Eight Minutes Before Close

Bad Boys of Bellweather University #1

I wasn’t supposed to notice him.

That was the first rule of working the closing shift at The Hollow. You notice the clock. You notice the espresso machine’s pressure gauge. You notice the way the barista before you left the milk steamer caked with dried foam like a personal insult. You do not notice the customers.

Especially not the ones who walk in eight minutes before close.

The bell above the door chimed. I didn’t look up. I was wiping down the pastry case, counting the remaining scones like a man calculating his own sentence. Three sad cranberry-orange specimens. A lemon poppy seed that looked like it had given up. I was already tasting the quiet of an empty apartment, the particular loneliness of a Thursday night in August when the whole world seemed to be on vacation except me.

“You’re still open.”

His voice had a laugh hiding in it. The kind of voice that didn’t ask questions, it just announced its presence and dared you to object.

I looked up.

He was leaning against the doorframe like he owned the place. Unruly auburn-brown hair that caught the warm light, green eyes that were already smiling, a face full of freckles that seemed designed to make you underestimate him. He wore a faded band t-shirt I didn’t recognize and jeans with a hole in the left knee. He looked like trouble wrapped in a grin.

“We close in eight minutes,” I said.

“Plenty of time.” He walked toward the counter, taking his time, looking around the café like he was appraising real estate. “What’s good?”

“Everything’s been sitting out since seven this morning.”

“Selling it hard. I respect that.” He stopped at the counter, close enough that I could smell something clean and warm on his skin. Soap, maybe. Or just him. “What do you recommend that isn’t a scone?”

“The drip coffee. It’s fresh. I made it twenty minutes ago.”

“Drip coffee.” He said it like I’d offered him a luxury car. “That’s your big pitch?”

“You came in eight minutes before close. You get honesty, not marketing.”

He laughed. It was a real laugh, not a polite one, and it did something to the air in the room that I refused to examine.

“Okay,” he said. “Drip coffee. Black. And your name.”

I stared at him.

“For the cup,” he added, innocent as sin.

“Cass.”

He repeated it like he was tasting it. “Cass. Good name. Strong. One syllable. Efficient.”

“Are you always this much work?”

“Depends on who’s asking.” He pulled out his wallet, a worn leather thing that had clearly seen better decades. “I’m Rory, by the way. Since you didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t ask because I’m working.”

“You’re working, but you’re also a person. People ask each other’s names. It’s a thing we do.”

I poured his coffee. Handed it over. Our fingers didn’t touch, but they almost did, and that almost was worse.

“Three dollars,” I said.

He handed me a five. “Keep the change.”

“Generous.”

“I’m hoping it buys me a few extra minutes.”

“It buys you exactly the time it takes me to close the register.”

He took a sip of the coffee, watching me over the rim of the cup. His eyes were ridiculous. Green like a forest after rain, and they seemed to be laughing at a joke I hadn’t heard yet.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

And he left.

I told myself he wouldn’t come back.

He came back the next night. Seven minutes before close this time. Same smile. Same band t-shirt, different band I didn’t recognize. He ordered a chai latte, which he called a “fancy milk,” and asked me what time I got off work.

“When I close the register,” I said.

“And when is that?”

“After you leave.”

He grinned like I’d paid him a compliment.

He came back the night after that. And the night after that. He became part of my closing routine, as predictable as the espresso machine’s final hiss. He’d walk in, order something ridiculous, and find a way to keep me talking until I was literally turning off the lights.

“You know there are other coffee shops in this town,” I said one night. It was maybe two weeks in. I’d stopped pretending to be annoyed, but I hadn’t admitted I was anything else.

“I know.” He was sitting on one of the stools, legs crossed, nursing a hot chocolate I’d made him because he’d admitted he didn’t actually like coffee. “But they don’t have you.”

“That’s not a reason to choose a coffee shop.”

“It’s the only reason I need.”

