back from lunch.

The light spatter of moisture that had accompanied us through our meal rolled into a strong downpour. As soon as we stepped outside of the Chinese restaurant tucked into a corner at the strip mall, icy water struck my face and hands like falling pins. I gasped out of shock, "Shit."

Quen held a hand over his eyes. He smiled blissfully down at me, his cheeks ruddy from the 火鍋, as if we weren't being soaked to the bone. Neither of us had brought an umbrella, so I offered, "Back to the dorm?" It was the closest form of shelter.

Quen took my hand in his. "Lead the way."

We broke into a jog, dashing across the water-slicked road. I had hoped we would be able to arrive in five minutes, but I underestimated my ability to run for that long. Quen wasn't even out of breath when I stumbled into a walk beside him, holding up my finger to indicate that I needed a minute. Damn athletes.

Instead, he dropped his pace to a stroll. His hair was plastered to his temples, made shiny by the water. "Let's take our time."

"We're going to catch a cold."

"So be it."

I laughed amusedly. So be it. If Quen was happy, I was happy. As we walked, he swung our hands merrily back and forth.

And as we walked, I apologised for irrationally ignoring him after seeing Joelle and him together at the mall. I told him how long I'd cared for him this way. I recalled short memories I had of him, explaining how he looked from my point of view and the things that had run through my head in our encounters. With each tale, his eyes grew more and more starstruck, like his favourite book character had come to life before his very eyes.

The college campus emerged before us, quiet and pensive on a rainy Saturday afternoon. We darted underneath the canopy of any tree we could find, weaving our way closer to home. Quen kept asking me to tell him more about the time we'd spent together, and I'd happily obliged him.

I told him that the flute was now my favourite instrument. I told him that his SciBall hairstyle was devilishly handsome, but I preferred when his locks were soft and untouched. Quen's face flushed a bright pink, and with a giddy smile on his lips, he asked me no more questions.

When we hurried into the foyer of my dormitory, Quen shook the water from his hair like an excited puppy. Droplets from his head flung all around the room. "You're going to drench the furniture," I chastised.

Quen glanced around with a bashful smile. "It'll evaporate?"

I laughed and tugged him toward the lifts. Our hands didn't part as we entered and I pressed the button for the eighth floor. Once through the common room—which was thankfully empty—I unlocked my door and hurried inside.

A belated wave of gratitude washed over me as I remembered that Riley had taken a strategic visit to Carsonville. Maybe she preempted what would happen before I did—having had more experience with serious relationships than me—but I was glad to have somewhere to continue hanging out with Quen. I felt like I could spend hours and hours with him, not even kissing, just talking.

I'd missed his company so much and it was only just hitting me now that I had him back. All of him. I'd missed him making fun of the absurd things I had to advertise on social media. I missed challenging ourselves with the same coding milestones. I missed our library study sessions and distracting conversations about anything and everything, scientists, films, food, our families.

My feelings for Quen made me frantic and nervous but Quen himself had always made me calm, comfortable and happy. I wondered aloud how he'd never seen that.

Quen shed his shoes and jacket. He took a seat at my desk, scoffing with mock-indignation. "You didn't tell me."

"Well, I was convinced you didn't like me. You didn't like influencers, you shot my date down, and then went out with Jo. I wasn't going to mess up our friendship dynamic by making things awkward. But I did try." I shed my shoes and puffer coat, satisfied that the sweater underneath was dry enough. "I teased you. Made all those little jokes. Smiled at you a heck of a lot."

"I thought you didn't like me because you acted like that with everyone. Noah, Callum, Joelle. Even strangers you've never met before. You can switch on the charm like that," he snapped his fingers, "and then you're suddenly everyone's best friend. When I asked you about it at SciBall, that was me trying to figure out if I was special to you. I thought I wasn't, and I wasn't going to mess up our friendship."

So he hadn't been disapproving that night. He'd been disappointed.

