Zara’s POV
I had forgotten we had plans. I checked the time on my phone and changed direction and headed toward the small cafe on the east side of campus where Marcus and I had been meeting every Tuesday and Thursday since freshman year.
The cafe was warm and busy when I pushed through the door. It smelled like coffee and something buttery baking in the back and the noise of it — low voices, cups clinking, music coming from somewhere — wrapped around me immediately and I felt my shoulders drop slightly.
I spotted Marcus straight away.
He was in our usual booth at the back. Long legs stretched under the table. One hand around a coffee cup. Phone face down in front of him the way he always put it when he was waiting for someone because Marcus believed that if you were meeting a person yo