I should have shut that down. Should have said something professional, distant, final. Instead I said, “You’re going to give yourself diabetes with all that chocolate.”

“Worth it.”

That was the summer.

Late nights that stretched past closing. Drives with the windows down, North Carolina humidity wrapping around us like a blanket. His hand on my thigh in the passenger seat of my car. The first time I kissed him, behind the café after hours, his back against the brick wall and his breath catching in a way that made me feel like I’d won something I didn’t know I was competing for.

We never talked about what it was.

That was the second rule.

Don’t ask what happens when August ends.

I told myself it was simple. A summer thing. A warm season distraction. He was twenty-one, old enough to know what he wanted, young enough to be reckless. I was twenty-seven, finishing my master’s, starting my first TA position in the fall. My life was a series of carefully stacked dominoes. He was a gust of wind.

I didn’t ask where he was going to school. He didn’t ask about my fall schedule. We existed in a beautiful, temporary bubble, and I convinced myself that was enough.

“What are you thinking about?”

His voice came from beside me, soft and drowsy. We were in my bed, the sheets tangled around us, the ceiling fan doing its best against the August heat. His head was on my chest, his hand resting flat over my heart like he was checking to make sure it was still beating.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Liar.”

I ran my fingers through his hair. It was softer than it had any right to be. “I’m thinking about how you’re going to leave soon.”

“I’m not leaving. I’m right here.”

“You know what I mean.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he lifted his head, propped himself on his elbow, and looked at me with those green eyes that saw too much.

“August ends,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we have to.”

“Rory.”

“I’m serious. We could keep doing this. Whatever this is.”

“You don’t even know what this is.”

“I know it’s good.” He traced a line down my chest, slow and deliberate. “I know I like being with you. I know you like being with me, even if you pretend you don’t.”

“I don’t pretend.”

“You do. You pretend every night when I walk in. You pretend you’re annoyed. You pretend you’re not watching the door for me. You pretend this is just something that’s happening to you instead of something you’re choosing.”

I didn’t have an answer for that.

He kissed me, soft and unhurried, and I let myself believe that the conversation was over.

It wasn’t.

But I didn’t know that yet.

The last week of August arrived like a deadline I’d been ignoring. The Hollow had a back-to-school display now, notebooks and mugs emblazoned with the Bellweather University logo. I’d been avoiding looking at it. Avoiding thinking about what my fall schedule looked like. Avoiding the stack of syllabi on my desk at home that I still needed to finalize.

Rory came in on a Thursday. Three minutes before close. He ordered a chai and sat at his usual table, the one by the window where he could watch me work.

“You’re quiet tonight,” I said, wiping down the counter.

“Thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

My stomach dropped. I’d known this was coming. Known it since the first night he walked in. Summer flings ended. That was the whole point. You didn’t get attached. You didn’t start caring about someone who was temporary.

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me.”

“I’m starting school.”

“I figured. You’re twenty-one. Most people start at eighteen, but I assumed you had your reasons.”

“I did.” He wrapped his hands around his cup. “I worked. Traveled. Figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Or at least figured out that I wanted to do something with it, which is more than I had at eighteen.”

“That’s good.” I meant it. “Where are you going?”

“Bellweather.”

The word hit me like a door slamming shut.

“Bellweather,” I repeated.

“Yeah. I’m moving in this weekend. Freshman orientation starts Monday.” He was watching me carefully, reading my face. “I know you’re a grad student there. I’ve known since the first week we started talking. I saw your Bellweather hoodie in your car.”

“You never said anything.”

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

I set down the rag I’d been holding. My hands were steady. Everything else was not.

“Rory, I’m a teaching assistant this semester.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m going to be grading papers. Holding office hours. Standing in front of a classroom full of freshmen who are going to be exactly your age.”

“I’m not in your class.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?” He stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. “Tell me what the problem is, Cass. Because from where I’m standing, the problem is that you’re scared, and you’re looking for a reason to end this before I can leave you.”