I walked over to Quen and wrapped my arms around his neck. He looked up at me from my chair, his hands resting on my hips, his brown eyes deep as the night sky.

"Well, you are special to me," I whispered.

I smiled before I dipped my head and pressed my lips to his. Quen reacted quickly, parting my legs as he pulled me down into his lap. The planes of our bodies pressed together deliciously as I straddled him, our mouths intertwining again.

When we resurfaced for air, Quen searched my face with a curious expression. "How often will you go to Topaz now that you quit?"

I honestly hadn't given the matter any thought. The last two weeks had been complicated enough. It consisted solely of wading through paperwork for my resignation, my promotion and applying to grad school.

At length, I told him, "I think the most I could handle is twice a month. My friends will physically drag me out if they think I'm being too anti-social, but I don't like drinking too often." Quen's chest deflated as he let out a relieved sigh. My forehead crinkled. "Why are you relieved?"

"I hate Topaz."

My eyebrows shot up. "No way."

"Yes, way. I can practically see the haze of sweat, vape and pheromones as soon as I walk in. There's no place to talk, nor room to actually dance properly. Not that you'd want to, since the music is crap. Plus, the alcohol is overpriced, and there's a drunk couple sucking each other's faces off every five feet." At my gob-smacked expression, Quen gave me a sheepish grimace. "Wait. I'm not judging. It's a perfectly respectable place to work."

"None taken, believe me," I laughed breathily. I agreed with a shocking percentage of what he said, but I'd never expected that to come out of Quen's mouth. With such ardour, too. "But I saw you there all the time. You, Noah and Fraser always came together."

Quen blinked innocently. "I wanted to see you."

I slapped a hand over my mouth and laughed into it.

A fresh wave of joy bloomed in my heart. I couldn't count on both hands the number of times I'd run into Quen at work. Whether he'd joined me on the dance floor, or I'd whisked him away to the VIP lounge, or we'd just exchanged two amicable smiles, my nights were always better when he was there. To discover that he'd given me those nights at the expense of his own comfort just made me appreciate them a whole lot more.

God, but then there were likely so many other things about Quen that I never knew. Maybe he'd hidden them well, or maybe I had been too blind to see it. He probably felt the same about me, and my failed attempts to encourage him.

From another point of view, had I been the unattainable one?

"So you only went there to see me?" I joked, "That's so creepy of you."

Quen only smiled cheekily and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. "But it worked out in the end." His hand cupped my cheek and brought our mouths together again. I sighed blissfully into the kiss.

Yeah. It did.

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On Thursday morning, I approached the Biophysics tutorial classroom to see Quen waiting with his arms full.

I stopped near the drinking fountain alcove, my lips quirking into an amused smile. "What's all this?"

I perused Quen's black polyester sports jacket, the excited gleam in his eyes, and—of course—the red rose and fluffy brown teddy bear in his arms. The bear was small enough to sit upright on my hand and around its neck was a plaid ribbon with a jingling bell.

"I thought I better do flowers and a teddy bear the proper way just to make it super clear I'm into you," Quen quipped. As if we hadn't already been making sotto dirty jokes in all the Biophysics lectures this week.

Kylo Bear and a coded flower were the most romantic gifts I'd ever gotten. That was precisely because it took intimacy and true thoughtfulness to give such unconventional gifts. They were manifestations of inside jokes and personal conversations and hours of getting to know each other. They were perpetually tucked into the warmest pockets of my heart.

Still, I received Quen's updated version of the whole flowers-and-teddy combination gratefully.

"Thank you." I tiptoed to kiss Quen on the cheek. His grin widened. "I love these. But also, I much prefer the 'improper' way. Your way."

He raised his eyebrows in challenge. "I thought my way was confusing?"

"It keeps me on my toes."

"So..." he drawled, casually shrugging his backpack higher on his shoulders. "You want to be my girlfriend?"

"No," I scoffed, smelling the petals of the rose absent-mindedly. "Where would you get that idea from?"

