She texted goodnight at 2:14 AM.
Not eight. Not eleven, the number I’d fought so hard for and apparently lost anyway without noticing. Two-fourteen, with an explanation attached. Something about finally finishing a section of a paper she’d been putting off, followed immediately by goodnight, Nathan, like the curfew we’d negotiated over an actual pout hadn’t happened at all.
I hadn’t replied. Mostly because I’d been asleep. Partly because I wasn’t sure what you said back to a two-fourteen-in-the-morning goodnight from a woman who owned a house with a pool.
I was still turning all of it over the next morning, halfway under Mrs. Kessler’s minivan at Tanaka Auto, when Jackson wandered in,which wasn’t unusual. He didn’t technically work there, but he showed up often enough that Mr. Tanaka had stopped asking questions about it around the six-month mark. Three, sometimes four times a week. Somewhere between ’friend of an employee’ and ’unpaid, unofficial mascot.’
"8mm."
Jackson grabbed the socket off the tray and dropped it into my open hand without looking away from whatever he was scrolling through on his phone.
"I still don’t get it," he said. "A penthouse."
"Not a penthouse." I tightened the bolt, voice muffled from under the car. "A house. Two stories. On its own. Got its own pool and everything."
"A whole house. In this city."
"Yep."
There was a pause, followed by a low whistle.
"I thought she was just, like... hot-professor-with-a-PhD rich. Comfortable rich. Nice-apartment rich."
"Yeah. Me too, brother."
"This is a different tier of rich."
"I’m aware."
"This is private-chef rich."
I paused mid-turn, wrench frozen for half a second. "Don’t."
"I’m just saying—"
"I know what you’re saying. Don’t say it out loud. It doesn’t need to exist as a sentence I’ve heard."
Jackson laughed, entirely too pleased with himself, and crouched down near the edge of the car so he could actually see my face instead of just my legs.
"So. What are you gonna do?"
I slid out from under the car far enough to look at him properly.
"Oh, now you’re stuck too, huh."
"I didn’t say I was stuck. I asked what your plan was."
"I don’t have a plan, Jackson. I have a girl who apparently owns a house with a pool, who’s brilliant, charming, ’medically confirmed a genius,’ and who also blushed and bolted out of my car like she’d never been caught being soft before in her entire life. There’s no plan for that. There’s just... this." I gestured vaguely at myself, at the car, at the general disaster of my current existence. "This is the plan."
"That’s not a plan. That’s just vibes."
"Yeah, well. Start the car."
Jackson leaned in through the driver’s side window and turned the key. The engine caught clean, humming low and steady. I slid out from under the car, wiped my hands on the rag hanging from my back pocket, and grabbed the water bottle off the workbench.
I texted Mrs. Kessler first — All fixed, whenever you get a chance to swing by — before I let myself open the other conversation waiting at the top of my notifications.
7:02 AM
Nicole: Good morning 😊
7:03 AM
Nicole: Did you eat before leaving for work? You said you had a shift this morning.
I stared at the timestamps. Both sent within a minute of each other, early, like she’d fired them off before she was even fully awake. She’d also remembered the shift thing from the excuse I’d tried to use to get out of dinner last night. Not exactly something she had any real reason to hold onto.
My eyes moved down to the rest.
7:19 AM
Nicole: You’re probably busy. Reply when you can.
7:36 AM
Nicole: I’ve got three classes today and something off campus this afternoon. A department thing, mostly boring. In case you don’t see me around today.
I stood there for a second, phone in hand, doing the quiet math on how normal all of that sounded. Not flirty. Not a tease, not a loophole, not a pout. Just her telling me where she’d be, the way you’d let someone know, if you expected them to notice you weren’t around.
"Why the long face?"
I hadn’t heard Jackson walk over. He glanced at the screen before I could angle it away, and his eyebrows went straight up.
"Dude." A grin started climbing his face. "She’s already sending you her schedule. You guys are moving fast."
"Don’t you have somewhere else to be?"
"Not even a little."
Jackson leaned against the car, arms crossed, clearly settling in for the long haul.
"Text her back."
"I was about to."
"Sure you were." Jackson leaned in, clearly trying to catch a glimpse of whatever I typed, and I angled the phone away before he could.
"Personal space, Jackson."
He laughed, unbothered, backing off with both hands raised.
