"Library," he says. "Cal's modules."
"I have mythology," I say. "But I'll miss you."
It comes out simpler than I mean it — just the plain truth of it. Gray's face goes quiet and warm.
"Writing 101," he says. "Soon."
He goes. I watch him until he turns the corner and then I go up to mythology.
***
Tomlinson is mid-unit today — the class has moved from the hunter myth into how communities build systems around the boundary between human and animal, what those systems protect and what they cost. I sit in the middle of the room and take notes and think about Gray in the library and how soon is relative.
When class ends I go straight to Writing 101.
I hear Becky before I see her.
Her laugh, light and easy, carrying through the half-open door. I come through and there she is, standing beside Gray's chair with one hand on the back of it, leaning in.
Gray is sitting with his notebook open and his coffee on the desk. He's not looking at her. His pen is moving on the page in the deliberate way of someone who has decided to be somewhere else entirely.
"— I could show you around," Becky is saying. "I know everyone here, basically. It helps to have someone in your corner when you're new—"
She sees me.
The sentence stops.
I cross the room.
Gray looks up and the tension goes out of his jaw. I stop beside his chair and put my hand on his jaw and turn his face toward mine.
He lets me.
I kiss him.
The bond blazes up the moment my hand meets his skin, the mark on my wrist running hot, and I hold it long enough that the room has time to understand what it's seeing. Then I drop my hand and pull out the chair beside him and sit.
I look at Becky.
She looks back.
"You can sit down now," I say.
Not loud. Not a threat. Becky takes a step back and her mouth opens and closes and she looks at Gray and he's looking at his notebook and she looks at me and I hold it until she looks away first.
She finds a seat on the other side of the circle.
Dr. Clary comes in and opens the class and the circle settles and Gray's shoulder is warm against mine and I open my notebook and put my pen on the page.
Nobody says anything about what just happened.
They don't need to.
***
After class Dalton is there, moving toward me with a purpose.
"Tomlinson wants to meet," he says.
