.
As a close friend, Andrew would simply ask for them in advance, and Amari would hand them over without any problem.
The same thing happened with other freshmen recruits from distant regions who had chosen UCLA specifically to play alongside Andrew and were more than happy to transfer tickets they weren't going to use anyway.
"Ahem..." Pippa fake-coughed.
She seemed to have been completely relegated to the background by her companions' excitement.
Naomi, Cara, and Zach immediately realized they were getting in the way of what was clearly a long-overdue reunion.
"Well... we'll leave you two to talk, or whatever," Cara said, faking a light cough to break the tension.
Without wasting any time, she and Zach grabbed Naomi by the arms and practically dragged her toward the living room bar to get her a glass of water that might counteract the beer.
"That was a nice gesture with the guys," Pippa commented with a faint smile, breaking the ice as she looked at Andrew.
"We were classmates and friends at Palisades. It's not a big deal," Andrew replied, making a vague gesture with his hand to downplay it.
Pippa nodded slowly. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked at him with a playful glint in her eyes, "And you're not going to offer me a complimentary ticket?"
Andrew let out a small laugh, "I would gladly do it, but I'm pretty sure you didn't choose to stay in LA."
"Is it that obvious?" Pippa commented.
"A little. I mean, UCLA and USC are great universities, but I know that with your academic record, you can easily aim for an institution ranked much higher globally," Andrew replied.
Pippa nodded and then asked as if this were an exam, "Which university do you think I got into?"
Andrew didn't need much time to think. Just a couple of seconds.
"Stanford."
Pippa fell silent for a moment, visibly surprised both by the speed of the answer and by the fact that he had gotten it right.
She straightened her posture, immediately switching into detective mode, "How did you know? Have you been stalking my social media or something?"
Andrew raised both hands, openly laughing at her paranoia.
"Not at all. You always loved that place. You've been talking about Stanford like it was heaven since ninth grade. You used to refer to it as one of the best universities in the entire world."
"Yes, I know, but I never explicitly told you while we were dating that I was going to apply there," Pippa replied, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. "So keep explaining. That memory alone isn't enough for such an accurate analysis."
"Alright," Andrew conceded with an amused smile. "First, knowing how demanding you are of yourself, I know your options are strictly limited to the best universities in the country. In other words, the Ivy League and Stanford."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"The Ivies are strong options, but the geographic distance is huge. They're far from home and the climate is freezing. Stanford, on the other hand, isn't behind in any ranking and has the cultural and climate advantages of the West Coast."
Pippa was an extremely family-oriented person.
Choosing Stanford meant that, in any emergency, or simply whenever she wanted to spend a weekend at home, she was only a little over an hour away from Los Angeles by plane.
Stanford allowed her to pursue world-class academic excellence without sacrificing her California roots.
"That's an excellent analysis, I have to admit," Pippa nodded, conceding to her ex-boyfriend's impeccable deduction. "And you missed one key factor: I can't stand the elitism and traditionalism that Ivy League campuses radiate. It's not my style at all."
"How are you?" Pippa suddenly asked, changing the subject.
A subtle but genuine concern appeared in her eyes.
She had been the one to reach out to him last Saturday, right after watching him lose to Nebraska.
Knowing perfectly well how competitive Andrew was, and knowing that he had never tasted defeat in a football game before, Pippa suspected the psychological blow had been significant.
Now, however, after the heart-stopping victory over Oregon State, she seemed much more relieved.
She knew Andrew had managed to survive the loss.
A few yards away, Rachel, who had thought this would be the perfect night to improve her relationship with Andrew, watched the scene in disbelief.
She felt as though the ground was slipping out from under her feet.
"Is that... is that the ex-girlfriend?" Rachel whispered in alarm to Monica, unable to take her eyes off Pippa.
Monica looked over before turning back to her.
"From what I've overheard Haley and the others mention before, yeah, that's her," Monica replied, trying to soften the blow after noticing her friend's body language. "But hey, relax. She's his ex for a reason."
"Two exes who talk that comfortably..." Rachel murmured, frowning slightly.
Watching the dynamic between Pippa and Andrew, it was obvious that they did not belong to the club of exes who hated each other's guts or had ended things in a destructive fashion.
Monica opened her mouth to offer some words of encouragement, but she didn't know how to respond to that truth.
Unfortunately for Rachel, the night had no intention of improving.
Almost as if fate had decided to complicate her tactical situation, another beautiful girl arrived and immediately caught the attention of half the room.
Rachel recognized her instantly. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise.
It was Willa Holland, a Hollywood actress who had appeared in Gossip Girl, one of Rachel's favorite television shows.
