TEMPERATURES DROPPED, MIDTERMS drew closer, and the impending gravity of it was enough to prompt the first cuff of an academic panic.

I hadn't studied nearly enough this semester. In my freshman year, I was as good as stitched to several textbooks and academic papers, but then sophomore year came around, and I took the job at Grace's Place, and between that and the train wreck that had been my life over the last couple of months, higher education had unfortunately taken the back seat.

But I was getting ready for my social thought class and my neighbor was playing Mario's Let Me Love You, and it unfortunately gave me war flashbacks to when I was much younger. It was one of my dad's favorite early aughts tunes, and I vividly recalled it pouring out of the stereo every Saturday morning before he left. I should've been barely two years old, so I wasn't quite sure why this was even a memory I still had, but it had me thinking about my dad for the first time in weeks.

He'd been texting here and there up until his work trip to Canada, and then it just stopped—whether because I wasn't responding or because he grew tired, or maybe even both, I wasn't sure.

It brought back an ache so obstinate in its sobriety that I hesitated beneath the shower head. The rush of warm water blurred my vision, but I didn't move. I just remained there, feeding the relentless emotion for several moments. I was aware that all my problems had gathered in a pile in my subconscious, no matter how hard I pretended that they didn't exist, so this was an unsurprising glitch in my composure.

I didn't like it, but it made sense.

When I finally stepped out of the bathroom—after spending five minutes in front of the mirror by the counter, checking for nonexistent texts—Kelsey was standing there, lazily scrolling through her feed, a gray towel wrapped around her chest.

"Oh," I said. "Sorry, I didn't know you were waiting."

She waved me off without looking at me. "It's fine. I'm not in a hurry, anyway."

Things had been in a weird place between us since I returned from Sexy Time with Sydney Miller, in that there were no lingering hard feelings—or at least I didn't think so—but things weren't like they used to be, either. I knew it was on me to bring it up, to apologize for flipping out on her and going off-grid for hours, but I was also not a confrontational person. I didn't like staring discomfort in the face. I stood at arm's length from my problems and did my best to not address them until it was impossible not to.

A spiraling, unadulterated avoidant.

It wasn't healthy, but it was comfortable.

Is it always good comfort? came Jason's voice in my head, a warm yet unwelcome presence that slid down and settled among the tangled knots in the base of my stomach. Not for the first time this week, and not for the second.

We'd spent time together twice since that conversation, our stairwell meetings executed with a level of perfection that didn't match their impulsivity, but my mind still lagged. I felt like a passive observer in the events of my own life. Time moved both slower and faster than it was supposed to, my brain in a ceaseless fog, and I owed it to the fact that I hadn't seen or heard from Sydney since we had sex over a week ago. He didn't show up to Grace's or to class, and the last text he sent me was got home okay?

Kelsey brushed past me as she walked into the bathroom, pulling my attention back to the present, and I offered her a light smile that formed too late.

It was barely eight a.m., so I settled on a loose, striped brown sweater on loose jeans, and my trusted Docs. I'd taken out my locs and wasn't in the mood to tame my natural hair into anything intricate, so I moisturized and moussed, put a twist on either side of my face, then pulled the rest of it into a low bun and gelled my baby hairs back.

I didn't eat, and I didn't say goodbye to Kelsey. Armed with a tote packed with day essentials, a decent layer of lip balm, and my phone on forty percent—paired with the unshakeable feeling that I was forgetting something—I took the stairs with a faux bounce in my steps.

A cold gust of earth-scented breeze hit me square in the face as I pushed past the front doors, and I bristled at the suddenness. The parking lot was fuller than I'd ever seen it, still aside from the distant sounds of early morning traffic, windshields covered by a fine film of settled dew. It was the first thing that got me to take a decent breath since I woke up.

I tugged my tote bag higher up my shoulder and let out an exhale, a little too aware that that father-shaped pang from earlier was trying to fight its way to the surface.

A car door closed a few feet away, bringing my attention to the fact that I wasn't as alone as I thought, followed by the rumble of an engine coming to life. A prickle of awareness shot up the back of my neck, and the plan was to put my head down and just walk, but I took a closer look and realized that I recognized the car.