“That’s not—”

“It is.” He walked toward me, stopped on the other side of the counter. Close enough to touch. He didn’t. “I know you, Cass. I know you keep everything in boxes. I know you have a system for everything, a plan for everything, a backup plan for the plan. And I know I don’t fit into any of your boxes.”

“You don’t.”

“I could.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, you couldn’t. I’m about to be responsible for students. If anyone finds out I’m sleeping with a freshman, even one I don’t teach, it doesn’t matter. The rumor alone would be enough to destroy my credibility. I’d lose my position. I’d lose my funding. I’d lose everything I’ve worked for.”

“So we keep it quiet.”

“For how long? Four years? Five? You think we can hide this for that long?”

“I think we can try.”

I wanted to say yes. God, I wanted to say yes. He was standing there, looking at me like I was something worth fighting for, and I wanted to be that. I wanted to be brave enough to take the risk.

But I’d spent my whole life building walls. I didn’t know how to tear them down.

“It’s over,” I said.

The words came out flat. Final. They didn’t sound like they belonged to me.

Rory stared at me. His expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes shifted. Something closed.

“Okay,” he said.

“Rory.”

“No, I get it.” He picked up his cup, walked it to the dish bin, set it down with a click that sounded louder than it should have. “You’ve got your boxes. I don’t fit. I understand.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It never is.” He walked to the door. Paused with his hand on the handle. “Good luck this semester, Cass. I hope you get everything you want.”

The bell chimed as the door swung shut.

I stood there for a long time, staring at the empty space where he’d been.

Then I locked up, went home, and didn’t sleep.

Move-in weekend at Bellweather University was a special kind of chaos.

I’d experienced it as an undergrad, survived it as a grad student, but this was my first time witnessing it as faculty. Sort of. Teaching assistants didn’t get the same respect as professors, but we got the same parking headaches and the same desperate parents asking for directions to buildings we’d never heard of.

I was walking across the quad, a stack of syllabi tucked under my arm, when I heard my name.

“Cass!”

I stopped. Turned.

And there he was.

Rory Wilder, standing outside Henderson Hall, surrounded by boxes. A lanyard hung around his neck, a freshman ID card swinging against his chest. His hair was messier than I remembered. His smile was the same.

“Rory.” I said his name like I was testing whether it was real.

“I know, I know.” He held up his hands. “You said it was over. I heard you. But I didn’t lie about going here. I’ve been planning this for months. I didn’t know you were going to be a TA. I didn’t know I was going to fall for the guy behind the counter.”

“You didn’t fall for me.”

“Didn’t I?”

I looked around. The quad was full of people. Students. Parents. Faculty. Anyone could be watching.

“We can’t do this here,” I said.

“Then let’s go somewhere we can.”

“Rory.”

“I’m not asking you to pick me up and carry me to your apartment, Cass. I’m asking you to talk to me. Five minutes. That’s all.”

I checked my watch. I had an hour before my first TA meeting.

“Five minutes.”

He led me around the side of Henderson Hall, to a quiet alcove where the vending machines hummed and no one could see us. He turned to face me, and for a moment, he looked nervous. I’d never seen him nervous before.

“I checked,” he said. “You’re not teaching any of my classes. You have no academic authority over me. There’s no rule that says we can’t see each other.”

“There are unwritten rules.”

“Screw unwritten rules.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Make it simple.” He stepped closer. “I’m not asking for a declaration. I’m not asking you to hold my hand in the dining hall. I’m asking if we can keep doing what we were doing. Quietly. Carefully. Just us.”

“And if someone finds out?”

“Then we deal with it. Together.”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say yes so badly it hurt.

But I’d spent my whole life building walls.

“I can’t,” I said.

He nodded. Swallowed. “Okay.”

“Rory.”

“No, I get it.” He stepped back.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

I didn’t have an answer.

He waited. The vending machine hummed. Somewhere in the distance, a parent was yelling about a lost suitcase.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Yeah.” He turned away. “Me too.”

