He shifts the strap higher on his shoulder. “For not pretending I don’t exist the second we’re inside.”
My cheeks burn. He saw that coming.
“I have class,” I say stiffly.
“So do I.” His voice stays maddeningly calm. “I’ll sit behind you. I won’t talk. I just—” he pauses, searching for words, “…want you to know I’m there. In the light. Not the parking lot.”
I hate how much that lands.
“Fine,” I mutter. “But if my professor yells at us, I’m blaming you.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He opens the door for me like some inconvenient medieval knight, and I walk through it, heart pounding too fast for an eight a.m. lecture.
He keeps doing it.
Tuesday, he’s waiting outside my psych class. Wednesday, it’s bio lab. Thursday, he’s propped against the wall outside the library like he has all day to kill and nowhere better to be.
He always takes my bag; he always matches his stride to mine. He always walks on the outside of the sidewalk—between me and the road, between me and the open.
And every time I tell him he can’t, he does it anyway.
By Friday, the routine is set in stone.
Stats class. The room where he first gave me the tea.
He slides into the chair beside mine just as the professor starts writing on the board. Our desks are the kind that bolt together in pairs, so his knee brushes mine when he sits.
Static skates up my leg.
“You’re supposed to be invisible,” I mutter.
He leans back, long legs stretching out in front of him, knee bumping mine again. “I don’t do invisible.”
“That’s the problem.”
He doesn’t say anything for the first twenty minutes. Just sits there, taking notes with that tight, controlled grip.
Then, quietly, without looking away from his notebook:
“Game tonight.”
I don’t look at him. “I’m aware.”
“You coming?”
“For my dad,” I say. “Obviously.”
“Just your dad?”
The pen almost slips in my hand. I exhale slowly. “And maybe to see if you can actually stop a puck when you aren't busy stalking me.”
He goes still. Then his mouth tips at the corner. “I’ll try to focus.”
“Miss Addison,” the professor calls from the front. “Would you care to explain what happens when we reduce our sample size but not our confidence interval?”
I clear my throat, forcing my brain to fire. “The margin of error goes up,” I answer. “We’re less precise, so our estimates get sloppier.”
