Theo raises his hand. “Could you go over the forcing term again?” His voice lands soft sage-green, calm and familiar. My shoulders ease a fraction.
While Feldman explains, I feel Kieran’s attention on me. Not invasive exactly, more analytical. As if he’s studying vectors, not skin. Watching how I move the pencil, how my wrist keeps time with equations.
It should bother me. It doesn’t.
And that’s a problem.
Then Professor Feldman says the words students love and hate: “Work together.”
Chairs scrape. Voices rise. Kieran doesn’t move toward anyone else. Doesn’t move away from me.
I keep my eyes on my notes. “You’re actually in this class? Aren’t you a senior?”
“Switched to MechE,” he says. “Playing catch-up.”
That lands wrong. He says it like it’s nothing. Like this isn’t the class I built my weeks around, the one I fought to place into early.
I keep my voice even. “Good luck.”
Theo appears at our desk with his notebook and that easy smile that makes my pulse kick.
“Hey. Want to team up?”
He has his sleeves shoved up again, forearm flexed around the spiral binding. I keep my eyes on the notebook. I don’t always succeed.
“Sure,” I say, a little too eagerly.
Kieran’s long legs are stretched under the table, hockey-star appeal dialed to eleven. I am suddenly sitting between the two most desirable guys on campus—one who knows it and isn’t beyond working it to his advantage, and one who has no clue.
The pressure differential is immediate. I keep my eyes on the page.
Kieran leans in, elbows on the desk. “Mind if I join you guys? Could use the help.”
If Theo were interested in me at all, there would be some reaction. A pause. A shift. Anything. Instead, he pulls over a chair without hesitation, completely unbothered. “Yeah, of course.”
Equal-opportunity friendly.
He sets his notebook down and starts outlining theproblem, calm and focused, as if we’re three random classmates who happened to be in the same orbit.
It lands quietly. Heavy anyway.
I tell myself that’s fine. Good, even. Less mess. Less noise.
We move through the equations. Theo talks through his approach, voice smooth and familiar, and I add clarifications. He nods, scribbles, keeps his forearm braced on the desk where the ink keeps dragging my attention away from the numbers.
And Kieran… Kieran actually contributes. Not guesses. Not charm. Real insight. His ideas are sharp, filling the empty spaces in the group.
I focus harder on the work. On the math. On keeping my face neutral while I sit between the campus golden boy and the oblivious crush I am clearly going to have to outgrow.
When Theo stalls, Kieran says quietly, “Isolate the steady-state part with the cosine term first.”
Theo blinks. “Oh. Right.” He glances at me like I might have fed Kieran the line. I didn’t.
Feldman circles the room and stops at our table. He clocks Kieran and clears his throat. “Welcome to 204, Mr. O’Connor. Hang onto these two—they know what they’re doing.”
I don’t like how much weight that carries.
My notes end up cleaner than they need to be. When I’m done, I slide the page slightly toward the middle. Not toward him. Just not entirely mine anymore.
