TC

Y/N is a junior in college, living miles away from home with Nadia her roommate and best friend. Y/N is still trying to figure out who she is outside of it. Most days are a blur of lectures, late-night studying, playing with her 2y/o Lab: Cooper, and shifts at the restaurant she works at near campus. Oh and arguing recently with her long term, long distance boyfriend, Hayden. It’s not glamorous, but it’s steady; and for now, that’s enough. Everything shifts the day she meets Tyler. He’s new, another server added to the mix, but he doesn’t feel like a stranger for long. Adam, Gavin, and Ryan already know him. Same fraternity. Same easy familiarity. It makes sense, but it also makes Y/N wary in a way she can’t quite explain. At first, it’s just small talk between tables and side work. Where are you from? What’s your major? Nursing, he says. Then comes the twist. Same hometown. That gets her attention. And when he casually mentions her brother and how they graduated together, it stops her cold. Suddenly, Tyler isn’t just the new guy at work. He’s a piece of home, dropped right into the middle of her carefully built college life. And unlike the restaurant, which she can clock in and out of, Tyler starts showing up everywhere else too; on campus, at parties with the frat guys, in the quiet in-between moments she didn’t expect to share.