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She was going to do it. Mia was finally going to ask Lana Skye out on a date.
After months of watching the movement of her lips when she spoke and imagining how soft they must be, of listening to the ringing of her laugh and feeling so light at the sound of it, of getting caught up in the softness of her skin whenever their hands would touch, Mia was finally going to take that leap and ask Lana out.
Mia let her thoughts wander to Lana, and the way she smiled and greeted Mia on their first day of class together. Her smile was sweet and kind, her head tilted ever so slightly to the right, and it captured Mia from the very start.
That smile haunted Mia, pulling her attention away from whatever she was trying to focus on and to the way it would reach Lana’s eyes. It made Mia’s chest flutter and her cheeks flush and she hoped Lana didn’t notice the way she stuttered whenever she got caught staring at the curve of her lips.
Who was she kidding? There was no way Mia could ever get up the nerves to ask her out. She probably didn’t even have a chance with someone like Lana anyways.
“Sis? You still there? Helloooooo?”
Mia was suddenly brought back to the present, having been so lost in thought she forgot she was on the phone with her sister until Maya’s voice hit her ears.
“What? Yeah I’m still here, Maya.”
“Were you even listening to me?” Mia could hear the pout in Maya’s voice and felt a twinge of guilt twist in her chest.
She hated leaving her little sister alone back in Kurain like this, but this was something Mia needed to do. For their mother.
“I’m sorry, Maya,” Mia said as she sat up on her bed. “I’ve been a bit…distracted recently.”
“Distracted, huh?” The pout was gone from her voice, replaced with what sounded like a creeping grin. “Is it ‘cuz of your giiirlfrieend?”
“Uuuggghhhh,” Mia groaned and flopped back down and listened to Maya’s giggles through her phone speaker. “She is not my girlfriend!”
“You want her to be though, don’t you?”
She did. Mia did want Lana to be her girlfriend. Wanted to hold her hand as they walked together. Wanted to lay up talking late into the night about anything and everything. Wanted to kiss her. Wanted to be the reason for her smile.
The sound of giggling broke her trance and made Mia realize she’d gotten lost in thought and gone quiet again. She felt her cheeks heat up at how her silence only served to answer her sister’s question.
“I really don’t need to be bullied by my kid sister over this.” Mia closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Well that’s too bad, Sis!” Mia could hear Maya’s smile in her voice and couldn’t help the way her own lips twitched up at the corners.
At least she sounds cheered up now.
Mia opened her eyes and looked over to the clock on her bedside. Noticing the time, she shot up and got out of bed.
“Oh sh–” She cut herself off before swearing in front of her sister. “Sorry, Maya, but I gotta go. I promised that I’d meet up with someone to study today.”
“Oh, okay. Are you still gonna be coming up here for Christmas?”
Mia smiled into her phone. “Of course, Maya. I wouldn’t miss the holidays with my sister for the world. Maybe I can even steal you away to the city for a bit. There’s a new burger place that just opened that I think you’d like.”
“That sounds awesome, yeah!”
“Alright it’s a plan then. I’ll talk to you later, Maya, okay? Love you.”
“Love you too, Sis!”
Mia hung up the phone after saying bye to her sister and started getting ready. She gathered up her books and study materials into her bag, making sure she had all she needed, and checked herself in the mirror to make sure she looked okay before heading out.
By the time Mia got to the library, Lana was already sitting at one of the tables looking over some of her notes. Mia took a breath to try and steady her nerves, and then made her way over.
“Hey, Lana,” Mia said as she pulled out a chair and sat down. “Sorry I’m late. Got caught up on the phone with my sister.”
Lana looked up at Mia and smiled—that damn smile that made Mia’s chest flutter—as she sat at the table.
“No worries, Mia. I just got here a few minutes before you did. Is your sister doing well?”
“Yeah she’s good. We mostly just talked about the little things that have been going on.” Mia was absolutely not going to mention Maya teasing her over her crush. “What about you? Ema doing okay?”
Lana nodded. “Ema’s doing fine. I think she’s getting excited for the holidays.”
Mia chuckled a bit. “Maya too. I don’t think I’ll start feeling it until after finals are over, though.”
It was Lana’s turn to chuckle this time, and Mia felt her heart skip a beat.
“I feel you there. Let’s get started then, shall we?”
Mia gathered herself up enough to nod. “Yeah!”
After a while, Mia felt her brain starting to turn to mush in her skull. The words she was reading may as well have been written in Latin for all that she was able to understand.
She found herself spending more time looking over at Lana than at her textbook, finding it easier to focus on how her warm brown hair fell over her shoulder than on whatever she was trying to study.