I walked back to the quad. I didn’t look back.

But I felt him watching me the whole way.

The first week of classes was a blur of syllabi, introductions, and the particular terror of standing in front of a room full of eighteen-year-olds who were all wondering the same thing: who is this guy and why should I care?

I taught two sections of English 101. Freshman composition. The class everyone hated and no one wanted to take. I tried to make it interesting. I talked about narrative structure, about the stories we tell ourselves, about the way language shapes reality. Some of them took notes. Most of them stared at their phones.

I didn’t see Rory.

I told myself that was a good thing.

I almost believed it.

Then came the library.

The Bellweather library was my sanctuary. I’d spent more hours in its stacks than in my own apartment. I had a favorite table on the third floor, tucked away in a corner where the light was good and the foot traffic was minimal. I went there every Tuesday and Thursday after my last class.

On the second Thursday of the semester, I walked in and found Rory behind the circulation desk.

He was wearing a blue polo shirt with the library logo. A lanyard with a staff ID. He was helping a freshman check out a stack of books, and he was smiling that smile, the one that made people feel like they were the only person in the room.

He looked up. Saw me.

His smile didn’t waver.

“Welcome to the library,” he said. “Can I help you find anything?”

I stood there like an idiot.

“Cass, right?” He said my name like it was a joke we shared. “You’re in here a lot. I’ve seen you around.”

“You work here now.”

“Started Monday. Great benefits, flexible hours, and I get to be surrounded by books all day.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Also, I heard the third floor has a really good table. Quiet corner. Good light.”

“You’re doing this on purpose.”

“Doing what?” His eyes were innocent. His smile was not.

I walked away.

But I could feel him watching me as I climbed the stairs.

It became a game.

Not the kind either of us admitted we were playing. But a game nonetheless.

I’d be at my table, grading papers, and he’d walk by with a cart of books. He wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t even look at me. But he’d hum a song under his breath, something we’d listened to in my car that summer, and I’d spend the next ten minutes trying to focus on freshman essays about the symbolism of the green light in Gatsby.

He’d leave notes in my books. Small things. A scrap of paper with a smiley face. A receipt from The Hollow with a heart drawn on it. Once, a sticky note that just said “miss you” in his messy handwriting.

I never responded. I never acknowledged them.

But I didn’t throw them away either.

The breaking point came three weeks in.

I was in the stacks, looking for a critical theory text I needed for my thesis. The fourth floor, near the back, where the lights flickered and the dust hung in the air like a memory. I was running my finger along the spines when I heard footsteps.

I knew who it was before I turned around.

“You’re following me,” I said.

“I’m working.” Rory’s voice was close. Closer than I expected. “Reshelving. It’s literally my job.”

“You’re supposed to be on the first floor.”

“Finished early.”

I turned. He was standing a few feet away, a stack of books in his arms. The light from the flickering bulb caught his hair, his eyes, the curve of his mouth.

“This has to stop,” I said.

“What has to stop?”

“This.” I gestured between us. “The notes. The looks. The way you keep finding me.”

“I’m not finding you. We keep running into each other. It’s a big coincidence.”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence.”

“Then maybe it’s fate.” He set the books down on a nearby shelf. Walked toward me. “Maybe we’re supposed to keep running into each other until you stop pretending you don’t want this.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“You’re not?” He stopped in front of me. Close enough to touch. “Then look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me.”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

He smiled. Soft. Sad. Knowing.

“That’s what I thought.”

He stepped closer. His hand came up, brushed my cheek. His touch was warm.

“One night,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking. One night where we pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. One night where we’re just us.”

“And then what?”

“Then we figure it out.”

I should have said no.

I should have walked away, gone back to my table, graded my papers, and pretended this conversation never happened.

Instead, I kissed him.

It was desperate and hungry and months of wanting poured into a single moment. His hands were in my hair, my hands were on his waist, and we were pressed against the stacks, and I didn’t care who saw, didn’t care about the rules, didn’t care about anything except the way he tasted.

