“God, your smile is beautiful.” He looked at his treadmill. “I need to stop staring or I’m going to crash or some shit.”

I actually had a whole brain full of cheesy pickup lines thanks to the silly role-playing I used to do with Kent when we were younger, where we’d practice hitting on each other. It was never a successful venture. We always ended up laughing. “You know, I was feeling a little off today but you turned me on,” I said.

He chuckled and retorted, “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I wouldn’t forget a pretty face like that.”

“You know… you look so familiar; didn’t we have class together? I could’ve sworn we had chemistry.” I grinned and wondered if this was going to be our thing twenty years from now.

He smiled back and without flinching he stared into my eyes, “You’re so beautiful that you made me forget my pickup line…” He cleared his throat and looked back to his screen. “Say you’ll have dinner with me.”

“Oooh, it’s just too much pressure.” I shook my head no.

“Come on, say you will. Don’t make me run at super-fast speed just to impress you.”

I raised my eyebrows, intrigued. “Well, now I think you definitely have to.”

He groaned. “Okay, if I must.” His machine beeped as he hit the up arrow several times. The machine whirred to life, the high-pitched sound interrupted by his footfalls as he ran faster and faster. I watched and covered my mouth with my hand, genuinely impressed that he was hanging in there.

The sweat started to bead on his forehead and his breath was rapidly increasing. I wasn't sure how much longer he was going to be able to hold out so I pulled his emergency stop, "Okay! I'll have dinner with you." I grinned as he pulled up his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, revealing his defined abs. I was drooling and barely shut my mouth before he pulled his shirt back down. We exchanged numbers and made plans for the next evening.

He convinced me to go over to his place for pizza and a movie. Private time alone with Mr. Kyle McAbs was not against my overall plan to get a boyfriend so that I could stop thinking about my unavailable best friend, so I agreed.

He was in the dorm across campus and he also had a single. I walked down the hallway past freshmen guys who were still getting used to being the small fish in the big pond again and grinned as they hooted and made comments. I was still very much enjoying the attention, so I smiled to myself but didn’t otherwise acknowledge them.