Liam winces. “Is it too late to take my question back?”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I respond quickly. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m just undecided.” He scans his card and waits for me to pull mine out of my wallet.
“There’s nothing wrong with that. I read somewhere that something like forty-five percent of students change their major at least once. You have time. You don’t even need to declare until next year, right?”
“Is this good?” He meets my eyes while standing next to a table that’s near the wall and kind of tucked away. It’s a table I would have picked myself.
“Absolutely.” I hook my bag over one of the chairs. This is so much better than in the center of the room.
“It just seems like everyone knows what they want and what they are doing,” he says, and I see a little of that vulnerability I first noticed in the classroom.
“My dad calls that the fine art of bullshit. People tell you what they want you to hear,” I tell him. It’s probably weird I mentioned my dad, but Liam just smiles.
“Yeah, he’s probably right. Have you eaten here before?”
“Just once. The girl that invited me to eat with her took her food to go and left me alone,” I confess, wanting to share something with him since he shared with me.
“What the hell? That’s weird.”
“I know,” I agree. “I mean, she told me she wanted to know about someone I literally ran into, so I should have known then she just wanted tea.”
“Was she the girl’s friend or something? Was she trying to start beef?”
“It was a guy actually, and no beef.” I’m not going to tell him she asked me how he smelled.
“Ah, so she likes the dude and she got worried he talked to you,” he surmises. He’s maybe half right.
“We didn’t talk. I said sorry and hoofed it.” I chuckle.
“I get it.” He’s looking down at me with a lopsided grin that makes my stomach feel funny, but it also makes me nervous.
“What are you getting?” I turn to look at the dining options.
“I don’t know. Want to walk around? This place is bigger than the one in my dorm.”
“Sure. Supposedly, this is where a lot of the football players eat, and they have the freshest stuff.” I give him the tidbit of information Mia gave us at orientation.
“Makes sense,” he remarks, and we make a slow lap around the room. It’s not very busy, but it’s pretty early for dinner.
“I’m going to go with that.” He points to the same place I already had.
“I actually had that last time. I’m going with tacos.”
“I knew you were my kind of people. Feel the vibe?” Liam gestures between the two of us.
“We vibe because I like tacos?”
“Definitely, but that’s just one of the reasons. See you in a few minutes,” he says, backing away like I might run the second he turns his back.
“Okay,” I agree. This is familiar. Let’s hope it doesn’t end the same way it did the last time.
I’m already seated when Liam returns. He has two plates, one in each hand, that he places on the table. “I’m going to grab something to drink. Need anything?”
“I’ll go with you.” I push my chair in and tag along behind him to the drink station. He fills up a cup with soda while I opt for juice.
“So where are you from?” he asks after we return to the table.
