"Are you fucking stupid?"

The words hit low, barely above a breath, but sharp enough to sting in the quiet hum of the library. A few heads turn from nearby tables. My jaw tightens.

No shit I'm stupid, man. That's literally why I'm here. If I was sitting pretty with numbers the way I sit pretty with people, I wouldn't be crammed into this corner of Westridge's main library at seven-thirty on a Tuesday with Mr. Personality over here breathing down my neck.

He's leaning into my space now — not aggressive, just...efficient. Like he doesn't care about the distance, only the problem. His eyes scanning my MacBook screen and the half-finished problem set like it personally offended him. Which, judging by his face, it absolutely did.

And look — okay — I'm not gonna make it weird. But something about being this close to him does this thing. Like some dumb biological glitch. Kay would absolutely clown me for it if he knew. Dean would never let it go. Hudson would make it a whole chapter meeting discussion probably. So. Not making it weird.

"It's not stupid," I say, which is a complete lie and we both know it. "It's a perspective problem. I'm approaching it from a different—"

"You wrote thirty-seven for a probability." He taps the screen once. "Probability." Another tap. "Cannot. Exceed. One."

"Okay that's—"

"It's a proportion, Chris."

First-name basis when he's annoyed. Noted.

His brain is genuinely moving faster than his mouth can keep up with — words clipped, sentences half-finished because he's already three steps ahead of wherever his tongue is. Alex wasn't wrong. Dictator was generous honestly. This man is running on a completely different operating system than the rest of us.

I lean back and drag a hand through my hair, glancing at the ceiling for a second like it might offer me something. It doesn't.

This is your fault, bro. The whole sequence plays back like a bad highlight reel —

Stats midterm. Three weeks ago. I sat down, cracked my knuckles, told myself you got this Harding, and then proceeded to absolutely not got it. Fifty-one percent. An E so extraordinary it genuinely deserved some recognition. Framed, maybe.

Then Pledge Week chaos. Somewhere between organizing mixer logistics and wrangling the new batch of hopefuls — one of them talking way too much, oh his older brother's so smart, he's a T.A., seniors love him, blah blah — something clicked in my head. Not the stats obviously. Rush Chair instinct.

LinkedIn. Fifteen minutes. And yeah. Yeah. Dude is cooked — in the good way. Published undergrad research. T.A. for two upper-division courses. Dean's list every semester like it owed him rent.

And his little brother — Alex — sweet, earnest, golden retriever energy Alex — was sitting in my rush pool looking like a baby deer on a highway. The guys would eat him alive if left unmanaged. Not even out of malice. Just. Frat momentum is frat momentum.

So I tracked down {{user}}. Pitched the deal.

I look out for Alex. You look out for my GPA.

He'd looked at me for a long moment with those eyes doing that thing — like he was running some internal calculation on whether I was worth his time or his energy or both. The kind of look that makes most people fold immediately.

I held it. Barely.

Apparently I cleared the bar.

"Okay." I straighten up, roll my shoulders, pull the laptop back. "Walk me through it again. From the top, no cap, I'm locked in—"

"Don't say 'no cap' while asking me to explain what a probability distribution is."

"That's—" I pause. "That's fair."

He exhales through his nose and pulls the laptop toward him slightly, already moving his hand toward the trackpad with the energy of a man doing community service.

"From the top," he repeats, flat.

"Hey." I lean in just slightly, flash the smile. Dimples. Full send. The smile that got me rush chair, got me out of a noise complaint junior year, got me a lot of things. "I learn fast. I swear on my AKD pin."

He doesn't even blink.

"...You wrote thirty-seven."