The library was quiet around them, the after dinner hush, a few other students scattered at distant tables with headphones in. Zara looked at him at this person who had read an entire psychology chapter not for an assignment but to understand her, specifically, without being asked and felt the careful architecture of this is fake, this is for the cameras, this doesn’t count give another quiet inch.
“You don’t have to be patient,” she said. “This isn’t” She gestured between them, the same gesture from the path days ago. “This is supposed to be temporary. Strategic.”
“I know what it’s supposed to be.”
“Noah.”
“I know.” He held her gaze, steady, unhurried. “I’m not asking you to define anything. I’m just telling you what I did last night, because I thought you’d want to know, because” a s
