“Just because I’m here,” she says flatly, voice steady but eyes sharp, “doesn’t mean anything.”
I hold her gaze, then shrug one shoulder casually. The way I always act like nothing gets under my skin.
“Didn’t say it did,” I say with a grin.
Because even with the walls up and the rules written in ink, she’s sitting across from me. Because something is still there whether she wants it to be or not.
And for now, that’s enough.
“You look different,” I say.
“Yeah, well,” she fires back, “no longer being publicly associated with assholes tends to change a girl.”
There it is. That spark—sharp, lively, and directed right at me.
She rolls her eyes and opens a packet of Oreos, already done with this conversation. I reach for one, but she slaps my hand away without even looking.
I lift a brow. “You brought them.”
“For me.”
“You gonna eat them all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
I pluck one anyway, feeling smug. I hold her gaze as I twist it open, splitting the cookie just to annoy her.
She narrows her eyes, prepared to kill me just for the principle, but then her lips twitch.
There it is.
That almost-smile she never intends to give me—the one she fights to keep and loses every damn time. It hits something deep in my chest I didn’t realize was still there, something I thought I’d burned out weeks ago.
“Are you gonna open that textbook today,” she says, “or just sit there stroking your ego and talking shit?”
I lean forward, elbows on the table, invading her space the way I know gets under her skin. “Depends. You gonna bend over that desk and whisper literary terms while you do it?”
She doesn’t hesitate. She grabs a pen and throws it straight at my face. It hits me in the chest instead.
“No.”
I laugh, the sound too loud for a library. “Is that a yes in nerd?”
“That’s a “fuck off” in every language.”
Fuck.
It’s been weeks since we’ve experienced this. This rhythm. This sharp back-and-forth that feels ingrained in my bones. The way she responds without hesitation. The way she doesn’t soften for me or pretend I’m something I’m not.
She never has.
Every other girl desires to be wanted.
Lola wants me to work for it.
And sitting across from her now, Oreo in my mouth, pen still in my lap from where it hit me, I realize how much I’ve missed this.
I swallow the cookie, grin slowly, and finally crack open the textbook.
