Work Text:
Romance was the furthest thing from your mind.
You had an education to get through, a job to get, and a life to live that you hoped was going to be a good one. And silly things like relationships would only distract you. Besides, college men were… a gamble at best. No matter if it was a shallow frat boy, brick-headed football player, a lazy business major, or an unhygienic esports junkie, there were so many wrong choices that you were exhausted even thinking about trying to find the right one.
So, you just didn’t try. You had more important things to do. You went to class, talked to no one, went to work, and went home to your roommates. It was an easy life (minus the homework).
The spring semester was entering its second week, and you trudged into one of your general education courses. It was too early to tell, but you were beginning to fear that it would be the most sluggish, boring class of the semester. Not only was it unrelated to your major, but none of your friends were in it, leaving you to sit alone to the side and pretend you were listening.
However, before you could settle into your new routine, the professor walked in announcing that today marked the beginning of a partner project that would last for the first month of classes. He has got to be joking. You threw your head back a bit, internally groaning. This is why you should’ve read the syllabus.
“Now I know you may be eager to work with your friends, but the purpose of this project is to help you learn how to work with groups that you may not be used to, which will be essential in the workplace no matter what career you have, so I have assigned you each a partner randomly…”
The professor began listing off the pairings. You may have considered it tedious if you had known anyone, but none of the names meant anything to you, so you had no clue if you would get a good partner or not.
The professor called out your name, you crossed your fingers nonetheless.
“You will be working with David Jacobs.”
Who the heck was David Jacobs? You swiveled your head to the rest of the class, scanning for someone who would be looking for you too. Your eyes caught the gaze of a boy in the front row, and he nodded slightly before grabbing his bag and making his way towards you. You took the approach as an opportunity to take him in. He was tall, with dark hair that was neatly trimmed, but not short. He wore a long sleeved button up shirt with a blue sweater vest over it.
As he got closer to you, he smiled hesitantly and came to a stop in front of you, and you felt your heart leap to your throat. This guy was cute.
You both stared at each other for a moment, seemingly not knowing how to proceed.
After a beat, you cleared your throat, “I’m going to assume that you’re David Jacobs?”
He nodded quickly, “You can call me Davey.”
You nodded your head at the seat next to you, “Then let’s get this over with I suppose. When would you be free to work on this?”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The two of you had agreed on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for the rest of the month, giving you six days to work on it together. You trudged blearily to the library study room you had booked to see Davey already in there, his computer open in front of him.
Davey was dressed more casually today from what you could see, with a flannel tossed on over a debate team t-shirt. Of course this guy is on the debate team. But you didn’t have time to complain when he looked up at you with those bright eyes, eyebrows raised as he took you in.
You stared right back, breaking the silence with a, “Something the matter?”
He shook his head, the hint of a smile gracing his lips, “I always took you for a morning person.”
Always? He had known you for a day and a half. And that day was in a class that you shared at noon, which was far different than nine in the morning. You rolled your eyes, smiling a little to yourself.
“That bad, huh?”
Davey’s eyes widened, his hands going up a bit, “Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that.”
You laughed quietly, “I’ve had the privilege of sleeping in over break, and all my classes start after ten, I’m just not used to being out of bed this soon.”
“Well then, we could do afternoons or nights.”
You waved him off while slinging your backpack on the table, “I wouldn’t want to ruin your social life by sitting in the library two nights a week”. You sat in the chair directly next to him, trying to ignore how close you two now were.
There was nothing inherently intimate about the situation, you were just meeting a guy for a project. And you two were meeting alone, in a room tucked away in the back of the library, where nobody would ever see you. And you were only ten minutes in and already had banter going. And the guy was very attractive.
You would not be so desperate to fall in love with a guy over a group project. Besides, he probably had a girlfriend, or if he didn’t, you surely weren’t his type.
“Do you think I don’t spend my nights at the library?” He looked over at you.
“Well consider this an invitation to go start having a social life.” You grinned in satisfaction as he laughed, his green eyes crinkling at the edges.
Green eyes. You hadn’t noticed that until now. They were clear, like early spring.
You looked away quickly, busying yourself with getting your laptop out. “I think this project is pretty abstract, and I think we can dedicate today to brainstorming.”
Davey followed suit, reaching for his laptop, “I had some ideas last night that I think would work well with the few requirements that we do have, if you’d want to hear them.”