Monica craned her neck toward the far side of the living room, observing the newcomer, who was already greeting Andrew in a familiar manner.
"Isn't she one of the leads from that gossip-filled teen drama you're always talking about?" Monica asked, narrowing her eyes as she failed to recognize her.
Teen drama was definitely not her specialty.
"No. She's a supporting character. She plays Agnes," Rachel replied immediately, without taking her eyes off what she now perceived as competition that seemed to be multiplying by the minute. "She appears in the second and third seasons and is only in a handful of episodes."
Monica turned to look at her, caught somewhere between surprised and amused by such a specific piece of information.
Rachel sounded exactly like Howard, Leonard, and Andrew whenever they quoted completely irrelevant facts about comics, Star Wars, or their favorite movies.
And so the night continued.
Andrew didn't give Willa the cold shoulder, nor was he curt with her, but he also didn't spend the evening glued to her side joking around like they had in the old days when they were best friends.
After all, she had been worried about him after the loss to Nebraska, so there was no reason to be harsh.
Andrew spent the night rotating through different parts of the house.
He spent time with the guys from the team, chatted with former classmates from Palisades, and occasionally mixed in with Pippa, Cana, and Zach's group.
However, the most interesting interactions of the night had undoubtedly been his reunion with Pippa and his encounter with Sam's group, especially Paige.
As the clock approached three in the morning, Andrew stopped near the bar Steve had set up and swept his gaze across the room.
That was when he noticed things had gotten a little out of control.
Almost everyone was completely drunk.
Steve, Haley, Monica, Rachel, Howard, and even, to his absolute surprise, Alex.
'Oh, Aunt Claire is definitely going to kill her tomorrow,' Andrew thought, referring to Haley, who was supposed to be looking after her younger sister.
And Alex was probably going to get grounded too, though to a lesser extent.
In the center of the living room, Haley and Alex were clinging to a microphone, singing karaoke.
Seeing Alex in that state was a historic event.
Watching her let loose like that, laughing openly and acting uninhibited, was something only alcohol could accomplish.
As for the karaoke, Alex wasn't actually a bad singer. She had been involved with music as a hobby for years. She wasn't some disaster who sang off-key. In fact, she sang fairly well and brought a certain dignity to the song.
Unlike Haley, who stretched every note into a gloriously terrible disaster, though at least she did so with plenty of enthusiasm.
Andrew shook his head.
He also had no idea when Monica and Rachel had joined the drunk club.
What he didn't know was that Rachel, frustrated that her attempts to get closer to Andrew had been constantly interrupted by the ex-girlfriend, the Hollywood actress, and various other girls, had decided to drown her disappointment in beer.
She had thrown herself headfirst into beer pong to clear her mind and, in the process, had dragged Monica into it with her.
The only two people in the group who remained perfectly sober and hadn't consumed a single drop of alcohol were Andrew and Leonard.
Andrew glanced at his phone screen, saw the time, and frowned slightly.
'Time to go,' he thought.
He had no intention of staying there until five in the morning like he had at the fraternity party.
His plan was simple: a silent retreat.
There was no point in formally saying goodbye to everyone given their current state of euphoric, alcohol-fueled happiness.
Knowing how persistent Steve and Howard could be, they would almost certainly try to physically stop him from leaving the moment they realized he wanted to go.
As he walked, crossing through the various rooms, his eyes spotted Pippa sitting alone in a quiet corner.
She was seated by herself, holding a plastic cup.
Knowing her, Andrew immediately understood that she was on the exact same wavelength as him: completely sober and trapped inside a house where her entire group of friends was drunk and euphorically celebrating UCLA's victory.
When he saw her let out a discreet yawn, Andrew changed direction and walked over to her.
Pippa looked up as she noticed his silhouette.
"Bored?" Andrew asked in an amused tone.
Pippa stood up, setting her cup aside as a smile formed on her face, "I'm not going to lie... yeah, I am."
Andrew let out a small laugh, "I'm heading out already. Did you drive here yourself?" he asked.
He had no idea whether Pippa had a driver's license or her own car.
"No," she replied, shaking her head and letting out a slight sigh. "We came in Naomi's car. Which means I'll have to wait until they decide to leave, with the added risk of having a drunk driver," she added with a look of obvious annoyance.
"Want me to drive you home?" Andrew offered.
Pippa didn't even think about it, "Yes, please. Get me out of here."
Without drawing any attention or causing a scene, the two of them walked toward the exit, leaving behind what had truly become a party, and climbed into Andrew's BMW.
However, it wasn't completely unnoticed.
Leonard had watched the entire sequence.