I typed out something short — Morning. Ate before my shift, don’t worry. Hope the department thing isn’t as boring as you’re expecting — and hit send. Two gray checkmarks appeared underneath it. Delivered. No blue, no "read" indicator, nothing.
Probably in the middle of her first class already.
I set the phone down on the workbench, screen-up, out of habit more than expectation, and turned back to the car still up on the lift.
"Alright. Help me finish up. I wanna get out of here with enough time to actually shower before we head back."
Jackson grabbed a rag off the bench and got to work without further comment, which was, for him, a genuine act of mercy.
We got to campus a little after two, just in time for my one class of the day. Today had a lighter schedule than usual, which felt like a small mercy after the morning I’d had.
Nicole still hadn’t replied by the time I sat down. Not that it was bothering me. It absolutely was not bothering me, a fact I reminded myself of every time I glanced at my phone between notes, which was not as often as it sounds.
When class let out, Jackson checked his phone the second we stepped into the hallway and immediately brightened.
"Evelyn wants to meet up. I’m out."
"Wow. Real loyalty there."
"You’d do the same."
"I absolutely would." No point pretending otherwise. "Go. Abandon me. See if I care."
He was already walking backward toward the exit, grinning. "You’ll survive."
He left, and I started toward the parking lot alone, only to hear my name called from somewhere off to the side.
"Nathan!"
Sasha, jogging a little to catch up, a girl I didn’t recognize trailing a step behind her.
"Hey," I said. "What’s up?"
"Nothing, just heading to the library. This is Maya, by the way. She’s in my Materials Science class." Sasha gestured between us. "Maya, this is Nathan."
Maya looked me over, entirely unsubtle about it, then glanced at Sasha with an expression that needed no translation.
"He’s hot."
"He can hear you," Sasha said, though she was smiling too, not even a little embarrassed on either of their behalf.
"I’m aware he can hear me. That was the point."
I huffed a short laugh. "Hey. How’s it going."
"Better now," Maya said.
Sasha rolled her eyes so hard I was a little worried for her, then apparently decided the best course of action was to simply pretend Maya hadn’t said anything at all.
"Where are you headed?" Sasha asked.
"Home, probably. Long day."
"You could—" She paused, like she was catching up to her own sentence. "Do you want to join us? At the library?"
I raised an amused eyebrow. "In the library. For what, exactly? We don’t even share a class."
Sasha blinked, visibly realizing the hole in her own logic a half-second too late. "Right. That’s—"
"Doesn’t matter," Maya cut in, entirely unbothered by the flaw. "He could just sit there."
"Maya."
"What? I’m being helpful."
I smiled despite myself, mostly at Sasha’s expression, which had settled somewhere between embarrassment and mild homicidal intent aimed at her friend.
"I think I’ll pass on sitting in a library for no reason," I said. "But thanks."
"Can I get your number, at least—" Maya started, already reaching for her phone.
"Absolutely not," Sasha said, fast enough that it came out before Maya had even finished the sentence, already grabbing her by the arm and steering her away.
"Bye, Nathan!"
I laughed. "Bye, Sasha."
Sasha tugged Maya off toward the library, and I turned back toward my car—
Nicole. Standing a short distance off, arms folded, watching the whole thing with an expression that was doing absolutely nothing to hide how entertained she was.
She waited until Sasha and Maya were well out of earshot before pushing off the wall she’d been leaning against and walking over, unhurried.
"Popular today."
I smiled despite myself.
"When did you even get back?"
"Just now."
I glanced around the parking lot: students heading to their own cars, a couple of professors walking past, nothing about the scene remotely private.
"You know we’re in a parking lot, right? With actual people in it."
She followed my gaze, entirely unfazed by what she saw. "I’m aware."
"That doesn’t concern you at all."
"Not particularly." She came to a stop beside my car, leaning back against it to face me.
A pause, like the thought had only just occurred to her.
"Can you wait a few minutes? I need to grab something from my office. Then you can drop me home."
"I’m not sure—"
"Five minutes. I’ll be back."
She pushed off my car, walked passed me, turned to face me, and started walking backward with a smile spreading slow and deliberate on her face.
I huffed a laugh despite myself.
Her smile widened at that — exactly the reaction she’d been fishing for — and only then did she turn and head for the building properly.
I shook my head and stood there for a second, watching her go, wondering when exactly "no" had stopped being a word that worked on her. Or maybe it never had, and I just hadn’t tested it properly until now.