Over the next two weeks, Ash saw Zach several times but they barely interacted. He came into the coffee shop every couple of days but he would simply place his order then retreat to a back table. Ash, for her part, let him be. She was still deciding how she wanted to make her next approach.

She now felt certain they shared at least four of Professor Huxley's classes and she was beginning to wonder if he had some sort of stealth mode power that made him hard to find in crowds. She always looked for him when she entered the lecture hall but never found him. She would watch for his arrival but only ever caught sight of him leaving when the class was done.

But with the little time, Ash formed her next strategy for talking to Zach. When he showed up at the coffee shop she let him get settled at his table before she took her fifteen-minute break, grabbed a blueberry muffin, and walked over to his table.

"Alright, I only got fifteen minutes so we'll have to use the Sparknotes version today," she said. She took the seat across from him and placed the muffin in front of him. He looked up slowly, unfazed by her abrupt greeting.

"What's this?" he asked.

"A blueberry muffin."

The corner of his mouth pulled back in just the slightest. "I know what a blueberry muffin looks like. I'm talking about this." He motioned to her sitting at his table.

"Well, I figure since we're now friends we should get to know each other a little better."

He looked at her blankly.

"I'll go first," she offered. "I'm in my third year of college. I'm majoring in psychology, specifically behavioral psychology. I'm a barista, but we already went over that," she winked at him as she spoke quickly.

"I also work part-time in the main office. I don't like animals, I don't like cake, I don't like pizza and I'm a Leo. I don't really buy into the whole 'astrology thing' but you might."

She paused to catch her breath and watch his reaction to everything she had said but his expression never changed.

"Alright, onto some lighter topics. I don't know my mom. She left when I was two. My dad was an alcoholic. My favorite color is green, I like my coffee iced with milk, and mint-n-chip is my favorite flavor of ice cream."

She sucked in a deep breath and checked her watch. "I have seven and a half minutes left. Go."

She pointed at him but he simply looked back at her. She gave him a whole thirty seconds before she slapped her hands on the table.

"Fine. I guess we can both see you are the shy one in this friendship."

Ash watched as Zach pursed his lips together to hold back a smile. She noted his entertained reaction but kept the observation to herself.

"I'll help you out." If he wasn't going to give her anything then she would make guesses and see if she could discover any information based on his reaction. She leaned forward and looked directly into his eyes. He didn't shy away from her intense gaze.

"Let's start with the basics. You grew up on the West Coast." She took in every corner of his eyes and mouth, the movement of his eyes and eyebrows. His features gave her nothing but she wasn't going to let him win that easily.

She leaned back and nodded like she had seen something. "No, it's the East Coast?" She paused for a moment. "Or was it the South?" She shrugged. "How important is it really for me to know where you grew up? Moving on. You have an older brother and a younger sister. No, three older brothers." She smacked her head like the right answer was so obvious. "No. Three younger sisters and one is adopted."

Zach leaned back in his chair as if he had accepted this wasn't going to be a short process but that was the only thing that changed about him as she rattled off guesses. She continued, guessing his major, his workout preferences, his favorite color, and foods.

"...and finally, your favorite animal is a koala." Ash sat back in her seat and gave him a smug smile. She was certain everything she had said for the last seven minutes had been completely wrong but trying to get a reaction out of him was a game she thoroughly enjoyed.

"Well, I gotta get back to work." She stood. "But, I feel like after learning so much about each other we can comfortably call each other best friends. Are you going to eat that?" She pointed to the untouched blueberry muffin still sitting in front of him.

He shook his head. The only answer he had given to her.

"Okay," she said, grabbing the muffin.

She turned and started to walk away until she heard him say, "It was the East Coast."

She froze, only forty percent sure that she had heard him speak. She glanced back. He held her gaze for a moment before he returned his attention to his computer.

*****

Three hours later, Ash clocked out and Zach was still working. After he had given her a single piece of information an idea had begun to form and she wanted to see if she was right.

"I'm done. You ready to go?" she asked as she approached his table, giving him an expectant look.

He slowly closed the book he had been reading and looked up at her.

"Go where?" he questioned.

"There's a basketball game tonight. They always show it at the bar down the road."

He set his book down on the table. "I didn't peg you as a sports fan."

"I'm not," she replied, mentally noting that he had just admitted to putting some thought into who she was. "But I'm a huge fan of sports fans." He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Have you ever observed a die-hard fan watching their favorite team play? It's like watching their emotions in HD. It's spectacular."

The corners of his eyes constricted slightly and Ash couldn't tell if he was contemplating her offer or if he just thought she was nuts.

