But time keeps moving. A group of runners charges past, kicking up gravel and dust. Someone’s phone blares nearby, then a cluster of students passes, laughing loudly.
I glance down at Eric again. He’s watching me now, eyes half-open.
“What?” he asks, voice sleepy.
“Nothing.” I smooth his hair back from his forehead. “Just thinking you look like you’re about to take a nap.”
“Not napping. Studying.” He yawns anyway, proving my point. “Keep going. Quiz me.”
I flip to the next question. “Baroque period. What’s the main difference between French and Italian overtures?”
He thinks for a second, idly picking at a stray thread on the hem of my shirt. “French ones start slow, then fast. Italian are fast-slow-fast.”
“Close. You got Italian, but French are slow-fast-slow.”
He groans. “Can you go back to the easy ones?”
“Your GPA will thank me,” I tease.
He flicks my stomach with his index finger and scowls. “You’re evil.”
“You love it.”
He doesn’t deny it. Just grabs my wrist once more with a soft squeeze, then lets go.
I wish he’d keep holding on.
I wish he’d look up at me the way he does when he thinks I’m not watching… like I’m the only thing that makes sense.
I wish I could ask if he feels it too, this quiet thing that’s been growing between us for years.
But I don’t.
Instead I move on to the next question. I keep my voice steady, keep my fingers moving through his hair, keeppleadingthat my heart accepts this is enough.
That it has to be, because it might be all I’ll ever get.
Today has been perfect, and I find myself searching for a way to keep it from ending. A new pizza place opened on 12th, and I’ve heard it has an amazing rooftop patio and killer garlic knots. Would askinghim to dinner under the sunset feel too much like asking him on a date?
Would that thought even cross his mind?
I’m about to ask when a voice cuts through the quiet.
“Eric!” A girl in a cropped hoodie and leggings waves and crosses the grass toward us, dark hair swinging in a high ponytail. One of the voice majors, I think. We’ve spoken a couple of times in passing, but she’s clearly here for him.
He sits up slowly, hair mussed from my fingers, and blinks against the sun. “Hey, Sophie.”
She stops a few feet away, smiling wide. “Hey! I was hoping I’d find you out here. Could I steal you for a few minutes?”
Eric glances at me, then back at her. “Yeah, sure. Give me a sec.”
He brushes grass off his jeans after he stands, then walks over to her. They step far enough away that I can’t hear, their heads bent close as they talk. She laughs at something he says then touches his arm, and he smiles back. It’s small and polite, but it’s real.
I’ve been cataloguing his expressions long enough to know.
I watch from the blanket, fingers still curled around the phone I forgot I was holding. My stomach twists, and a hot, ugly jealousy curls under my ribs. Hertouches are cautious enough to pass as casual, but I don’t like her hands on him, and I don’t like that he doesn’t pull away.
She flips through a notebook while he leans in. They’re too close, but neither of them moves. They just keep smiling and talking in that easy way that looks so damned natural.