Quen froze for a second, then cracked an easy, withering smile as my sarcasm sank in. I threw my head back and cackled at him. But, really, did he even have to ask? I loved the rose, I loved the teddy, but there was something else that I appreciated far more. Someone that I adored to bits.

"Ha," he laughed drily. "Asshole."

Quen looped an arm around my waist and pulled me flushed against his body. His eyes scanned the hallway for witnesses.

Then he whispered, "C'mere," and dipped his head toward me.

I craned up to meet Quen's lips, one hand sliding behind his neck and the other cradling his attempts to be conventionally romantic with all the tenderness they deserved, all the tenderness I felt for him, all the tenderness I poured into the kiss.

When I accidentally loosed a breathy purr, Quen chuckled and broke away from me. He guided us to the door, about to pull it open before he dropped to the ground. "Hang on a moment." I paused while he did his laces. Then I watched him rise and adjust the straps of his backpack with great attention to detail.

I arched a brow. "Well?"

"What are you waiting for?" Quen retorted.

I shook my head amusedly. "What are you waiting for?"

Quen's lips parted, then fell shut. His eyes drifted from my face while he pieced together his words. At length, he admitted sheepishly, "I feel really bad about Joelle."

I blinked.

"Oh, thank fuck," I breathed. "Me, too."

I was relieved Quen brought it up. Jo was in another lecture stream, so this would be the first time the three of us met since—

Well, since I became Quen's girlfriend. Would she be upset?

"She's so sweet and earnest, I'd feel like I'm kind of stomping on her heart if we waltz in all lovey-dovey."

Quen nodded soberly. "To be fair, I think her feelings for me were a passing infatuation. She'll be okay."

"So you should walk in first," I remarked. He scoffed as if I'd insulted him. Rolling my eyes, I offered my hand to him. "Fine. Together?"

Quen took my left hand in his, I reached for the door with my right, and we strolled inside with our heads held high. Immediately I noticed that Jo had taken to sitting with her old friends, the ones she sat with in the first few weeks of the semester before joining us.

She was writing in her workbook, and not once did she look up at us.

Until forty-five minutes into the class, when she suddenly pushed her chair out and made a beeline for us. I nudged Quen to draw his attention, though I didn't expect him to blanch and slap a hand to his cheek. "Oh, my God. She's coming over. Why's she coming over?"

I shrugged and said nothing. I had no clue.

Jo stopped at the side of our table and laid a dainty hand on the surface. She leaned in as if to tell us a secret, her face breaking into a cheeky grin.

"Let me just say. I totally called this. You two make a really cute couple."

Beside me, I felt Quen relax.

"Thanks, Jo." I grinned at her. "I really appreciate that."

Quen piped up, rubbing the nape of his neck awkwardly. "I'm sorry about all the mixed messages I sent."

"Don't apologise. I'm a tough cookie," Jo declared. "There's no hard feelings. As for you..." Her eyes swung to me, radiant and purposeful. "You need to take me clubbing one time! It'd be so much fun."

"Deal," I chuckled. Quen might as well have been a fixture of the furniture, from the way Jo didn't glance his way again.

"Great! I'm free all weekends, pretty much." She asked me eagerly, "Surely Topaz?"

From beside me, Quen snickered.

I wasn't ready to be a civilian at Topaz, fighting through the masses. I wasn't ready to face Zach's gossip-hungry ass so soon after mortally humiliating myself last week. Eventually, of course, I would visit him and Charlie and the rest of the crew and bring lots of liquor for them.

I even planned my own addition to the wall of The Office memes in the staffroom: Corporate needed drunk customers to find the different between the Pit and a honeymoon suite.

They're the same picture.

And yes, I was roasting myself. Zach would appreciate the self-deprecating humour, because he was plenty deprecating for me. He would laugh in my face for a straight minute.

So for now, I told Jo, "Pick anywhere but there."

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This is the meme Krista thought up ^

Aimee x