kept returning to.

I wanted the closeness when nobody was making me accept it. When he wasn't reaching first or inventing reasons to keep me nearby.

I wanted to choose him.

My phone vibrated.

Cole: Are you still in the design building?

Me: Yes. Waiting for the rain to ease up.

Cole: Stay there.

I sat straighter.

Me: Don't come over. I'm fine. I can wait.

No answer.

I watched the typing indicator fail to appear.

Then I looked out into the courtyard.

A dark umbrella moved past the far building.

Beneath it, a tall man in a gray sweatshirt walked through the rain with the kind of purpose he normally reserved for the final minutes of a game.

My heart did something so obvious that there was no arguing with it.

I stood.

Cole saw me and smiled.

He didn't slow down until he reached the steps.

Water dripped from the edge of the umbrella. His shoes were wet, and a darker patch had spread across one shoulder of his sweatshirt.

“You look surprised,” he said.

I put my notes away and signed, “You had a meeting.”

“It finished.”

“I told you not to come.”

“I was already on my way.”

I glanced past him at the courtyard.

He followed my gaze.

“I saw the rain and remembered you were over here.”

“You could have texted first.”

“I did.”

“From the courtyard.”

His mouth curved. “Technically still first.”

I tried not to smile. Failed.

He shook the umbrella lightly away from me, then raised it again.

“I made a terrible mistake,” he said.

“What mistake?”

“I only brought one. You'll have to share with me.”

I looked at the broad umbrella, then at him.

His expression was shameless.

“You planned that.”

“I might have been hoping.”

I stepped beneath it.

His arm settled around my shoulders, gently guiding me down the wet steps. This time, I moved closer before he could pull me in.

He glanced down.

I kept looking ahead. My face was warm enough without meeting his eyes.

We walked into the courtyard together.

The umbrella was large, but so was Cole. Water pattered against the fabric above us. Every few steps, his shoulder brushed mine.

We couldn't talk easily while he held the umbrella and I kept my hands inside my sleeves. For once, I didn't mind.

There were no sentences I needed to hurry through. No one waiting for a version of me that could answer faster.

Just our footsteps and the rain.

Near the library, a gust pushed cold spray against my wrist.

Cole shifted the umbrella.

I noticed because the rain stopped touching me.

Then I noticed that it had started touching him.

His outside shoulder darkened. Water gathered in his hair near his temple. He kept the umbrella angled over me as though that were simply where it belonged.

I caught his sleeve and stopped walking.

He looked down at once.

I pointed at his wet shoulder, then pushed his wrist toward him.

He let me adjust the umbrella.

For three steps.

Then it drifted back.

I looked up at him.

“What?” he asked innocently.

I stopped again, took his free hand, and tucked it around my waist. Then I stepped close enough that our hips touched.

His eyes changed.

There. Now we both fit.

I could have explained the geometry. I didn't.

Cole tightened his arm a fraction.

“You can stand closer,” he said softly.

I gave him an incredulous look.

He laughed, warm against the sound of rain.

I rested my head briefly against his shoulder.

His next breath caught.

That was when I knew I wasn't merely enjoying being wanted.

I wanted to make him happy. I wanted him to look for me in a crowd and know I'd be looking back. I wanted the ordinary things we'd already been doing, with the extraordinary difference of being allowed to love him through them.

At the residence hall, he shook water from the umbrella and held the door open.

I caught his sleeve before he could step aside.

He turned.

I didn't sign. I didn't reach for my phone.

I held his hand all the way upstairs.