“Drink up, Beppe.”I hold up his collapsible water bowl, and he stares at it with disinterest.
“Or not.” I sigh.
He’s too distracted by the commotion in the café to care about much else, so I tuck him back into his tote.
I crack open my notebook to work on the Capstone Studio design brief. The admin part of the project is my least favorite, but it’s necessary. If I put it off, I’ll procrastinate forever, so I’ve been trying to chip away at it in manageable chunks. Soon, I’ll have to draw up a business plan to present to a mock panel of investors.
The café isn’t an ideal space to work between classes, but all my usual spots are taken. I’m digging through my backpack for my headphones when someone sits down across from me.
“Hey, Gabi.”
I freeze, blinking at the guy across from me in confusion. I’ve seen him around campus a few times, and I’ve caught him watching me more often recently. Once he smiled, and another time he winked. It felt like he was flirting with me, but I don’t know. We’ve never actually spoken before.
“How do you know my name?”
“You’re BiteSizedGabi on the university Discord, aren’t you?”
My stomach flips at the mention of my username. It’s very specific, and while I suppose he could have randomly noticed my profile picture, what are the odds? It’s not like we’d be in the same communities. I know he’s not a design student. But then again, I have been lurking in the bio server.
As I study him, I wonder if he could actually be Eros415. He’s tall and muscular, with brown hair and piercing blue eyes. It was hard to tell with the mask and hoodie, but they look like they have a similar build.
I shift in my seat, feeling Julian’s gaze from his usual post by one of the brick columns.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
The guy leans forward with a smirk. “Are you going to pretend you don’t know?”
His answer seems to confirm my suspicions, though he isn’t what I pictured when I thought of Eros. This guy looks like he majors in beer pong, and I imagined Eros as something more…intense. But what are the chances someone else would approach me with my username the day after I asked him to meet?
“Are you a biology major?”
He arches a brow at me like I’m missing the obvious. “You’re not the only one who likes sharks.”
Okay, it has to be him.
I want to ask what happened to us not meeting, but Julian’s giving him the stink eye as he texts someone on his phone. I have a feeling he’ll be over here any second now, and I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
“What’s up with that guy? He’s always following you around.”
“It’s hard to explain,” I mumble.
“He’s not your boyfriend?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“A guard then?”
That’s too specific to be a guess, so he must be a member of IVI, or at least know about it. In the past, having a guard with me deterred most guys. The few who did approach usually got freaked out and stopped talking to me quickly. I never knew if that was because of the guard or something else. My previous guard didn’t care who talked to me as long as he could observe. Julian, on the other hand, seems to mind an awful lot.
His scowl deepens as he shoves off the brick column and heads our direction.
“Can you ditch him on Saturday night?”
“I can try,” I blurt, because I don’t have time to think about it.
“Give me your phone for a sec.”
I unlock it and hand it over, watching him enter his contact as "Nate". He sends himself a text from my phone, then saves my contact.