Studying with Lana was both a blessing and a curse for Mia. On one hand, Lana was incredibly smart, at the top of her class, and she was kind and helped Mia understand the topics she was struggling with. On the other hand though, Lana was distractingly beautiful, and it made it hard for Mia to focus on anything else when they were together like this.
Mia watched as a lock of hair fell in front of Lana’s face, and had to hold herself back from tucking it behind her ear, from feeling how smooth and soft it must be.
Lana reached a hand up to move her hair out of the way without looking away from her notes. Mia watched the motion of her elegant hand as it brushed her hair away from her face, revealing what had for just a moment been hidden behind it.
When Lana turned her attention towards her, Mia was almost too distracted by the ocean blue color of her eyes to register that Lana was speaking to her.
“Mia? Are you doing okay?”
Mia startled to attention as her mind was pulled back into focus.
“Wha? Oh, y-yeah! I’m okay!” She stumbled over her words a bit trying to answer Lana. “Guess my brain is just getting a bit overloaded, heh.” A nervous chuckle fell from her lips.
Cool. Way to be cool, Mia. She internally chastised herself.
Lana gave her a look, before she smiled and closed her book.
“We have been working for a while, so I think it’s about time we take a break.” She looked back at Mia. “What would you say about getting coffee? My treat.”
“C-coffee sounds great, yeah!” Mia stuttered and felt her cheeks warm, hoping Lana didn’t notice.
Lana smiled again, her head tilting slightly to the right, and Mia swore she must’ve swallowed some butterflies at lunch earlier.
“Alright then. Let’s go, I know a really good place nearby.”
Mia just nodded and they gathered up their things and headed out.
They went to a small coffee shop not far from the library, and the entire way there all Mia could think about was reaching down and grabbing Lana’s hand with hers.
The coffee was really good like Lana said, and the two of them chatted for a bit while they enjoyed their drinks. As they talked about their other classes and plans for the upcoming break, Mia found it hard to ignore the way Lana looked in the lighting of the coffee shop.
“Say, Mia,” Lana said as they were walking back after finishing their drinks. “Do you have any plans for New Years?”
Her question caught Mia slightly off guard.
“Uhm, no not really. Why do you ask?”
“Well, there’s going to be a lights display in the city center for the countdown, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me?”
“O-oh.” Mia felt her cheeks flush again, hoping she would be able to blame it on the chilly air. She tried not to get her hopes up, Lana was probably only asking her as a friend.
The chilly air was probably the reason for the color on Lana’s cheeks too.
“I-I’d love to!” Mia blurted out when she realized she was probably taking too long to answer, and mentally kicked herself for sounding too eager.
But Lana smiled, and it was warm in the winter chill and made Mia’s stomach flip, her cheeks heating even more.
“Wonderful! It’s a date then,” Lana said as they got back to the library. “I’ve got some things to take care of, so I’ll be heading out. Talk to you later, Mia.”
“Y-yeah. See you later, Lana.” Mia just stood there and waved as Lana walked away, a grin that she couldn’t fight on her face.
And then Mia’s brain caught up with her.
Wait?
Did she say it was a date!?
Eventually New Year’s Eve rolled around, but Mia’s internal freak-out never ended.
She managed to make it through her finals without completely tanking them, even with her study sessions with Lana being harder to focus on than usual—if such a thing was even possible.
Mia found her attention being drawn even more towards Lana and the way she would lean in and whisper if they needed to be quiet, or how she smiled whenever Mia got a practice question right, or her laugh when Mia would tell a joke.
There was certainly no shortage of teasing from her sister when Maya found out about her plans for New Years, the kind of teasing you can only get from a 9 year old girl.
“Mia’s got a date! Mia’s got a date!” Maya sang, much to her older sister’s annoyance.
“Maya…” Mia groaned, getting giggles in response. “It’s not that kind of date!”
“Are you suuure?” Maya asked with a teasing smirk she’d apparently developed early.
Was she?
Mia paced around her room, trying to figure it out.
Did Lana mean it as just a friend date or as a date date?
She didn’t want to get her hopes up in case it was just a friend thing, but when she thought about it being a real date, about holding Lana’s hand as they walked the city streets, about seeing her eyes shine in the twinkling lights, about leaning in close as the clock counted down to midnight…
Mia felt her face heat up and flopped onto her bed, groaning into her pillow. It was almost time for her to meet up with Lana and she still had no idea whether this was a friend date or something more.
Turning her head to get her face out of her pillow, Mia glanced at the clock on her bedside, and then bolted up out of bed when she realized the time, nearly tripping over her feet.