As the morning dissolved into work time, neither of you mentioned at the end of it that not much had been achieved for the project. The laughter you had exchanged was well worth it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The second meeting had been much more productive than the first, with you and Davey finally deciding on a direction for the project that you were both satisfied with. You had both entertained the idea of breaking early, and reconvening next week, but instead you ended up talking more.
You learned that he had two siblings named Sarah and Les, and you noted how he fondly smiled when he recalled childhood memories with them. You told him all about your major, and how excited you were for a more specialized class this semester that you had been waiting for since getting to college. He told you about his friends, and the debate team. You told him about your roommates, and the trip you took last summer.
The two of you ended up talking in that room until well after the reservation was up, only stopping when another study group showed up for their own.
You had waved to Davey as you parted ways, you had a professor to speak to before you went to eat, and he was meeting up with his friends. You had a warm feeling in your chest as you walked across campus, thinking about how easy it was to talk to him. But you weren’t falling. It had only been three days of interacting with him. There was probably some hidden part of him that you hadn’t seen yet, something that would surely quell this feeling immediately, after all you only knew him in an academic setting, maybe he was only showing the good stuff.
A lame excuse. You saw his eyes light up when he was telling stories about the people he loved. You saw him laugh at old memories as if they were only yesterday. He clearly had a lot of love for the world.
Now here you were, scanning for a table in the dining hall, regretfully knowing that you had come in for the lunch rush. All of your own friends usually came much later, but with your early mornings, your eating schedule had been thrown off, and you were hungry now.
As you slowly wandered amongst the tables, your eyes caught sight of dark hair across the room.
Davey was sitting amongst a group of guys. Looking at them, you were sure these were the friends he was talking about. Just as you looked, the table erupted into laughter, and you admired as Davey threw his head back in laughter. You traced the planes of his face, the crinkles of his eyes, and his wide smile for a moment, and you couldn’t help but smile softly. He looked like he was enjoying himself.
But the moment was short lived, one of his friends noticed you looking. You saw him look between you and Davey, a malicious grin spreading on his face. You felt as though you had been dunked with a bucket of ice water as the friend leaned over to Davey, and you didn’t even take the time to watch what happened next.
As fast as you possibly could, you whipped your head away, trying to act totally uninterested. Your face flushed with embarrassment. You quickly found a table on the opposite side of the room, where you couldn’t even see the boys.
You felt so stupid and hoped that maybe you got away in time for Davey not to recognize you, or to assume his friend was making things up. He was just your partner for a class. He hadn’t chosen that position either. What kind of weirdo classmate gawks at a near stranger across the dining hall?
A near stranger who had told you all about his family and friends. A near stranger with clear green eyes, whos eyes crinkled when he smiled. A near stranger who was nerdy enough to be on the debate team, who got his homework done the day it was assigned.
You rubbed your face tiredly. He probably thought you were a total weirdo. There goes any chance you may have ever had. Though of course you never had a chance in the first place.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The following Tuesday, you walked in with multiple excuses in case he asked about the dining hall incident. He had gotten there before you, of course. But you were getting used to your new early mornings, and had arrived before nine as well.
He already had his computer open, and he furrowed his eyebrows at the screen, not noticing you enter.
You took a shaky breath, trying to sound normal, “Something wrong there Dave?”. You’d never called him that before. It just slipped out without much thought. Oh dear lord now he was guaranteed to think you were weird.
His eyes found their way to you, his focus having been broken, and he gave you a small smile, “Well it’s all right now that you’re here”. His smile dropped a moment after he spoke, leaving him looking somewhere between shocked and nervous, “I mean- a problem is easier to solve with two minds than just one”. He looked away from you, then back again, flustered.
You couldn’t help but laugh as you meandered over to your chair, the dining hall incident gone from your mind. “Is that you flirt with everyone? I’m sure they’ll all swoon.”
His gaze locked onto you, and you couldn’t help but feel like he was analyzing you. It only lasted a minute before the smile returns to his face and he jokes, “No, just you. I gotta save up my best for these special occasions.”
You felt a blush creeping up your face and you turned to your computer to hide it. Davey’s phone chimed, and upon looking at it he stood up.
“I shared a document with you and highlighted the dilemma, I need to go grab something from Jack.”
