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“The little one.”

“You have six little pockets.” He says it like he’s reciting facts from a mission briefing.

“Why do you know how many pockets my backpack has?” I can feel heat rising in my cheeks.

“Because I bought it.” His matter-of-fact tone doesn’t change.

“That does not answer my question.” The words come out before I can stop them.

He reaches across me before I can protest, his arm brushing against my chest as he pulls my pale pink backpack into his lap. His fingers work quickly, opening compartments while I slump against the seat, defeated. The fabric of his sleeve is soft against my skin.

“This is humiliating.” I watch students passing by, wondering if any of them can see us.

“No, humiliating would be me walking you into class.” He doesn’t look up from his search.

“You threatened to do that yesterday.” My fingers twist in the fabric of my trousers.

“I offered.” The main compartment zipper opens with a sharp sound. “And technically it would’ve been from class, not into it.”

“You said, and I quote, ‘If that professor keeps ending ten minutes late, I’ll start coming inside to collect you myself.’” My imitation of his deep voice isn’t half bad.

“Correct.”

“That is not an offer.” The sun catches the gold chain of my necklace, making it gleam.

He finds the charger tucked neatly beside my lunch container and holds it up.

I snatch it from him and shove it back into the pocket.

“There. Crisis averted.”

His mouth twitches.

I know that look.

He thinks I’m cute when I’m annoyed.

Which is infuriating because I am trying to be a serious university student right now.

A serious university student wearing a cream cropped sweater, wide-legged brown trousers I altered myself, white sneakers, and a tiny gold necklace Adrien gave me the night before my first day because apparently paying my tuition, buying textbooks, sewing supplies, a laptop, transportation, and half my wardrobe had not sufficiently communicated that he was proud of me.

The necklace has a tiny pair of sewing scissors on it.

I cried, obviously.

Adrien cried too, though he insists there was “something in his eye.” At eleven at night. In bed.

Now, I stare out through the windshield at the sprawling campus. Two whole weeks. Fourteen days since I stood right here on this curb, my stomach a tight, nauseous knot, certain I was going to vomit all over Adrien’s polished boots.

He’d taken the entire morning off. I’d watched him pack my lunch with the intense focus of a man assembling a bomb, checking my backpack not once or twice but three separate times. He made me eat eggs even though my throat felt glued shut with nerves, then drove us here forty minutes early just to sit parked in the lot, his expression so grim you’d think he was shipping me off to war, not Introduction to Textiles.

I cried before getting out of the car, not a lot, but enough to mess up the concealer beneath my eyes.

Adrien almost told me I could skip—I could see the words forming. I made him promise not to. So he kissed me until I stopped trembling, told me I was the smartest, prettiest boy on the entire campus—which was objectively impossible for him to verify—and then watched me walk all the way into the building.

I know because I turned around four times.

He was still there each time.