He smiled. “Eventually.”
She nearly tripped on the curb.
Everything Has Changed
Dylan
The clang of metal echoed through the weight room later that afternoon, but Dylan barely registered it.
He stood at the squat rack, bar loaded, staring straight ahead like it might tell him what to do.
Sweat beaded on his brow, but it wasn’t the set that had him off-balance— it was her.
Alison Katherine Presley.
Ali with the messy bun and the nervous hands. Ali who never made too much noise in a room, but somehow always pulled his attention like gravity.
He rolled his shoulders, shook out his arms. Tried to focus. Coach Busby always said the weight room was sacred— where the real work happened. No distractions. No excuses.
But his head was full of her.
He racked the bar after one lazy rep and sat on the bench instead, towel over his shoulders, heart thudding in that way it always did when he thought about her too long.
She’d looked like she wanted to disappear that morning when he showed up at her dorm. Even after Sunday— after all those looks they’d exchanged— she was still unsure. Still pulling at her sleeves and hugging her coffee like a lifeline.
He liked that she got nervous. Not because he wanted her uncomfortable— God, no— but because it meant she cared. Meant there was something under the surface she wasn’t saying out loud.
But Ali wasn’t like the girls who chased him after games or cornered him at frat parties with fake smiles and empty compliments. She was thoughtful. She watched people. She noticed the things most folks missed.
And she had no idea what she did to him.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, palms pressed together. He needed to tread carefully.
She was like a deer in headlights— wide-eyed and anxious, ready to bolt at the first sign of pressure. And he wasn’t about to be the reason she ran.
He could still see her on the porch swing Saturday night, knees drawn together, arms crossed tight like a shield. But she’d let him sit close. Had even leaned into him for a minute when he draped his arm around her shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Because with her, it was.
And now?
Now he just had to figure out how to ask her out without scaring her off.
It wouldn’t be some loud, public scene. No frat party, no crowd, no pressure. Just him and her. Maybe coffee after class. Or a walk on the marina dock where the student athletes stretched after runs.
Something quiet.
Something safe.
Something that felt like her.
He ran a towel over the back of his neck and leaned against the cool metal of the squat rack, heart finally settling into something steady.
Then it hit him.
The Cup & Chaucer.
That little second-hand book shop and coffee cafe on Main, tucked behind the old antique mall, where the floors creaked and the windows were always open just enough to let the smell of espresso and old paper hang in the air. Ali’s favorite spot. He’d overheard her talking about it once—told Daisy she liked to go on quiet Sunday afternoons to sit in the back room with her Kindle and a large iced latte. Something caramel or vanilla, if he remembered right.