Seeing Andrew leave with his ex-girlfriend, he couldn't help the amused smile that formed on his lips.
'Without a doubt, this qualifies as juicy gossip,' Leonard thought, keeping the information to himself.
Of course, under his code of loyalty, he wouldn't say a single word to the group.
The drive to Pippa's house didn't take long.
Andrew pulled up and parked in front of the house, turning off the engine but leaving the parking lights on.
"We're here," he murmured, glancing at the house's facade, a place that had once been a familiar part of his daily routine.
"Yeah..." Pippa replied. "I had a good time tonight, Andrew. It was really nice seeing you again."
Her voice was soft, almost intimate, but perfectly audible thanks to the absolute silence that had settled inside the car.
Although the gathering at Steve's house had quickly turned into a party rather than a get-together, she had genuinely enjoyed seeing Andrew, Leonard, Alex, Haley, and the others again like in the old days.
"Yeah, me too," Andrew said, turning his head to look at her with a small smile.
Another silence settled between them.
Andrew noticed that Pippa made no move whatsoever to open the passenger door or search for her keys in her purse.
Weighing the lingering tension and finding comfort in the silence, Andrew casually offered, "Want to come to my apartment?"
"Apartment?" Pippa asked, a mixture of surprise and curiosity in her voice.
"Yes. I don't live in the UCLA dorms," Andrew explained. "Steve and I rent an apartment near campus."
Hearing the invitation, Pippa felt a flutter in her chest.
On one hand, her heart sped up as she processed the immediate fact that they would be completely alone at his place.
On the other, she was genuinely curious to see what Andrew's living space looked like.
"Sure, why not? It'll be interesting to see," Pippa replied, trying to keep her voice perfectly casual and normal. "Let's find out whether you're clean and organized."
Andrew smiled at her from the corner of his eye, amused by the challenge, "I assure you I'll pass with honors. Now, Steve's room can't say the same," he replied as he turned the key and started the car again.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the apartment complex.
Pippa entered the building, observing the surroundings curiously.
They rode the elevator in comfortable silence, and finally Andrew turned the key and opened the front door.
As she stepped inside, Pippa swept her gaze across the spacious, modern apartment.
"Wow, this can't be a cheap place," she commented, taking in the brand-new finishes.
"The perks of having a rich grandfather," Andrew said as he closed the door behind them and dropped his keys on the entryway table.
Pippa continued her exploration at a slow pace, nodding inwardly in approval.
Andrew's touch was obvious.
Everything shone with respectable cleanliness and order.
She knew he was extremely meticulous with his belongings, especially his superhero figures, comics, video games, and the special football jerseys he collected.
What she hadn't known was whether he could extend that same discipline to an entire living space.
Still, the apartment also clearly revealed that it was shared.
There were certain scattered elements that Pippa knew Andrew never would have chosen on his own: stacks of records, music equipment, and a couple of band posters that very clearly belonged to Steve.
"You passed," Pippa declared, turning to face him with an approving smile.
"That's a relief," Andrew joked, placing a hand over his chest and exaggerating the gesture a little.
Pippa raised a finger into the air, "Don't celebrate yet. We still have to evaluate your bedroom. Lead the way," she ordered playfully.
Andrew let out a quiet laugh and started down the hallway before opening the door to his room.
Pippa walked in behind him and immediately noticed that the room was exactly as perfect as she remembered his bedroom being when he lived with Cam and Mitch.
Everything was organized, clean, and in its proper place. It wasn't obsessive or neurotic, but it clearly reflected the standards of someone who valued structure.
Pippa ended up sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Officially approved. You're a fully functional young adult who can live on his own and who somehow manages to survive sharing a roof with someone like Steve."
Andrew laughed, "I know. I have to wake him up, make him breakfast, do his laundry. I feel like a young father," he said, shaking his head as he sat down beside her.
Even so, despite the extra work, living with his best friend was incredibly fun.
They had their small daily arguments about cleanliness and personal space like any pair of roommates, but the truth was that they were remarkably compatible in everyday life, even though at first glance nobody would have bet that two such different personalities could get along so well under the same roof.
"I can picture it perfectly," Pippa said with a smile, tilting her head.
Andrew stared at her silently for a couple of seconds. Pippa immediately noticed the weight of his gaze and raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"I find it very funny that you're here evaluating my level of cleanliness when you're definitely not the most organized person in the world," Andrew shot back in a mock-critical, teasing tone.
Almost immediately he added, "I remember your room perfectly. There were always notes, open books, and clothes everywhere."
Pippa opened her mouth instantly, adopting an offended expression, but after processing the accusation, she realized she had absolutely no argument with which to defend herself.
