16

The following weekend is blur. Winston is not entirely sure what he did during those days; aside from texting Jason, that is. Winston heart does funny things when they talk, exchanging lame messages like "i told the professor my friends dog ate my homework and they didn't believe me :( and now i have to pay for the dog's vet bill :(((((" and "my socks don't match and i'm at the store and do you think anyones noticied?"

Winston's stomach flutter during every exchange, his breath feeling light and wheezy, and his heart trips during the most ridiculous moments. It shouldn't be cute that a dog ate Jason's homework, should it? It shouldn't be adorable that Jason wore different colored socks, right?

Is there something wrong with Winston?

He smiles at yet another stupid message, a simple if profound "couldn't find my sunglasses so wore my roommates girlfriend" and it's accompanied by a picture of Jason wearing a piar of pink-framed, heart-shaped sunglasses. While Winston is giggling uncontrollably and saving the picture, a new message appears; "i'm starting to thikn my roommate tricked me..."

Winston snorts so loudly the librarian shushes him. Winston mouths an apology and the librarian (who doesn't look much older than him and is wearing a cardigan that looks so comfortable Winston is jealous on principle alone) gives him a stinky look . But he doesn't get shushed again, so he refocuses on the message app and types a quick "you look great, they really fit you" and worries almost as soon as it's been sent if that was the wrong response.

But Jason sends back an emoji with heart-eyes that's blushing, and Winston actually whimpers a little. Luckily it's at least not a loud whimper–he double-checks that the librarian hasn't noticed anything—and he very quickly sends a message back that literally only contains five heart-eyes emojis.

Then he waits with his heart in his throat.

There's not an immediate response this time so he puts the phone down and returns his concentration to the notebook and three textbooks surrounding it. He's got essays to do, and not a lot of time. His mind kind of blanked the entire weekend and he didn't actually get... well, anything done.

In hindsight, it's kind of pathetic.

The chair opposite him screeches when Gary pulls it out, the librarian shushing them with even greater force, and Gary whispers a weak, "Sorry," to them, wincing when he sits down and grimacing at Winston. Winston, in turn, frowns.

Gary looks around and waits until the librarian is busy with something else before he says, "Sorry I'm late, I got held up at the vending machine."

"Vending machine?" Winston blinks, tilting his head.

Gary laughs—freezes and looks to the librarian quickly—and says, "There's a new brand of chips in the machine and they've got a bunch of flavors. I got a couple of bags for us..." Gary's eyes go to the librarian again, "but I should probably not take them out here."

"Probably not," Winston agrees. He pushes one of the textbooks over to the other side of the huge oak table and Gary accepts it with a sheepish grin.

Gary only gets five minutes of work in before he looks up, crosses his arms onto the notebook beneath him, and leans forward. "So?" he asks, and wiggles his eyebrows in what is now apparently a distinct expression for him. When Winston just blinks at him in abject confusion, Gary sighs and rolls his eyes. "You've been avoiding talking about Jason all weekend so how did it go? Did you have fun?"

"I haven't been avoiding it," Winston retorts, though his eyes do glide a little guiltily to his phone. Gary merely raises an eyebrow and stares at him until Winston capitulates. "Alright, maybe a little," mutters Winston, slumping on his seat.

Gary snorts, "Dude, in the middle of a game of cards you literally said 'oh look, a giraffe' and ran outside. You were gone for thirty minutes."

"Exercise is good for you?"

Gary leans back in his own seat and gazes at Winston with a profoundly unimpressed expression. So Winston rolls his eyes as well, just to match the general energy that's happening in this conversation right now. Finally, Winston surrenders first and says, "Fine, I've been avoiding it."

"Ha!" Gary pumps his fist, "I knew it!"

The librarian viciously shushes them.

They spend a minute in silence, waiting for the librarian to be busy again. "I so knew it," Gary leans over the table, then, and grins mischievously, "So when are you going out again?"

"On Wednesday afternoon," answers Winston and he can't stop himself from smiling and ducking his head. Gary ooh's like he's in a movie, and Winston's smile grows. After another moment, he adds, "And the date was nice. It was a nice date. We had a nice time. It was-"

"Nice?"

"Yeah," Winston laughs.

Gary's grinning so wide it must surely hurt, even bouncing a little on his chair, and he leans forward over the table with his forearms on his books. "So what movie did you see? You never told me," and he even pouts. To be fair, it looks adorable on him. Gary just has one of those faces where every one of his expressions are cute.

"I have no idea," says Winston after some befuddled thinking.

Gary blinks. "Seriously?"

"I only remember Jason," is what Winston ends up saying to justify his bad memory.

Gary scratches his eyebrow. "Alright," he says after a moment. "I don't actually know if that's normal or so let's just move right passed it. What are you guys doing on Wednesday? And do you think I should free my schedule so I can come running if something happens?" Here, he frowns a little thoughtfully.

"We're having coffee at a café," he explains. Then he adds, "And I don't... think I'll need an excuse to get away. The movie date... was really nice."

"Even though you didn't watch the movie?"

"Yeah," Winston laughs, sinking into his chair. It's got very fluffy padding and is easily the kind of chair one can spend hours in without getting a bad back. The number 2 reason why he chose this college.

Gary makes another oooh-ing noise, appropriately excited, and Winston smiles down at the table. He glances around for a second, a bit self-conscious if anybody heard all that, but most people are sitting a lot further away from the librarian. Smart move, he thinks.

Winston shakes his head to clear his mind. "But how about you? Did you do all weekend?"

Gary gives him an odd look. "Dude, you were there. You slept over on my floor and shitty air-mattress."

"Right," Winston grimaces.

Gary snickers, "Did you Jason break your brain? You don't even remember Liam sulking in the corner of the living room while we were watching Ten-Thousand Knights? He was really sulky, dude."

"I have vague memories of that. Probably."

Gary's laughs rises in volume and once more the librarian shushes them, outright glaring this time. That's got to be some kin of record, Winston hazards. Gary winces at that and whispers another sorry their way, which doesn't really ease the force of the glaring at all. So they huddle together and grab their pens again, pulling out their textbooks and arming themselves with their notebooks.

They continue to whisper to each other, of course. Continue to mutter complaints about the unfair workload, the dry lectures, the dull textbooks. But they get work done, and that's worth the librarians glaring.

Definitely.