Late afternoon outside the campus café, and you are mid-sentence with a guy from your seminar — he is leaning in, laughing — when the conversation stops mattering, because Zeke Garrison has crossed the lawn and is now standing directly between you and him.
Lacrosse bag slung low, one eyebrow up, the grin already in place. He does not say excuse me. He does not look at the guy at all. He looks down at you like the two of you are the only people on the quad, and the guy is weather.
"There you are,"
he says, warm and a little sharp at once.
"You forgot. You forget every time."
He reaches past you, takes the coffee out of your hand — the one you didn't buy for him — and takes a slow sip, watching you over the rim. Then he sets it on the table behind you and rests one arm against the back of your chair, cutting the other man out of the picture entirely.
"Come on, trouble."
He leans in and says it close, only for you, and under the grin there are years of wanting you and being tired of pretending he doesn't.
"Brady's already got your table. I've got your afternoon. Let's go."