She got ready as fast as she could—picking out an outfit that was both appropriate for the weather and the occasion, putting on some light makeup, and making sure her hair looked good.
Once Mia decided that she looked nice without also looking like she was trying too hard, she headed out to meet up with Lana.
Lana was already waiting at the coffee shop they decided to meet at when Mia got there, and Mia was thankful she could blame her breathlessness on her rush over.
Lights were wrapped around the trees lining the sidewalk, and they cast Lana in a warm glow, making her hair shine like copper. The cold air left a faint blush over her nose and cheeks, and when she noticed Mia approaching, Lana smiled that smile that made Mia’s heart stutter.
“Mia,” Lana said once Mia had reached her. “It’s good to see you. You look lovely tonight.”
The compliment caused Mia to blush. “Oh, th-thank you, Lana. You look really nice too.”
Lana just smiled again, and Mia wondered if the color on her cheeks was deepening or if it was just the lighting.
She then held out one of the drinks in her hands to Mia. “Here. I thought it would be nice to have something warm to drink while we walked around.”
“Thanks,” Mia said as she took the cup, feeling it already start to warm her hands.
She took a sip and realized right away that it was the same drink she ordered the last time she got coffee with Lana, that Lana remembered her drink order and got it for her again.
“How is it?” Lana asked, getting Mia’s attention. “Did I get the right drink?”
“Wha? Oh, yeah yeah.” Mia nodded, unable to keep the smile off her face. She looked up at Lana. “It’s perfect, thank you.”
Lana smiled again, her eyes closing slightly and head tilting to the side, and Mia felt a warmth spread from deep in her chest. “I’m glad.” She then gestured towards the street where more of the lights were. “Shall we?”
Mia nodded again, smiling. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They walked down the street, admiring the lights strung up around trees and over the buildings and all the displays set up in shop windows.
Everything was so pretty, but Mia couldn’t help her attention being drawn to Lana more than anything else. Her rose-tinted cheeks from the cold, her eyes sparkling in the lights, her smile. There were a few times Lana would turn towards her and Mia would quickly look away and hope she wasn’t caught staring. And more than once, Mia thought she saw Lana looking at her too from the corner of her eye.
Mia shivered as a small gust of wind blew and reminded her that she’d forgotten a scarf in her haste to get ready.
“Cold?” Lana asked when she noticed Mia shiver.
“Y-yeah, a little.”
“Here,” Lana said and stopped walking. She unwound her own scarf from her neck, revealing more of her turtleneck underneath, and carefully wrapped it around Mia’s.
The scarf was warm and soft and smelled like Lana, and Mia felt her heart hammering in her chest.
“How’s that?” Lana asked.
“Much better, thank you,” Mia said, hoping her blush wasn’t as noticeable as she felt like it was.
Lana hummed. “Of course.” She looked at her scarf on Mia for a bit longer, adjusting it slightly. “This color suits you.”
She smiled again, and Mia could’ve sworn her cheeks almost matched the red of the scarf.
There were only a few minutes left until midnight by the time they reached where most of the crowd had gathered for the countdown.
Mia jumped slightly when she felt something touch her hand. She looked down and saw that Lana had grabbed it in hers.
“I wouldn’t want to lose you in the crowd,” Lana said.
Mia could only nod, too focused on the warmth of Lana’s hand in hers, on the softness of her skin, on how their fingers fit together so well.
They joined in with the crowd at the center as people started counting down.
10!
9!
8!
Mia turned to look at Lana, mesmerized at how beautiful she looked surrounded by all the lights in the city center. They were close enough that Mia could see the long eyelashes framing Lana’s ocean blue eyes.
She didn’t look away when Lana turned her head, and their eyes met.
6!
5!
4!
Lana smiled, and Mia’s stomach started doing somersaults, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest.
“Mia,” Lana whispered, bringing the hand not holding Mia’s up to cup her cheek, gently stroking a thumb over her cheek as she leaned closer.
3!
2!
The crowd exploded into cheers as the clock struck midnight and turned over into the new year, but it all faded to background noise as Mia felt the warm press of lips against hers.
Lana’s lips were soft, and she tasted faintly of peppermint, and it was better than anything Mia could’ve imagined. She leaned into the kiss, tilting her head slightly to better fit their lips together.
Mia wasn’t sure if there were actually fireworks being set off, but as she kissed Lana, there might as well have been.
When they eventually parted, they stayed close, noses barely brushing. Lana’s cheeks were flushed as Mia was certain her own were, and neither of them could keep their smiles off their faces.
“Happy New Year,” Lana said, quiet enough only Mia could hear.
“Happy New Year,” Mia said back, pulling Lana in for another kiss as people celebrated around them.