“My apartment,” I said against his mouth. “Tonight. 9 PM.”

“I’ll be there,” he said.

“I’ll be waiting.”

He grinned. That troublesome, wonderful grin.

And he walked away, leaving me in the flickering light, my heart hammering, my carefully constructed walls crumbling around me.

I unlocked my apartment door at 8:47. Eleven minutes to change, to shower, to talk myself out of this. I did none of those things. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall, my hands folded in my lap like I was waiting for a verdict.

The knock came at 9:04.

I opened the door. Rory stood there, still in his library polo, his hair slightly damp like he’d splashed water on his face in the bathroom before leaving. He looked nervous. I’d never seen him nervous before. Not like this. Not with his hands shoved in his pockets and his weight shifting from foot to foot.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Thought you might change your mind.”

“Thought about it.”

“And?”

I stepped aside. Let him in.

He walked past me, slow, looking around my apartment like he was seeing it for the first time. He’d been here before, plenty of times over the summer. But this felt different. This felt like crossing a line we’d both been pretending wasn’t there.

“You redecorated,” he said.

“I moved a plant.”

“Looks good.”

“It’s the same plant.”

He turned to face me. The space between us was small. It got smaller.

“I’m scared,” I said. The words came out before I could stop them. I hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t meant to let him see that crack in the armor.

“I know.”

“You don’t—”

“I know,” he said again. Softer. “I’m scared too. But I’m more scared of not trying.”

He reached out. Took my hand. His palm was warm, his fingers lacing through mine like they belonged there.

“One night,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking.”

I pulled him toward the bedroom.

It was different this time. Slower. The summer had been urgent, frantic, like we were racing against a clock we couldn’t see. But this was deliberate. He took his time. He took mine. He kissed every inch of me like he was memorizing the shape of my skin, and I let him. I let myself be known.

His mouth wasn’t in a hurry. It started at my forehead, a soft, dry press that felt like a benediction. Then my eyelids, one at a time, a flutter of lashes against his lips. He traced the line of my nose, the curve of my jaw, the sensitive skin behind my ears. Each kiss was a statement, a claim. This was his. This part of me, and this part, and this. When his lips finally met mine, it wasn’t the hungry clash I was used to. It was a deep, slow exploration, a tasting, a rediscovery. His tongue slid against mine, not with urgency, but with a languid curiosity that made my whole body feel liquid, pliant. His hands were just as deliberate, sweeping down my sides, mapping the ridges of my ribs, the dip of my waist, the swell of my hips. He was learning me all over again in the quiet dark of his room.

He moved down my body, his lips never losing contact. He paid homage to the hollow of my throat, to my collarbones, to the flat planes of my chest. His tongue circled one nipple, then the other, teasing them to tight, sensitive points before sucking gently, sending jolts of pleasure straight to my groin. I arched into him, a silent plea for more, but he just smiled against my skin and continued his slow descent. He kissed the line of hair that disappeared below my waistband, his breath hot and damp through the fabric. He hooked his fingers into the elastic of my briefs and paused, looking up at me, a question in his eyes. I nodded, lifting my hips to help him. He peeled the fabric down slowly, his gaze following the path it revealed, his expression one of utter reverence.

He settled between my legs, his hands gently pushing my thighs apart. His breath ghosted over my already-hard cock, and I shivered. He didn’t take me in his mouth right away. Instead, he kissed my inner thighs, his stubble a delicious, rough counterpoint to the softness of his lips. He nosed behind my balls, inhaling deeply, a low groan rumbling in his chest. It was so intimate, so possessive, it made my head spin. Finally, finally, he licked a slow, broad stripe up the underside of my cock. I whimpered, my hands fisting in the sheets. He did it again, and again, his movements unhurried, methodical. He took the head into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the ridge, savoring the bead of precum that welled there. He sank down slowly, taking me inch by inch, his throat relaxing around me until his nose was pressed against my pubic bone. The wet, consuming heat was overwhelming. He set a rhythm, a slow, deep glide that had me writhing, my hips pushing up to meet him. But he held them down, his grip firm, keeping me exactly where he wanted me.

