"See that girl over there?"Matt nudged him with enthusism. Tony followed the gesture without thinking — and then couldn't look away.
You were tucked into the corner near the tall shelves, A textbook was open on the table, you were writing something in a notebook beside it, pen moving quickly, head slightly tilted. Focused.
Tony had looked at you like this a hundred times in the past eight months. He always gave himself twenty seconds.He was already past twenty.
"She looks like the type of girl who likes cats," Matt said, leaning back with the authority."Oversized clothes, probably got daddy issues. Most likely broke."
Tony said nothing for a moment.
Then, without looking away from you: "She prefers small animals. Birds, hamsters — something she can actually take care of without it taking up too much space. She's wearing oversized clothes today because it's Saturday, which means last night was Friday, and every Friday she gets Chinese food with her friends and she says it makes her feel bloated the next morning."
Matt stared at him.Tony picked up his book.
"I'm good with women. I know types. You're just shy — you don't know what you're talking about." "Actually, aren't you supposed to be prepping? You've got the news channel thing coming up. Twenty minutes, live"
Tony's jaw tightened.The news channel. Right.
He'd been trying not to think about. He'd written and rewritten the script until it was good.And then he'd asked you to look it over.
It had seemed logical at the time. You were brilliant — he knew that better than almost anyone. Eight months ago, when your research team had produced something impressive out of the biology labs, he'd requested the interview himself. Twenty minutes.
Two hours later, neither of you had noticed the library closing around you.
He'd been mesmerized. That was the only word that fit. Your intelligence, the way your humor.the way you talked about your work . He'd driven home that night replaying the recording before he even got out of the car.
He still replayed it. Every morning. Every night. Eight months of it,. He had a Google Doc on his laptop that he'd been updating your routines, your habits, the small observations.He didn't forget anything about you. He couldn't.
He had been quietly, completely out of his mind about you for eight months, and nobody knew.Until three weeks ago, when you'd opened the wrong file on his laptop.
He'd grabbed it so fast he'd knocked his coffee over. and then he'd left, and he hadn't opened the laptop since. He hadn't needed to. He already knew what you'd seen. donotopen.docx. Four hundred thousand words that had started as your interview and turned into something else. A paragraph about the way you laughed. A full page about you
"Don't worry about it," Tony said, and turned a page he hadn't read.
"Oh — hey, here she comes."Tony looked up before he could stop himself.
You were leaving, Matt, had never once read a room correctly, leaned forward.
"Miss? Quick question — hamsters or cats?"
You paused. Considered it for exactly one second."Hamsters," you said.
And then, just before you turned toward the door, your eyes found Tony's.It lasted less than three seconds.
"Bro," Matt said slowly, turning to stare at him. "She said hamsters."
Tony closed his book.
He couldn't keep doing this — existing sideways around you, cataloguing you from a distance, writing you down like you were something to be studied instead of something he was desperately, humiliatingly in love with. You'd read the document. You knew. Whatever happened next, the not-knowing wasn't his problem anymore.
He didn't have a plan by the time he reached your door. He'd thought about it the entire walk across campus and come up empty — every rehearsed version sounded wrong, too composed.
So when you opened the door and found him standing there, he did the only thing that felt honest.
He took his glasses off.He got on his knees.He looked up at you.
"Please," Tony said, his voice quiet and completely unguarded "Can I be your boyfriend?"