"Guilty," she finally murmured, sighing and shrugging.
Andrew smiled and looked at her more carefully.
She had changed. When they had been dating, they had only been entering their junior year.
Now she had already finished high school and was eighteen years old.
Her short light-brown hair fell around her face in soft, slightly messy strands, giving her a casual appearance. She wore a fitted olive-green long-sleeve shirt with a V-neck that highlighted the line of her neck and collarbones. The garment fit her figure closely.
She paired the shirt with dark jeans that were slightly loose, creating a contrast with the more fitted top.
"You look beautiful," Andrew said as he looked at her.
Pippa, perhaps not expecting such a direct compliment at that moment, offered a soft smile, "Thanks..." she murmured quietly, holding his gaze.
Andrew didn't wait any longer. He began closing the distance between them without taking his eyes off her for a single second, until their lips finally met in a slow kiss.
Pippa responded almost immediately, breaking the remaining distance by bringing one of her hands to his cheek, enjoying the moment.
The kiss gradually lingered, becoming deeper and more intense.
Andrew leaned toward her, gently guiding her backward.
Pippa let herself fall onto the mattress without breaking contact, immediately raising both hands to frame Andrew's face, her fingers threading through his hair and along his cheeks.
Things escalated quickly.
Breathing more heavily now, Pippa slid her hands across Andrew's torso until she eventually pulled his shirt off completely.
However, the moment the garment was gone and Andrew's torso was fully exposed before her eyes, she froze for a fraction of a second and couldn't help letting out a small, muffled sound of surprise.
"You've changed..." she said, her eyes tracing the defined lines of his chest and abdomen.
Andrew, keeping his face only inches from hers, raised an eyebrow.
"In what way?"
"Physically," Pippa replied immediately.
The subtle visual impact instantly triggered her usual nervous habit: talking at high speed.
"I mean, look, you've always had a perfect physique, but right now it feels like you've suddenly gone up several levels. It's... different."
Andrew laughed, enjoying Pippa's rapid-fire rambling, "And is that a good change?" he asked.
Pippa swallowed lightly, surrendering to the evidence right in front of her, and nodded without taking her eyes off his torso.
"A very good one, honestly."
Her astonishment made sense.
A little over two years had passed since they had broken up.
Back then, Andrew had still been around six feet tall and weighed a very respectable 187 pounds.
However, now the final growth spurt of adolescence, combined with his obsessive training focused on achieving the ideal NFL body type, had brought enormous changes to his physique.
He now stood at an imposing 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 210 pounds.
It was a monstrous structural transformation.
Even so, Pippa could tell that he still looked completely lean and athletic. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to maintain the speed necessary to break off a 95-yard run while shrugging off tackles just a few hours earlier.
But the added height, broader shoulders, and increased muscle density were simply overwhelming at close range.
For Pippa, having had Andrew as her first boyfriend and her initial standard for romance had turned out to be incredibly unlucky.
The other guys she had dated or tried to connect with over the years had all faced an impossible physical benchmark.
Any comparison was unfair, becoming a sort of silent curse for her.
The conversation completely died at that point.
Without any more words, they continued what truly mattered.
Time passed...
Calm and silence eventually settled back into the room, broken only by the steady rhythm of their breathing.
Both were lying in the middle of the bed, covered from the waist down by the white sheets.
Their clothes lay scattered across the floor.
Pippa remained curled up against Andrew, her head resting comfortably on his chest.
"Can I stay the night?" Pippa whispered, keeping her eyes closed as she enjoyed Andrew's body warmth.
Andrew, who was staring at the ceiling while absentmindedly stroking her shoulder, replied, "Sure, no problem. But won't there be issues at home if you don't come back?"
"No. I'll text my mom and tell her I'm staying over at Cana's," Pippa replied, blindly reaching for her phone on the nightstand.
She didn't have a single ounce of energy left to get dressed, and go outside.
Andrew nodded. He didn't mind having her there.
And so, after sending the cover-story text, sleep gradually overtook them, and the night passed.
They woke up fairly early for a Sunday, around ten in the morning.
They had only managed to get a few hours of sleep.
Pippa needed to return home soon to avoid raising suspicions, and Andrew already had plans: he had arranged to meet Gloria and discuss her pregnancy situation in depth.
They didn't have to deal with the awkward possibility of Steve catching them leaving the apartment together.
It was obvious that Steve would wake up much later, and judging by the amount of alcohol he had consumed the night before, he was probably still completely asleep before his mother forced him to clean every corner of the house after the party.
Without making any noise, the two left the building and climbed back into the BMW.
The drive remained thoughtful and quiet until Pippa finally broke the silence, "What does this mean, Andrew?"