There was an undeniable jolt in my chest, a lot more violent than it was earlier, and for several seconds, I debated just sticking to my plan and pretending I didn't notice him, but I'd lost before it even started.

The glass was a little foggy, so I couldn't make out much from this distance, but there was a familiar shape slouched in the driver's seat. My feet were moving before I ordered them to, and the murmur that kicked off in my blood almost matched the gentle swish of the windshield wipers coming to life. The closer I drew, the louder the buzz. It spread from my chest to my arms and legs and face, insistent in a way that made it near impossible for me to walk at a measured pace.

Soft music, accompanied by his scent, greeted me before I reached the car, and I drew in a steadying breath before leaning down and gently rapping my knuckles against the window.

Jason turned to me with a start that was easy to miss if you weren't paying attention, and when our gazes locked through the glass, he pushed himself upright and hit the window control on his side.

I offered him a smile he was too stumped to return, and waited until the boundary between us was out of the way before I spoke.

"Hi, neighbor." I folded my arms and placed them against the open space. "I think it's a little too early to be lost in thought."

That got him to smile. It was small, but it lingered, and that was enough for me. "Hey, De." It came in his usual gentle cadence, but there was something a little different about it. Something . . . sad.

"You okay?"

He hesitated for a second, then he gave me another smile and reached up to knead that sore spot on the back of his neck. He caught himself early, unlike last time, and put his hand down, but I already noticed.

"Not really, but same old."

I took a quick look at the dashboard screen. "Frank Ocean is a great choice, though."

"He doesn't miss."

I leaned down lower so I could place my chin atop my folded arms, and his eyes followed me with ease. "Going to campus or work?"

He released a sigh as he relaxed into his seat, and I took note of a small stack of brand new button-down shirts in protective plastic on the back seat. "Campus. I promised Amara I'd drive her to an event, one of several regrettable choices this week."

I smiled. "I have a class by 8:30, and it sucks because I wanted to sleep in."

He unlocked the door on my side, a wordless invitation. "Late night?"

I pulled the door open and dropped myself into the passenger seat with a huff, then pulled it shut. "Kinda. I couldn't stay asleep." Because I kept waking up at intervals to check if, by some miracle, Sydney had texted me.

"Was something on your mind?"

I watched the windshield wipers move for a moment. "Yeah. We could say that." I let out a sigh of my own and nodded. "We could say that."

"I couldn't sleep at all."

I leaned into the seat, and we turned to look at each other in unison, heads resting against fabric. In the mellow morning light, the brown of his eyes were a lighter shade, his features softened by the quiet. For a moment, the only thing that filled the space between us was the album playing, and I felt the itch to reach out and make contact. Place a hand over his, brush a thumb across his cheek until his nerves calmed, until that slight crease between his eyebrows smoothened out and his mind calmed.

Instead, I said, "Look at us, sleep-deprived partners in crime."

When he chuckled, I felt it, funneling its way through my ribcage.

His eyes traced over my face for a long moment, and the tired calm in his eyes settled into something else. That hum under my skin returned, static this time, but just as vibrant.

I let it sit, refraining from breathing too hard and stirring the air too soon.

We didn't talk much on the drive, and I alternated between watching Boston breeze by and watching the way he gripped the wheel. It was such a mundane task, and he did it with thoughtless ease, a sign that he'd been at this for a long time, but I caught myself looking, regardless. Once, he reached for the cuff of his sweatshirt sleeve to scratch a spot just below it. He checked his mirrors regularly. He asked a few questions, as if to tell me he hadn't forgotten I was there. It was all very ordinary, and I was still enamored.

We'd just crossed into official Carlton territory when I finally decided to ask a question that had been on my mind for a week.

"Have you heard from Sydney recently?" My pulse skipped underneath.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Jace take a glance at me. Once again, an ordinary gesture. "Yeah," he said, and my pulse skipped again. "He texted this morning."

"Oh." I shifted in my seat, my stomach bottoming out. "That's good. I was just—wondering about him. He hasn't really been showing up for classes . . . or texting me back."

"He's been a bit outta sorts, but he's all right. He's also generally terrible with texts."

