On the second day of Christmas, I posted this, you see:
Two college sleuths
And Jenny's OTP.
Some Dance to Forget
Nancy Drew with bonus secret crossover character!
600 words or so. Title pilfered from the Eagles' "Hotel California."
For kaladhwen. Merry Christmas!
She knew right away that her tour guide was taken. It was the way he looked at the women around campus--or rather, the way he didn't look at them. Six girls in bikinis walked past during the tour, and he didn't even glance at them long enough to focus.
Well. He was either taken or totally uninterested in women.
Either way, it was a pity, because he was really very cute. Six-three, maybe six-four, with hazel eyes, shaggy hair, and a grin that lit up his entire face.
When she'd introduced herself to him, he'd said his name was Sam.
Nancy brushed a strand of strawberry-blond hair behind her ear and quickened her pace to keep at the front of the tour group. She and Ned had parted ways the year before--amicably, of course, because if you could count on Ned to be anything, it was amicable--and she considered herself officially over him. And anyway, if they had stayed together, they would have gotten married one day. And then they would have been Ned and Nancy Nickerson, and she just couldn't have handled that.
So here she was, visiting universities that she might attend next year. To be honest, Stanford had been on the list mostly because it was an excuse to drive up and down the California coastline with the convertible's top down.
Sam, however, was making Stanford sound like heaven on earth. "I've heard the surfing's pretty good," he said in answer to another visitor's question. "I'm awful at it, though. But if you prove to be as bad as I am, there's always the sports complex. There's a massive rock-wall, a weight room, basketball courts, martial arts lessons--anything you want, we've got it."
After a moment, a campus cop car passed the tour group, and Nancy decided it made a good enough segue. "Sam, is there a lot of crime around here?" she said hopefully.
Sam turned around and started walking backwards, deftly avoiding parking meters and other pedestrians. He smiled his most reassuring smile. "Actually, there isn't much at all. The campus police are always on patrol--as you just saw--and there are emergency phones every hundred yards along the sidewalk. You're as safe here as you would be at home," he finished, a little forlornly.
"Oh, that's good," she said, trying not to sound disappointed. She waited another few blocks before asking her follow-up. "What about hauntings? Mysterious activity, unexplained phenomena?"
For a split second, Sam tensed, and his eyes went hard and suspicious. But just as quickly the smile was back, like the sun breaking through after a cloudburst. "Are you trying to trip me up, Nancy? You know there's no such thing as ghosts."
"Local legends, maybe?"
"What, you mean Indian stories, that sort of thing?"
"Sure," she said, weathering his feigned contempt with dignity.
Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Well...there's an abandoned Army hospital in San Francisco, and San Jose's got the infamous, ah, Winchester House. What are you going into, again?
"Something in criminal justice," she replied vaguely. "Maybe pre-law."
Sam's face lit up again in a smile. "You should have said so sooner," he said. "I'm pre-law, too. When you get accepted, you'll have to come have dinner with Jess and me, and we'll bore her to death talking shop."
Nancy grinned. "I'll be there," she promised. "If I get accepted."
Sam squinted against the sunlight, sizing her up. "You'll get in," he said confidently. Then he turned back to point out the school's most popular dining hall.
Nancy watched him thoughtfully. There was something there, something behind the nice tan and the blinding smile. Sam Winchester, the first person she had met in all of California, had a mystery.
She was beginning to think that Stanford would suit her just fine.