Just as I felt the pressure begin to build, he pulled off, leaving me gasping and empty. He didn’t make me wait long. He nudged my legs higher, spreading me open, and I knew what was coming. My breath hitched. He looked up at me, his eyes dark and sincere. “Can I?” he murmured. I could only nod, my throat too tight to speak. He lowered his head, and the first touch of his tongue against my hole was a revelation. It was a wet, filthy, perfect shock. He licked around the tight ring of muscle, soft, probing circles that had me seeing stars. Then he stiffened his tongue and pushed inside, just a little, and I cried out, a raw, broken sound. He ate me out for the first time, his hands gripping my ass, holding me open for him. He was fucking me with his tongue, alternating between soft, lapping strokes and deep, thrusting probes that hit a place inside me I didn’t know existed. The pleasure was so intense it was almost painful, a white-hot coil of need tightening in my gut.

When I was trembling, a mess of sweat and need on the verge of begging, he pulled back. He kissed his way back up my body, his lips slick and swollen. “Your turn,” he whispered, his voice raspy with desire. I didn’t hesitate. I rolled him onto his back, my hands shaking with a desperate need to give him the same overwhelming pleasure. I kissed him hard, tasting myself on his tongue, and then I mirrored his actions, my mouth traveling down his body, learning his geography. I took his long, thick cock in my mouth, the weight of it on my tongue, the salty taste of his skin. I sucked him, my head bobbing, my hand stroking what I couldn’t take, reveling in the low, guttural sounds he was making. But I didn’t let him finish. I moved lower, parting his firm, muscular cheeks, and I feasted on him, my tongue claiming him, marking him, making him mine. I loved the way he squirmed, the way he tasted, the way his breath hitched, the way he whispered my name like a curse and a prayer.

When we were both breathless and shaking, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I rolled over onto my back again and he straddled my hips, his knees on either side of my waist. My cock stood up, thick and rigid, the tip flushed dark and glistening. He reached behind, guiding me to his perfect, tight hole, still wet and open from my mouth. He sank down slowly, inch by agonizing inch. The sensation was incredible, a deep, full ache that bordered on pain but was pure, unadulterated pleasure. I filled him completely, my long, thick throbbing cock pressing against every sensitive spot inside him. He paused, his body adjusting, his hands braced on my chest. My hands were on his hips, my thumbs stroking his skin, my eyes locked on his, full of a tenderness that almost broke me.

Then he began to move. He rose up slowly, until just the head of my cock was inside him, then sank back down, taking me all the way to the hilt. He set a slow, deliberate rhythm, a grinding circle of his hips that made me gasp. It wasn’t frantic; it was a deep, soulful connection. He rode me, his head thrown back, his hands roaming my chest, my stomach. My hands roamed him, too, stroking his cock, pinching his nipples, gripping his ass. The coil of pleasure in my gut tightened again, but this time it was different. It was deeper, fuller, more profound. “Rory,” I breathed, my voice strained. “I’m close.” He leaned down, his chest against mine, and kissed me, swallowing his cry as I exploded inside him. He felt the hot, powerful pulses of my load filling him, and it sent his over the edge. His own orgasm ripping through him, his hot cum spurting between our chests, a wave of bliss so intense it left him shaking and breathless.

Afterward, we lay in the dark. His head on my chest. His hand over my heart.“What happens tomorrow?” I asked.

“Same thing that happened today.”

“And the day after?”

“We figure it out.” He lifted his head, looked at me. “Together. Remember?”

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him.

He kissed me. Soft. Unhurried.

And I let myself pretend that the world outside this room didn’t exist.

But it did. It always did.

I woke to an empty bed.