Andrew didn't try to dodge the question or play dumb, "I don't know. But I do know I don't regret it."
It was the truth.
It didn't feel like the typical cliché of getting back together with an ex on impulse and immediately realizing it had been a huge mistake.
It was the first time they had shared that kind of intimacy since ending their relationship a long time ago.
"I don't regret it either," Pippa agreed.
"But..." they both said at the same time, stopping themselves mid-sentence.
Andrew subtly gestured for her to continue.
"But I don't think this means we're going to revive our relationship or anything like that," Pippa finished. "I'm pretty sure you think the same thing."
Andrew nodded, completely in agreement.
It had been an amazing night, but both of them were analytical enough not to confuse nostalgia with the present.
More than two years had passed since they had gone their separate ways, not just a few months.
The fire of their former relationship had cooled enough to become a deep residual affection and an inevitable physical attraction, but they no longer possessed the ingredients necessary to rebuild a romantic relationship.
Especially not at this particular moment in their lives.
Pippa was on the verge of moving to Palo Alto to focus one hundred percent on Stanford's demanding academic pace, which would mean a long-distance relationship that, even if it was only a little over an hour away by plane, was still a long-distance relationship.
For his part, Andrew was completely consumed by the immense pressure of UCLA, Mora and Chow's system, the goal of winning the Pac-12, and the race for the Heisman Trophy.
Pippa smiled faintly, relieved to see they were on the same page, "That said, we can still be friends," she added.
After all, she planned to return to Los Angeles quite frequently to visit her family.
Andrew carefully maneuvered the car and parked at the farthest corner of the block, keeping a reasonable distance from Pippa's house.
They didn't want someone peeking through a window and seeing her step out of his flashy BMW at ten in the morning. It would be immediately obvious that she hadn't spent the night at Cana's place.
"Of course," Andrew agreed, turning in his seat to look at her. "Though, obviously, that friendship will last only until one of us starts dating someone else. The moment that happens, we'll have to cut off all communication, or we're going to have problems."
"That's an absolute fact," Pippa concluded with a bright smile before leaning in to give him a gentle goodbye kiss on the cheek. "Good luck with everything, Andrew."
"You too. Good luck with moving into the dorms," Andrew replied, though he couldn't resist adding a competitive edge to the farewell. "And pray, because I don't plan on showing any mercy when I have to face Stanford."
Pippa let out a small laugh, raising an eyebrow with obvious pride for her future university, "Oh, please. Matt Barkley, USC's golden boy, didn't do very well against Stanford. He has a 0-4 record against us in his career. You're going to have an extremely difficult time."
What Pippa said was true.
With the game from the previous night now in the books, the Trojans' star quarterback still hadn't managed to defeat Stanford Cardinal even once.
It was one of the most talked-about topics online: the painful thorn in Barkley's side and the relentless criticism he received for having Stanford as his true football father.
The only remaining way for Barkley to remove that humiliating stain before jumping to the NFL would require a scheduling miracle.
USC would have to get back on track, dominate the rest of its games, and win the PAC-12 South Division, while Stanford would need to meet expectations and secure the PAC-12 North.
Only under that scenario would Barkley have one final chance to face them in the PAC-12 Conference Championship Game in December and attempt to redeem that disastrous record.
And even if he succeeded, he would still finish with a bitter 1-4 record. Palo Alto's dominance was already written into the history books.
"Don't worry. I can guarantee that won't happen to me," Andrew said, feeling a very real competitive fire ignite in his eyes.
Beating Stanford's demanding program would not be an easy task.
But Andrew did not entertain the possibility of spending three years of his college career without defeating Stanford.
"I know. You're much better than he is," Pippa admitted softly as she opened the passenger door. "And besides... the day UCLA plays Stanford, I'll be cheering for you."
Without giving him the slightest chance to respond to that unexpected and sweet confession, Pippa quickly stepped out of the car, closed the door, and began walking briskly down the sidewalk.
Andrew watched her silently, one hand resting firmly on the BMW's steering wheel, keeping his eyes fixed on her figure until he saw her walk through the front door of her house.
Only then did he start the car and head back home.
Shortly afterward, he had his secret conversation with Gloria.
They spent their time discussing which family member would be the smartest person to tell about the news.
Gloria also appeared visibly worried about Jay's reaction when he found out.
For the moment, after weighing the pros and cons, they decided to keep a low profile while continuing to plan the best course of action moving forward.
With that situation temporarily under control, the week began.
Andrew reset his mindset, leaving behind the epic victory over Oregon State, shelving the social weekend, and focusing on the next opponent on the schedule: the Houston Cougars.