Mabel

13

I come home one night, fairly late, from the studio–bag hanging off my shoulder and sketchbook tucked underneath one arm as I smile a little creepily at a photo of Kai on my phone.

I'd gotten paint on the device and Kai had laughed so hard at my exclamation of "literally fuck me, Vincent van Gogh" (a common turn of phrase, of course) that there were tears streaming down his face when I looked at him.

It was pretty. Too pretty not to paint. Or draw. I considered doing this one with charcoal, but I don't want to lose the beautiful array of colours in his skin tone anymore.

Monochrome does not do him justice, that's for sure.

I expect the room to be empty, Talia knocked out with a textbook on her face in her room and Luca getting his 'mandatory eight hours of sleep' to maintain his 'unrealistically perfect looks.'

The man has never done so much as a single all-nighter in his entire college life and I really need a guidebook on how the fuck because lately I've been doing art well into the night and then into the morning to meet the stupid mini-deadlines Kang gives us so we stay on top of things.

To be fair, if he didn't give me those, I would probably be spending my studio time getting lost in Kai Adkins's eyes a lot more than I already do–and not the painted ones.

But it's not empty.

Not at all, because I nearly scream when Talia flicks on the small lamp on the table beside her, sprawled out on the sofa like some sort of weird, sensual villain in a Bond film and says, "Unbelievable, you were drawing again, weren't you? You're so whipped."

I recover from my unsubtle lurch backwards at her sudden appearance, and gain a haughty look as I pat down non-existing wrinkles in my clothes, sneering, "No, I am not. I want to get my project done, Talia."

I leave out the part where Kai came to visit me, as he does way more than I imagine he should have time for and that I ended up doing very close to absolutely nothing but pining after him like a damn pilot fish following a shark around.

Talia looks at me with a set, unconvinced, frown that looks somehow menacing with the shadows the light casts on her (see, this is why I couldn't draw my friends. If it was Kai sitting there he'd look incredible.)

"Just tell him already."

"No!"

Talia doesn't even need to specify for me to know exactly what she's referring to.

The menace whines some sort of garbled version of my name that sounds mostly like "MabelOoO-uh," varying levels of volume and pitch throughout her drone, intending to get her frustration across.

I set down my things, and go to walk out of the room before Talia snaps, "Hear me out!"

Ugh, I am a kind human unfortunately, unlike my invasive friend, so, I turn back around and gesture for her to go ahead, even though I'll likely ignore whatever she says.

"I told you he has the hots for you before you even met him! He has much more than the hots now–come on! Don't wait until after midterms you punk-ass bitch I'll shrivel up."

That's her pep talk huh.

I consider this.

The grand old question that has been re-emerging and floating about in my mind like unwanted driftwood for months, now.

Does Kai truly have "the hots" for me?

Besides getting embarrassed sometimes, I would have to give a firm no on that, purely based on my own research and evidence.

Additionally, the source (Witness: Ms. Talia Alpin, age 22, certified pain in the ass and very cranky when woken up outside of her designated sleeping range–but loveable, proven by Evidence 1: Morin Valdez. Sufficient evidence to convince anyone) is rather unreliable, unfortunately.

She's been wrong about many many things in her life, particularly romantic things.

But I am optimistic, bordering on stupid in all fairness, and so I mull this over a little longer in complete silence as Talia stares at me in anticipation.

"Okay. I'll think about it."

Talia whoops in response.

<・)))><<

And boy do I think about it.

I think about it so much that I can't stop thinking about it any time I'm within 300 miles of the man in question.

And that's all the time. We hardly ever leave campus, never mind the city.

But on this day in particular, we do leave campus, albeit together so the Thinking TM doesn't actually stop.

We sit on a bench outside Starbucks, a very big mistake on our part because it's December now and it's cold as fuck but I like to think it's rather romantic; drinking hot chocolate while bundled up and sitting close together to prevent frostbite, as I'd reasoned it.

And I'm done thinking about it, because Kai gets whipped cream on his nose and my hands move to wipe it off for him, licking it off my finger without a moment's hesitation.

"The cinnamon cream is good."

Kai chuckles, the initial shock of my actions wearing off and just nods in agreement, along with a quiet admission of, "Yeah, it is..."

And since I'm done thinking, my mind immediately thinks okay, quick, Bridget Jones—what is the classic RomCom way to get a cute winter kiss?

I take a sip of my drink in thought, my mind yelling eureka! when cream gets caught on my top lip and I look over to Kai with an awkward attempt at being sort of seductive as I say, "You wanna try mine?"

Good, it's going great. Good idea—

"Sure," Kai says, missing the point entirely and taking my cup from my hands, taking a quick drink and handing it back to me. "Ah, that's nice. I'm not that big of an almond fan, though," he concludes obliviously.

It's okay.

This sort of thing happened to Bridget, too–didn't it?

I belatedly notice Kai's wistful glance across to the shops across the street, tiny smile on his face as if he's finding amusement in a secret and I take out my phone, snapping a picture of his profile.

Ink, I decide.