The sheets beside me were cold. For a moment, panic grabbed my throat. Then I heard clattering from the kitchen and the smell of coffee.

I found him at my stove, wearing nothing but his boxers, flipping pancakes. He looked up and grinned.

“Figured you’d be hungry.”

I leaned against the doorframe. “You cook?”

“I’m full of surprises.”

He slid a plate onto the counter. I sat. He sat across from me. No phones. No clocks. Just us.

“I have office hours at ten,” I said.

“I know.”

“Someone might see you leave.”

“Then I’ll leave now.” He stood, kissed my forehead. “But I’ll be back tonight. If you want.”

I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no.

He smiled like he already knew the answer.

He was right. He came back that night. And the night after that. And the night after that, until the rhythm of his presence became a new kind of normal, a secret heartbeat beneath the surface of my carefully ordered life.

We developed routines. He’d text me when his library shift ended, a single emoji that meant I’m coming over. I’d leave the door unlocked. He’d slip in after midnight, shoes off, quiet as a cat, and crawl into bed beside me. In the mornings, we’d pretend we were strangers. He’d leave before the sun was fully up, pressing a kiss to my shoulder while I pretended to sleep.

I told myself it was sustainable. I told myself we were careful.

But careful doesn’t matter when you start to slip.

It happened on a Thursday. I was in the faculty lounge, grading papers, when Professor Hendricks walked in. She was old enough to be my grandmother, sharp-eyed and soft-spoken, with the kind of attention to detail that made her dangerous in department meetings. She poured herself a cup of coffee, sat down across from me, and smiled.

“How are your sections this semester, Professor Thorne?”

“Fine. Good. They’re good.”

She nodded. Took a sip of her coffee. “I saw you at the library the other day. With that young man behind the circulation desk.”

My hand froze over the paper I was grading. “Oh?”

“He seems nice. Friendly.” She set her cup down. “You know him?”

“He’s a student. Freshman. I’ve seen him around.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.

I waited until she left, then I sat there for ten minutes, my heart pounding, my palms sweating. She knew. Or she suspected. And if she suspected, it was only a matter of time before someone else did too.

That night, I told Rory we had to stop.

He didn’t argue. He didn’t fight. He just looked at me with those eyes, the ones that saw right through me, and said, “Okay.”

And then he left.

The door clicked shut. The apartment went quiet. And I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the empty space where he’d been, and wondered how something that felt so right could be so wrong.

The silence was the loudest thing I had ever heard. It was a physical presence in the apartment, a heavy blanket that smothered the familiar hum of the refrigerator, the distant city traffic, the beat of my own heart. For three days, I moved through it like a ghost. I went to my classes. I held my office hours. I graded papers with a meticulous, soul-crushing attention to detail. I did everything right. I followed the rules. I built the walls back up, higher and thicker than before.

And I was miserable.

The fourth day, a Friday, I broke. I couldn’t face the empty apartment. I couldn’t face the quiet. I went to The Hollow, the place where it all began. I sat at a table in the corner, nursing a black coffee, and watched the new barista wipe down the counter. She was efficient, professional. She didn’t notice the customers. She was everything I was supposed to be.

The bell chimed. I didn’t look up. I didn’t have to. I felt him the same way I felt the silence.

He sat down across from me. He didn’t order anything. He just looked at me, and in his eyes, I saw the same three days of misery I had been living.

“You look like hell,” he said.

“So do you.”

“Fair enough.” He leaned forward, his hands on the table. “I can’t do this, Cass.”

“We have to.”

“Why? Because of some old lady in the faculty lounge who might have suspected something? Because of a rule that doesn’t even apply to us? Is your career worth more than this? Is it worth more than us?”

“It’s not about the career,” I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “It’s about the fear. It’s about waking up every morning wondering if today is the day it all comes crashing down. I spent my whole life building something stable. Something that was mine. And I’m terrified of losing it.”

“I’m not asking you to lose it,” he said, his voice softening. “I’m asking you to share it.”