He stepped out of the room and you put your face down on your keyboard. The feelings rising in your chest were becoming harder to ignore, and you swore if he kept up this awkwardly smooth banter with you that you’d explode one of these days.
After a moment of groaning into your computer, you sat up to get to work. You didn’t want him walking in on your little tantrum.
You found the document quite easily, seeing that he inserted some lines from the rubric with lots of question marks around them. Now it was your turn to furrow your eyebrows as you tried to decipher what the professor meant. It was becoming apparent that the purpose of this project was to work with partners, not to actually create anything of value, seeing as the description was so vague and the rubric was so much worse.
You ended up navigating to the main rubric to read those specific lines in context. So focused, you were reading when Davey came back in, holding a notebook that he must have forgotten.
You gestured to him to come and look at your screen, so focused on what you were looking at that you paid no mind to the sound of his chair being pulled closer to yours.
“So what did you find?” His voice was closer than you had ever heard it, and your eyes darted over to where he now leaned closer to your screen. Your mind was reduced to mush as his arm brushed against yours.
“I quite honestly think he has no actual clue what he wants us to do.” You forced out, trying to keep your tone normal, “I mean, look at items eight and nine, they directly contradict.”
A mistake. He leaned in even closer to see exactly what you had referenced, and now your arms were fully pressed against each other. You had gone from observing him across the dining hall to now seeing him closer than you ever had.
You noticed now the faint freckles that spattered his face. You noticed how his eyelashes fluttered when he blinked. You traced the curve of his roman nose. You couldn’t stop the beating of your heart. Dear lord, he was so pretty, and he was so close. And he was seemingly oblivious to the entire matter.
Finally, after what felt like an hour (it was five seconds, let’s be real) he finally leaned back in his chair until you felt the cold absence of his arm against yours.
“What’s the point of having a good partner and a good idea, if it isn’t even clear what we’re doing with it?” He said.
You barely processed what he said. Your face felt so hot that you were sure it was the end of you right there.
Davey said your name, leaning forward again, trying to catch your eye.
You cleared your throat in a panic, you did not want him to notice the complete mess that you had become at the mere touch of his arm. “Maybe that means we can do whatever we want with it?”
Davey hummed in acknowledgement, “Maybe we should stop by his office and make sure. We could go now, since we’re clearly not getting anything done here”. He began packing his things. “Would you want to go with me?”
You nodded, head finally clearing, “Yeah, of course. Then we can get this whole thing over with.”
You saw something uncertain flash in his eyes. “I don’t mind it all that much.”
“Surely you have better uses for your time than aimless group work.” You tried to reason, feeling like you were digging yourself a grave.
He smiled tightly, it didn’t reach his eyes, “I suppose I do.” He walked to the door, turning back to make sure you were following. The two of you walked to the professors office in silence. Once again, you had ruined everything.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You showed up earlier than Davey today. He wasn’t late, you were just super early. You hadn’t been able to sleep, thinking about seeing him again, and apologizing for how Tuesday had ended.
The professor had shed light on the fact that this was a project that required research and some form of presentation. After he finished going through the rubric with you two, Davey had left with only a small “see you Thursday”. He didn’t even look back as he vanished down the hall.
Maybe he would never like you the way that you liked him, but you had at least begun to see him as a friend. And now he probably thought that you thought that he was so unbearable. Good going.
You felt a pain in your chest as he walked in and sat across the table from you. Not even the opposite chair, the opposite diagonal chair. This was intentional distance compared to the warmth of him leaning on you.
The meeting was tense, with the two of you only speaking to discuss research information. You wanted to apologize, to tell him that you didn’t mean it, but your heart was in your throat and the fact that he refused to even look at you made you feel like crying.
After nearly an entire session of failing to meet his eyes, you couldn’t take the chill in the air.
“I’m really sorry Davey.” You croaked out, your voice soft.
He froze, his eyes stared straight at his computer, but his hands froze on the keyboard, “For what?”
You looked straight at him, willing him to look back, “I do enjoy spending time with you, and I didn’t mean to imply that I didn’t.”
“All you said is that you wanted to get this over with, nothing wrong with that.” Davey spoke clearly, but coldly.
“Well…” he was right, “It came off wrong, it’s nothing about you, it really is just a silly project.”
Davey shrugged, “I guess I was just getting used to spending this time with you.”