I forced out a chuckle, trying to ignore the sting from the realization that it was me, after all. Sydney didn't want to text me, so he didn't. "Yeah, I noticed. It's just—" I shifted in my seat again, giving myself a few seconds to think this through. It felt wrong, talking about Sydney like this with Jace, felt like I was taking advantage of the latter's kindness, but I ignored the stroke of guilt. For now. "I get it. I try to get it. But that doesn't make it any less annoying."

For a while, Jason didn't say anything, processing, I assumed. Or maybe he was choosing not to address it. Sydney was his best friend, after all. The quiet teased me, forcing me to examine my words, to wonder if my tone had been off, if I shouldn't have said that. So far, I'd seen Jace lead with nothing but patience, even on his bad days. He tucked his discomfort away for the sake of others, so discreet that I was sure I shouldn't have noticed. And then there was me.

I didn't like to admit it, but I found a way to make everything about me, didn't I?

He took a right, in the direction of my faculty, and the turn signal stopped clicking for at least five seconds before he finally spoke. "Impact over intent, yeah?" His hand moved to three o'clock on the wheel, and a muscle ticked with the change. I averted my eyes to the line of trees slowly losing their chlorophyll.

I was so stupid.

"You're not stupid."

My body tensed, staying that way for moments before I summed up the courage to look at him again. "Did I say that out loud or can you read my mind?"

He didn't even crack a smile. "I don't like that you say stuff like about yourself."

It was as if ice was thrown down my back. "Does it make a difference if it's true?"

"Do you get a kick out of it?" I fell quiet, catching up to the reality that he was not intending for me to take his words with anything other than seriousness. It was as sobering as the reminder of my dad.

"I still think it's too early for that."

"I agree."

We agreed on two different things, but it was an agreement, nonetheless, and I leaned an arm against the rolled down window, prepared to spend the rest of the drive feeling bad about myself—and feeling bad that I was called out on feeling bad about myself.

I checked my phone five times, and with the exception of notifications from a few social apps, there was nothing waiting for me. Nothing from family, nothing from friends—not like I had more than three friends, anyway. It was a little sad. But I still had enough pride to refrain from being the one to reach out.

"When does your class end?" Jace asked a while later, tone less serious but still not holding its familiar lilt.

I opened a promotional email and pretended to read through it. "Eleven-ish."

"Got somewhere to be after?"

My thumb hovered over my screen, but only for a beat. "I don't think so."

"Will you text me when you're done? I'll come pick you up."

Again, we looked over at each other at the same time, and this time, there was a hesitation that wasn't there before. "I'm not upset," I told him, matter-of-factly, and his attention returned to the road.

"I didn't think you were."

"Offering to pick me up unprompted feels like an olive branch."

"I wanna take you somewhere."

Again, I fell quiet, R&B filling the gaps, my hand going numb around my phone. He took yet another glance at me as we drove by a row of sugar maples, and the breeze stirred the leaves that peppered the asphalt.

After what felt like minutes but was barely three seconds, I asked, "Why?"

"Why?" he parrotted, as though he couldn't believe I'd asked.

I turned slightly in my seat, rolling a sudden knot out of my shoulder. "Yeah. Why?"

Another glance at me, then at the windshield, then he sunk into his seat as he lifted an arm to the window, just like me. "You don't want me to?"

"That's not what I said."

"Then just text me, De." He said it with an exhale, and I wondered for the nth time why he even put up with me. I wasn't the type of person people just took somewhere, so, really, why?

I swallowed an emotion crawling up my throat, one that was stuck between genuine surprise and nervousness. What was I to expect from this, exactly?

A while later, his chuckle filled the car, sending an unexpected flutter across my chest, like leaves in the breeze. "C'mon, don't look so terrified."

I tried to laugh, too, but it didn't translate the same. "Why not? This is terrifying. Where are we going?"

His expression dropped to something softer. "Nowhere crazy."

I scratched behind my left ear on instinct, catching my reflection in the sideview mirror. A small smile graced my lips. "I'll think about it."

this book is turning out CHONKY (currently over 300 pgs in my doc & def longer than mainstream romances), but we trust the process still <3