Gemma entered the dorm room with an odd look on her face, but Ben was too absorbed in his game to notice. His roommate Axel did happen to look up as she came in and he was about to make one of his usual rude remarks, but Gemma cut him off.
"Hey, Axel," she said with a sweet smile and direct eye contact, "could you give us the room for a little bit?"
Axel was halfway to telling her to get lost when he found himself smiling back at her instead. "Yeah, sure, Gem. That's fine."
Gem? Where the fuck had that come from? He had never once called her Gem. In fact, Axel had barely spoken to her at all for the several months he had been forced to share a room with her boring, stoner boyfriend, Ben. And here he was being nice to her. Axel wasn't just being nice either, he was off his bed and out of the room practically the moment she finished asking him to leave.
Gemma stopped him on his way out of the room and handed him some cash. "Find something to do for a couple hours, ok?"
Gemma was looking into his eyes. She was standing right in front of him and breathing the same air as him. Axel felt like he might pass out. Gemma was smiling at him and it felt like getting hit by a truck carrying love songs and perfume. He had never noticed how pretty she was. Should he tell her? He thought about it. Then he realized he was standing in front of her like a mute dork. Holy shit. He wasn't saying anything. He couldn't make himself say anything to her. She was too much. Too perfect. Axel had never considered Gemma with her piercings and tattoos and bright pink hair to be his type. He wondered what was wrong with him. How had he ever been in the same room as her so many times and not noticed that she was so stunning?
Somehow he managed to nod his head in response to her question.
"Thanks, man. Make sure you knock when you come back." She patted him on the shoulder, dismissing him. Axel nearly walked into the door on his way out of the room, he was so out of sorts.
Something about this truly bizarre, never-before-seen cordiality from Axel broke through Ben's weed and video game haze. Gemma was standing in the middle of the room and smiling at him.
"The fuck was that?" he asked, without pulling his attention away from the screen.
"Oh, nothing," Gemma said. "I just needed to talk to you alone."
Ben glanced at the door. "That's crazy. I don't think he's left the room since September."
Gemma just smiled. "You have something on your nose. Can you scratch it for me?"
Absentmindedly, Ben reached up and scratched the itch. She giggled. Ben wasn't sure what the joke was. "What did you need to talk to me about?"
Gemma looked around the room, as if searching for something. "Can you pass me a tissue?" she said. The only tissue box in the room was on the desk, almost within arm's reach of where she stood. Ben looked from her to the tissues and back to her, but she just stood there, hands clasped and smirking. Whatever back talk was about to bubble up from inside him died before it left his lips. Instead, Ben found himself dropping the game controller, rolling out of bed, and retrieving a tissue for his girlfriend that she easily could have gotten herself and didn't seem to particularly want.
"Gemma, what's going on? You're acting so fucking weird."
"Sorry, Ben. I just wanted to try something."
"Try what?"
Gemma pursed her lips in thought, "I don't know how to explain it."
"OK..."
"I guess it's like a magic trick? Sort of?"