you belong with me | c.w. ✓

nineteen [all in my head]

n i n e t e e n

all in my head

____________________

It wasn't until the next morning that Walker texted me. I was with Zoe in our room when I got his message asking me to meet him in his dorm room. I was confused at his vagueness but replied with "sure," before going down the hall to the West dorms. He'd said his room was number 283, and once I found it I knocked on the door.

Walker opened it with a smile. "Hey, Riley. Come in."

He opened the door wider so I could come inside, and closed it behind me. His room was the same as the ones I'd seen on the Mid-Atlantic side: white walls, two twin beds several feet apart, and a small TV above a dresser on the wall opposite the beds. One side of the room was clean and neat; the other had clothes and shoes strewn all over the floor.

"You can sit down if you want," he said, sitting on the bed on the messy side. "Sorry about the mess, my roommate's not the cleanest."

I sat on the other bed. "Oh, I don't care. I've shared a room and bathroom with my brother my whole life. I'm used to it."

He laughed and picked up the remote to turn down the volume on the TV, where New Girl was playing. I almost wanted to ask him to turn it back up, since it was my favorite show, but I figured he'd probably asked me here for a reason other than watching TV.

"So," he said, turning to face me. The room was pretty small, so the beds were only about three feet apart. If I stretched my legs out they'd touch Walker. "This might be kind of weird, but I need your help with something."

"Okay. What is it?"

"Well, you know about the dance, right?"

I nodded. Raegan had been talking about it nonstop ever since she heard about it. She was waiting for Jaden to ask her. It was the first year the Little League World Series committee was trying it, apparently. It was just for the players and their friends and family.

He let out a breath. "So...there's this girl I want to ask."

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I want to ask her to be my date, but I'm not really good at...talking to girls."

I held back a laugh. Walker had always seemed like a really confident guy. It was hard to imagine him having trouble talking to a girl. "Do you like her?"

His cheeks turned pink. "Um...well, I don't really know her that well, but I mean...kind of."

I didn't know how to react. Part of me was happy for him, but the other part was almost...disappointed. We'd - kind of - had a moment yesterday, but it was probably all in my head. "What's her name?"

"Katie. She's one of my teammate's sisters."

I nodded. "So how do you want to ask her?"

Walker shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't planning on doing anything big, I thought I'd just ask her. Plain and simple."

"Okay. So what did you need my help with?"

He looked embarrassed. "I've, um, never really done this before, so I was wondering if I could, uh, practice. On you."

I stifled a laugh. No matter how I felt about him liking someone, this was actually pretty cute. "Sure."

"Okay. Um, hey, I was, uh, wondering if you, um, wanted to...maybe go to the, uh, dance...with me?" he squeaked out, stumbling over nearly every word.