Chapter 7: Biology 101 — Under the Desk

Chloe's POV

Biology 101 was already full five minutes before the bell.

Hardest seat to grab on campus — registration opened and it was gone in seconds every semester. Douglas stood at the podium sorting his notes without looking up, same yellow legal pad he'd been using since I was twelve. I was wedged into the second-to-last row by the window, textbook flipped to a page that had nothing to do with today's lecture. I hadn't turned it back.

Someone up front was talking, voice low, words leaking out anyway.

"That's her — the one from the basketball arena."

"Her dad's literally at the podium. She's got nerve."

"Her brother's coming back, right? Chris Bennett, like two years above us —"

I didn't look up. The gossip wasn't what was eating at me. What I couldn't stop turning over: Douglas had already swept his eyes over my row twice, and I had zero idea whether Carter would walk in and quietly sit down or open his mouth and blow something up in the middle of my father's lecture. Either one could go sideways. I had no handle on either.

Echo: [Task four countdown started. Eight minutes twenty-six seconds remaining.]

I wrote a number in the margin of my textbook. Then I crossed it out.

Two minutes to the bell, the door opened.

Carter walked in. Only empty seat was the one next to me. He took it without a word, draped his jacket over the chair back, settled in like it had been arranged in advance. Faint smell of cold air came off him — he'd walked fast.

At the podium, Douglas looked up.

One second on my face. Two seconds on the unfamiliar guy beside me. Then nothing. He opened his notes and started the lecture.

Those three seconds lasted longer than finals week.

Carter tilted his head toward me, voice low. "You always this scared of your dad?"

"I'm not scared of him," I said. "I'm scared he'll throw you out."

What I didn't say: "I'm a little scared he'll throw me out too."

He didn't answer. I looked back at my textbook, thumbnail dragging along the page edge without reading a word. Out of the corner of my eye I caught him reach into his jacket pocket, and then something landed at the corner of my book without a sound.

A Malibu coconut candy. Orange wrapper. Exactly like the ones from high school.

My fingers went still.

Late study hall. Back corner of the classroom. Me hunched over vocab lists, him sitting at an angle behind me — he'd flicked one of these same candies into my pencil case without looking up and said, "No poison. You're safe." I'd made a noise, unwrapped it, chewed with my notebook blocking my mouth, and shot back, "Fine. I'll lay off insulting you twice today." Something had shifted at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile.

The memory stopped there. No follow-through. Like a song cut off on its last note.

I closed my fingers around the candy and said nothing — no thank you, no why do you still have these. The wrapper was faintly warm from his pocket.

Then I turned my head and walked straight into his eyes.

Every sound in the room pulled back all at once. Douglas lecturing, pages turning, wind through the ivy outside — all of it went distant.

I realized I was looking at his mouth.

The basketball arena flashed through before I could stop it. I yanked my gaze back to the textbook. Ears hot. Thumbnail pressing harder into the page.

Echo: [Nineteen seconds.]

I moved the candy to my left hand and drew one slow breath.

My right hand crossed into the shadow under the desk edge — and stopped.

Carter's hand was already there.

His fingers found mine in the dark, laced through, and pulled our joined hands down below the desk. Quiet. Deliberate. Tucked out of sight.

My right hand froze halfway. I sat there a full two seconds before it registered.

He moved first.

I fixed my eyes on Douglas at the podium and ran the loop: it's just holding hands, it's nothing, two sets of fingers, basically a handshake, there is no meaningful difference between this and —

Carter's fingers tightened slowly around mine.

The loop shut down.

Douglas wrote cell division on the board. Chalk sharp against green. Someone two rows up flipped a page. Outside, somebody shouted on the quad. The whole room kept moving, ordinary and undisturbed. Only the two hands under the desk knew something had shifted.

His hand was warm. My palm was starting to sweat.

Carter's gaze came off the board and landed on the side of my face. I felt the exact weight of it. I didn't look.

"Bennett." His voice dropped lower. "What exactly is this?"

"My dad's teaching," I said. "Don't lose focus." And stop making me lose mine.

He didn't let go. Fingers pressed tighter. He leaned a fraction closer, just enough that I felt the air between us shift.

"Does your dad know his daughter's holding some guy's hand under his own desk?"

His breath grazed my cheek. Something in my head shorted out. I needed one line to hold the moment down — fast, anything, as long as it kept me from visibly falling apart in row seven of my father's lecture hall —

"I've never held a guy's hand before," I said. "Just curious. Wanted to see if it would generate any sparks."

Steadier than I expected. I almost believed it myself.

He went quiet for two seconds.

Then his fingers loosened — and tightened again. Not a grip adjustment. Something slower. More deliberate. Like a circuit misfiring before it caught. Like he hadn't decided to do it until it was already done.

I didn't look at him. I held the Malibu candy in my left fist and kept my eyes on my father, who was still explaining cell division like nothing in this room had gone sideways at all.

Douglas's voice filled the room, steady and even. The ivy outside the window moved in the wind. Everything looked exactly the same as it had ten minutes ago.

Everything except my hand.