I looked away, out the window, at the people walking by, living their uncomplicated lives.

“I quit,” he said.

My head snapped back to him. “What?”

“The library. I quit this morning.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the table. It was a course schedule. “And I changed my major. Switched to business. My classes will be in Wheeler Hall, on the other side of the quad.”

I stared at the paper, at the neat block letters that spelled out a future I hadn’t planned for.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’d rather be a broke business major with you than a successful anything-else without you.” He reached across the table, his fingers brushing mine. “I told you I’d be there for you. I meant it. Whatever it takes. We’ll figure it out. Together.”

The walls I had so carefully rebuilt crumbled into dust. All the fear, all the planning, all the rules—they dissolved in the face of that simple, devastating declaration.

I stood up. He stood up. I walked around the table, and I kissed him in the middle of The Hollow, in front of God and the new barista and anyone else who cared to look. It wasn’t a secret kiss. It wasn’t a desperate kiss. It was a promise.

Six months later.

The snow fell in thick, silent flakes outside the window of my—our—apartment. The tree we’d bought, a pathetic little thing from the grocery store, was strung with lights and adorned with a handful of mismatched ornaments, including a clay monstrosity Rory had made in some elective art class that he insisted was a “star.”

Rory was on the couch, a textbook open on his lap, a highlighter cap between his teeth, a furrow of concentration on his brow. He was muttering about supply chains and market equilibrium, and I was supposed to be grading my own students’ final papers on postcolonial literature. But I wasn’t. I was watching him.

I watched the way the firelight from the cheap electric heater we’d bought caught the auburn in his hair. I watched the way his freckles stood out against his pale winter skin. I watched the way he scrunched his nose when he was concentrating on a particularly difficult passage.

He looked up, catching me staring. He grinned. “What, Professor Thorne? Am I being a bad study partner?”

“Terrible,” I said, closing my laptop and setting it aside. I walked over to the couch, nudging his textbook aside with my knee. “You’re distracting.”

“It’s my face,” he said, his voice full of mock solemnity. “It has a powerful gravitational pull.”

“It really does,” I agreed, leaning down to kiss him.

It was a slow, sweet kiss, the kind that had become our default. The kind that spoke of lazy Sunday mornings and shared meals and late-night study sessions. The kind that spoke of a future that wasn’t planned, but was being built, day by day, brick by brick.

“You know,” he said, his arms wrapping around my waist, pulling me down onto the couch with him, “Professor Hendricks cornered me after my macroeconomics final.”

I stiffened. “She did?”

“Yeah. Asked me if I was enjoying my new major. Told me she was glad I’d found my calling.” He paused, a wicked glint in his eye. “Then she asked if I was still seeing that ‘nice English TA’ and told me to invite you to the department holiday party.”

I stared at him. “She what?”

“She said—and I’m quoting here—’that boy looks at you like you hung the moon, Rory. It’s about time you let him.’” He laughed, a real, unburdened laugh that was my favorite sound in the world. “I think she’s our number one fan.”

I shook my head, a smile spreading across my face. “I’ll be damned.”

“Guess we don’t have to be so careful anymore,” he said, his hand tracing the line of my jaw.

“No,” I said, turning my head to kiss his palm. “I guess we don’t.”

I wasn’t supposed to notice him. He was a customer. A complication. A gust of wind against my carefully stacked dominoes. But he was also the man who quit his job for me, who changed his life for me, who looked at me like I was worth the risk. He was the man who taught me that the best things in life aren’t planned. They’re not scheduled or syllabused or contained in neat, tidy boxes.

They’re found in a coffee shop eight minutes before close. They’re built in the quiet moments between kisses. They’re discovered in the shared silence of a snow-covered evening, with a pathetic little tree and the promise of a lifetime of tomorrows.

“I love you,” I said.

He smiled. That troublesome, wonderful grin. “I know,” he whispered, his lips brushing against mine. “Now, help me with this econ homework before my brain melts.”