“You know what.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He glared at me, but there was no heat in it—or rather, the wrong kind of heat. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, close enough that I could smell his shampoo.
“This morning,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “When you came out of the shower. You had water running down your back, and you were just—standing there, and I wanted—” His throat worked. “We were going to be late.”
“We could have been late.”
“We couldn’t.” But his voice had gone rough, and his foot was moving again, sliding up to press against my inner thigh. “I’ve been thinking about it for hours. What I should have done instead of letting you get dressed.”
My jeans were getting uncomfortable. I shifted, trying to adjust without being obvious, and saw Tanner’s eyes drop to track the movement. His tongue darted out to wet his lower lip.
“And what should you have done?” I asked.
“I don’t—” He laughed, shaky and frustrated. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can’t stop thinking about—about your hands, and your mouth, and—” He broke off, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. “God. This is embarrassing.”
“It’s not.”
“It is. I’m sitting in a coffee shop getting worked up over a PowerPoint because you’re looking at me.”
“I’m always looking at you.”
“I know.” He dropped his hands, met my eyes. The want on his face was raw, unguarded in a way Tanner rarely let himself be. “That’s the problem.”
A group of students pushed through the door, laughing about something. Tanner’s expression shuttered instantly— He pulled his foot back, sat up straighter, and became the picture of a student working on a project. I made myself look at my laptop screen, seeing nothing.
When the students settled at a table near the front, Tanner let out a slow breath.
“I can’t do this here,” he said quietly.
“Do what?”
He looked at me, and the carefully constructed composure cracked just enough for me to see what was underneath. “Keeppretending I don’t want to climb across this table and—” He stopped. Swallowed hard. “I want to go home.”
“Then let’s go home.”
He started packing up his laptop with hands that weren’t quite steady. I watched him fumble with the zipper on his bag, watched the flush that still hadn’t faded from his neck, watched him very carefully not look at me.
When he stood, he grabbed his jacket and held it strategically in front of himself. I bit back a smile.
“Shut up,” he muttered.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
I stood too, grateful for the table that blocked me from view for a few more seconds. “For the record, I have the same problem.”
His eyes dropped, then snapped back up to my face. The flush deepened. “Good,” he said. “Then we’re even.”
We weren’t even close to even. But we would be.
“If we don't leave right now, I'm going to do something embarrassing.” His voice cracked on the last word.
I was already reaching for my jacket.
Outside, November bit through the thin layers. We kept space between us on the main paths—the discretion we’d agreed on. Four more games until it wouldn’t matter. Students passed in clusters, heads down against the wind, too focused on getting somewhere warm to notice us.