“I like spending time with you too,” finally his eyes met yours, “I just think it could be better spent without doing useless filler work.”
He looked at you apprehensively, but his eyes shone, “What would you rather do?”
You kept eye contact, searching, trying to figure out what was going on behind that gorgeous green, “Maybe we’d end up here anyways, just doing our own homework. Maybe I’d meet your friends who you seem to adore so much. Maybe we could just do lunch at the dining hall sometime. Anything you’d want.” As if that wasn’t an entire confession of your growing affection for him.
Come on now, you’d only known him for two weeks.
But as he smiled at you, still looking in your eyes, you felt like you hadn’t messed up. You felt like this was exactly what you wanted. And maybe there was a chance he did too.
You two continued to stare for what felt like minutes, until finally he spoke again, “then I suppose we better finish this project.”
And you couldn’t help but smile as he moved over a chair, directly across from you. It was nice to be friends.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You walked into the study room, seeing Davey there in his normal spot. You were getting used to this routine. Waking up early didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had the first week, and you allowed yourself to be excited to see him, even if you’d never let him know that.
But today, something was out of place. There was a singular coffee, sitting in front of your normal seat. You stopped in the doorway, looking between the coffee, and the boy sitting next to it.
You furrowed your eyebrows, “Do you need the extra table space today?”
“It’s for you.” Davey said simply, looking between you and his computer.
You wandered over to your seat, smiling softly. “You didn’t have to Davey.”
“I know. I wanted to.”
“Well then where’s yours?”
Davey shrugged, smiling bashfully over at you, “I don’t really like coffee.”
You turned in your chair so that you were directly facing him, “David Jacobs, do not tell me that you went out of your way to go off campus and get me a drink that you don’t even like.” You had disbelief written all over your face.
“I didn’t. My sister wanted to get coffee with me, and I wanted to see her, and didn’t want to complain, so, I just got you one. I hope it’s a kind you like, it’s the same thing that she ordered.”
You examined the receipt on the cup. Your eyebrows went up as you read your favorite order. “Tell your sister she has good taste?”
Davey’s smile widened, looking more confident, “So you do like it?”
“Dave, this is probably the best thing anyone has ever given me.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You hit submit, closing your computer. After three weeks of work, three weeks of meetings, you had finished the world’s most aimless group project. You heard Davey’s computer close beside you.
It felt almost unreal. You had known Davey for about four weeks now, and in that time he had become one of your favorite people. Which felt weird to say, because you’d only ever seen him outside of this room when you two were in class together, or during the singular dining hall incident.
You had talked about spending time with him outside of here, but would it actually happen? Would he follow through, or would he resume life without you, as he had done before this whole endeavor. Could you even ask him any of this?
“So what now?” You muttered it, suddenly tired now that you were done.
Davey rested his head on his hand, also seemingly tired, “Dinner tomorrow?”
You suddenly felt very awake, turning your head to look at him. Once you caught his gaze, you narrowed your eyes, “Platonically or romantically?”
Your response seemed to wake him up too. He picked his head up, still looking at you. “Well, sitting at dinner with me has to be better than watching me eat it across the dining hall.”
That little shit. Your eyebrows went up and you couldn’t help but guffaw at his response. “I think your friend was totally exaggerating, it was just a glance.”
Davey grinned at you, “The way Jack put it, you had stars in your eyes.”
“Why didn’t you ever bring it up?” You pointed a finger in his face, not bothering to pull away when he grabbed you hand and lowered it.
“You walked in looking like you were going to be sick, I didn’t want to freak you out!” the two of you broke off laughing for a moment, calming himself a bit, he added, “besides, what do you say when someone as gorgeous as that is admiring you? ‘hey I know that you were staring at me like I hung the moon in the sky, let’s go out?’ I was nervous.”
He was still cupping your hand in his. As the laughter faded, you both ended up looking there.
You smiled gently, “I’ll go out to dinner with you Davey.”
He squeezed your hand, “Good, I didn’t have any clue what to do if you said no.”
You looked up to his face, taking it all in without fear of being caught. He was the prettiest man you’d ever seen. Before he could catch you, you leaned in and left a kiss on the tip of his nose. You watched his eyes leave your hands and rest on your face, a blush moving from his ears to the rest of his face.
He smiled at you, eyes crinkling, “At least take me on a date first.”