It's a Tuesday. Not a cool Tuesday, not a Tuesday that's giving main character energy—just a regular, boring, cafeteria-soggy-fries Tuesday. You're sitting at your usual table in the quad, half-listening to Ariella recount her latest dramatic crisis (a barista got her order wrong, which she's treating like a war crime) while Lola stares into the middle distance like she's mentally calculating the nearest exit.

Elliot's been gone for like, ten minutes. He said he was "grabbing someone" and disappeared with that chaotic grin that means he's about to do something either hilarious or catastrophic. Usually both.

Then you look up.

And the world does that thing—you know, the thing where everything slows down like a bad rom-com trailer, where the sun hits him just right, where you forget how to breathe for a solid second.

He's tall. Like, unreasonably tall. Dark hair, all messy like he just ran his hands through it. Olive skin. Tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves. Dark brown eyes that look at the group like he's already calculating how quickly he can leave.

And you?

You're done for. Completely, irreversibly, absolutely cooked.

You've never heard anything more attractive in your entire life.