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“Good?” he asked.
She nodded while she chewed, then held the fries toward him. He took one, and they headed down the broad path away from the stand.
They hadn’t gone far before someone called Drew’s name. An Asian guy in a Drayton sweatshirt raised his hand from beside a bicycle rack. “Great game on Saturday, man.”
“Thanks. Appreciate it.”
The guy looked at Nicole, then back at Drew. She waited for him to say something else, but he only nodded and turned toward the bikes.
Drew was already asking about her afternoon. “Another lab?”
“Tomorrow. Today I get to sit down and take notes.”
“What time are you done?”
“Three. Then I’m going home. There’s a painting I want to get back to.”
“The one you were working on the other night?”
“I want to see what I think of it when I’m not worried about somebody looking through my portfolio.”
“I liked watching you.”
Nicole looked up at him. He’d gone right back to peeling the paper off his gyro, like telling a girl he liked watching her paint was nothing worth making a fuss over, and she smiled before she could stop herself. “You can come watch again.”
“I’d like that.”
“Hold up.” She stopped beside the low wall edging the path. “You’ve got sauce on your mouth.”
He ran his tongue over his lower lip.
“No, over here.” Nicole set her fries on the wall and reached up, brushing her thumb across the corner of his mouth.
He caught it lightly between his teeth before she could pull away.
“Drew.” She laughed, drawing her hand back.
He leaned down and kissed her. She was still smiling when his mouth moved against hers, warm despite the cold air on her face. Then she felt the smear he’d left on her lip.
“You did that on purpose.”
“Yeah.” His grin widened as he looked at her mouth.
She shook her head at him and wiped it away with a napkin. He bent to kiss her again. When he straightened, he was looking past her shoulder, and his smile faded. Nicole turned around. Phallon was standing with another girl near the foot of a set of steps across the path, sneering at them. She was mad. So mad that she stormed off, her friend following after her.
“She gon’ cry in the car,” Drew said, quoting the line from his favorite movie, Friday.
That cracked Nicole up.
They finished their lunch along a quieter stretch of the path, where the buildings blocked most of the wind. Ahead, a broad flight of pale stone steps rose toward a white building with tall windows and heavy doors. Students sat in scattered groups near the top, balancing notebooks on their knees or eating from paper bags. There was plenty of room along one side, away from the people coming and going.
Drew nodded toward it. “Want to sit for a few minutes?”
“Please.”
After dropping their wrappers into a trash can, they climbed far enough to get out of the foot traffic. He set the backpacks down and sat, and she settled on the step below him. The cold stone came right through her coat.
“Cold?” he asked.
