Chapter 6: On My Way

Chloe's POV

Nell's sits at the far end of College Street — local place, vinyl booths with the paint cracking off, radio locked on nineties country, not one Delta Sigma pin in the room. I steered Carter into the booth farthest back, the one facing the wall, and wedged myself into the corner. Every time the door hinge creaked, my spine answered before I did.

"You look like you're casing the place." He propped his chin on one hand, gray-blue eyes tracking wherever mine went. "Never had lunch with a good-looking guy before?"

"Yesterday the anonymous account posted a blurry side profile. Mystery couple outside Whitfield Hall. Comments already in the hundreds." I kept my voice down. "One clear shot of our faces and we're meme material in three minutes."

"So you're scared of being talked about," he said slowly, "and you still invited me out alone."

That shut me up. The server came to pour water, and I practically launched out of my seat, my thank-you so perfectly enunciated I wanted to slap myself.

Food arrived. I folded the napkins straight, lined up the silverware, and pushed a set across to him. Full dimples.

"Call it a peace offering. I sincerely apologize for yesterday."

A cost sheet was running in my head: three down, ninety-seven to go, every one of them needing this person's cooperation. Keeping up the rivalry meant two extra hours of negotiation per task. Better to buy it out at once.

Echo cut in right then, that lazy drawl, like a guy half-sprawled on the couch with a bag of chips watching the game: [Friendly reminder — your collaborator is currently looking at you. Enjoy your negotiation.]

I told it internally to get lost.

"From here on out, truce. Deal?" I put my right hand out.

He looked at it for two full seconds before setting his over mine. Warmer than I expected. His fingertips stiffened once, lashes flickered, and then his grip steadied — and held a beat longer than any handshake has reason to. I figured he'd just never shaken hands before. I squeezed back and finished the job.

"Good friends from here on. Bros."

Whatever had been softening in his face clicked off.

"...Bros." He said it like he was reading out a sentence. But he didn't pull away. He held on half a second more before he let go.

I came back from the bar with two peach hard seltzers, five percent. "We've got class this afternoon, so low-proof for now. Spring break, we go all out." He twisted the cap off my bottle without being asked, without a word.

"Every grudge between us ends in this bottle. I'm finishing mine." I knocked it back. He watched me for two seconds, said nothing, and drained his. I felt quietly smug. That counted as taming him.

Under five minutes. His face went red from his cheeks all the way down to his collarbones, a vein rising in his neck, sweat at his temple. I laughed and got my phone up to film it — stopped halfway. He hadn't come back with anything. This person had not once in all the years I'd known him let a chance to talk back go by. I pressed my hand to his forehead. Burning.

"Carter? Hey — what's wrong?"

He braced against the table edge and got out two words. "Allergic reaction."

Alcohol allergy. Hereditary. His whole life. My face went white — not because I was scared, but because the first thing that surfaced was what happens to the tasks, and then I was disgusted with myself for thinking it.

I got his arm over my shoulder and took his weight, let him lean into the crook of my neck, and kept patting his back. "Almost there. Hold on, don't scare me."

My brain was running numbers: if he goes down, ninety-seven tasks go with him.

My hands were shaking. That kind of shaking doesn't come from numbers. He forced his eyes open and looked at me from closer than he had any right to be. I told him to close them and rest. He didn't. He gave a small laugh I couldn't read.

"You knew you were allergic and you still drank it?" My voice came out tight. "What is wrong with you?"

He turned his face to the window. "That's different."

Different how? He wouldn't say. That unanswered half-sentence circled me for a long time after.

The ER called it mild — antihistamine, thirty minutes of observation, no IV. I let out a long breath. Half relief that he was fine, half relief that we wouldn't miss two-thirty. The ride back was quiet enough to hear the turn signal clicking. I spoke first.

"Two-thirty. My dad's bio lecture, Biology 101. Come sit in with me."

He kept looking out the window. "Does your dad know who I am?"

"So what if he does?"

Two more seconds of silence, then a short, almost-inaudible scoff. "Fine."

At the fork between the biology building and the lab, he said he needed to grab something, five minutes. I could've waited downstairs. The task wasn't going to wait with me, so I followed him up.

I sat on the hallway bench facing the floor-to-ceiling glass. Cold white light inside. Workstations, screens, and the person standing at his desk — Garrett Lindqvist, every cuff button fastened, that steady smile parked just short of his eyes. The one I'd cold-shouldered at lunch.

Carter sat, opened a branch on screen, stared at it for three seconds. The warmth in him switched off. That profile I'd had three years of in high school. He shut the laptop, stood, reached for his jacket. Garrett said something — I couldn't make it out through the glass. Carter's line came through the half-open door without losing a syllable.

"You crashed your own branch — why is it on my desk. Triple the data, five new edge conditions, doubled benchmarks. You dug the hole, you fill it."

Garrett replied. Carter moved half a step closer, half a table between them, voice dropped — but the hallway was too quiet.

"You want to use the project to corner me? Playing petty games over this —" a beat, "— you think you're in any position to compete with me for her."

Garrett's smile didn't fall. The light behind his eyes did. "So you finally admit it."

Carter didn't step back. Didn't lower his voice. "Anyone with eyes knows it."

I sat on that bench and didn't move. Not because I couldn't. Because I didn't know how. The AC slid along the back of my neck, and my heart was going at a rate that wasn't right, and it took me two full seconds to separate that feeling from the kind I get right before a task goes sideways.

The door swung open. He stepped out and nearly walked into me, stride breaking half a beat. "You're still here?"

I stood up, kept my usual tone. "Waiting. What was all that."

"He dumped a crashed run on me and padded it with triple the data. His hole, he fills it."

"And the second half."

"There was no second half."

"I heard 'anyone with eyes.'"

He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around. Sunlight came through the ivy-covered window in a stripe across his face. He looked at me for a moment — said nothing, asked what time the class was, then tilted his head toward the stairs. "Go get a seat."

I took two steps and looked back. He had his phone out, typing. "Two-thirty. Are you actually coming?"

"Yeah."

One word. I didn't believe it.

Biology 101 was a room I'd known since I was small. Worn wooden armrests, the fixed third-row seat by the window, the glass on the lectern that never came fully clean. Douglas Bennett had his head down over his notes, two more gray hairs than last month. I sat toward the back, dropped my bag on the seat beside me to hold his spot, pulled out my phone.

Are you still coming to the bio lecture this afternoon? Sent it before I remembered I'd asked him out loud fifteen minutes ago.

Two minutes later, the screen lit up.

Carter: On my way.

I looked up. At the front of the room, my father looked up too, his eyes sweeping the hall before stopping on the empty seat beside me.

Echo: [Dare Four countdown still running. Enjoy your afternoon.]