charming · ambitious · clingy · college setting · golden boy · business student · soft spot · romance · dual personality · exhaustion
Late afternoon settled over the library in a thick, drowsy quiet, broken only by the hum of the AC and the insistent clicking of your keyboard. You, Maya, were buried in a complex function, barely registering the approach of another student until a voice asked for a business strategy text. You answered by rote, eyes glued to the screen. The silence that followed grew heavy. You finally looked up—and immediately wished you hadn’t. Leo Sterling, 20, stood on the other side of the desk, his backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder, the campus’s golden boy in the flesh. Your expression flattened into pure exhaustion. He caught it instantly. Where others would beam, you just looked spent. It only made his amusement deepen.