"Besides, this is what best friends do."

"I don't think you can even call us friends," he countered.

She shrugged. "Friends might be too strong of a word," she admitted, "but I'm not wrong in thinking that I at least interest you. There is another coffee shop across the quad."

"So?" he shrugged.

"So... If you found our interactions annoying or odd you could easily switch to the other coffee shop without any real hassle to yourself and avoid eighty percent of our interactions. But you didn't, which tells me that there is something about our interactions that you like. Why else would you continue to give me opportunities to talk to you?"

Ash held her breath as she waited for some sort of response from him. After their interaction during their break she realized he never showed any signs that said he enjoyed their conversations, but he also never showed any signs that said he didn't enjoy their conversations,

Ash's eyes darted down to his hands as he grabbed his book and computer and put them in his bag. He smoothly gathered the rest of his things into his bag and stood.

"So," he slung his bag over his shoulder and put his hands in his pocket. "Where's this sports bar?" he asked.

Ash smiled and led the way out of the coffee shop. The sports bar was just down the block. They walked the whole way in silence but the night was filled with groups of students heading to their own destinations. The noise around Zach and Ash rose dramatically when they entered the bar. Almost all of the tables were filled with groups of students talking loudly to be heard over the game playing on all the TVs.

"Table for two," Ash said, leading the way to the hostess's stand.

The girl nodded, grabbed two menus, and started leading Zach and Ash to a table in the center of the room with a great view of the TV.

"Can we take that back table?" Ash asked, motioning to the empty table she had spied.

"Sure," the girl said, switching directions.

Ash glanced back at Zach and found him unfazed by their new setting. But something about the set of his shoulders caught her attention. Something had changed. She motioned for him to go ahead of her. As she followed him, she studied his walk and the way he held himself and she realized he had adjusted his posture.

In the coffee shop, he kept his board shoulders rounded and stayed self-contained, never taking up more space than was warranted. But now his shoulders were pulled back to their full width and there was a hint of a strut to his walk.

When had this change taken place? When they left the coffee shop? When they entered the bar? She glanced around at the tables filled with mostly college guys and guessed the shift had happened upon entering the bar.

Ash continued to watch Zach as he took a seat at the table and looked around the bar. His movements were casual as if he was just taking in the scene but there was an intensity in his gaze that made her think he was paying attention to more than just his fellow patrons. He had chosen the seat with his back to the wall which gave him the best view of the rest of the bar. Ash chose the seat to his left but moved it further into the corner next to him to allow herself a good view as well.

Before Ash could explain her usual process of observing sports fans, a waitress arrived at their table. The waitress's smile widened when she recognized Ash.

"Hey, hun," she said.

It was true Ash had been into the bar enough that the waitress recognized her but the waitress was also one of those people who called everyone 'hun' no matter how well she knew them.

"Hey, Sherry," Ash said.

"Who's this?" Sherry asked, nodding to Zach.

Ash looked at Zach and jumped like she hadn't known he was there.

"I don't know," she told Sherry. "Who are you?" she asked Zach, looking at him just as curiously as Sherry was.

"Zach," he said smoothly, offering Sherry his hand. Then he turned his gaze on Ash and offered her his hand. "Zach," he repeated.

"Nice to meet you," Ash said, shaking his hand. "This is Zach," she confirmed for Sherry.

Sherry just nodded like the whole interaction hadn't been as strange as it was. "Do you kids know what you want yet?" she asked.

"The usual," Ash said.

"A side of nacho cheese and water," Sherry said. Ash nodded and they both looked to Zach.

"I'll have the nachos," he said.

"Anything to drink?" Sherry asked.

"Sparkling water," he said.

Sherry nodded and was gone.

"Sparkling water? How fancy!" she teased.

"Not half as fancy as your 'side of nacho cheese'?" he responded.

She grinned. "Sherry and I have an agreement. She lets me order just the nacho cheese to dip the free chips in and I tip her a thousand percent so she still gets a good amount," she explained. "We also trade observations about the customers. She's worked in the food industry for decades and she's pretty good at reading people."

"You do this a lot," he stated.

She shrugged like it wasn't as weird as she knew it was. "Just wait. You'll be asking when the next game is by the time we are done."

He clasped his hands and sat back in his seat like he was a CEO signaling that he was ready for the presentation to begin. Ash turned her focus to the tables around them. She took her time as she searched for the right person or group to analyze. Her observations always came to her quickly but with Zach's scrutinizing eyes on her, she took the time to make sure her initial thoughts were correct.

After fifteen minutes she was ready and presented her observations of three different groups to Zach. The first group was a couple, the second was a fraternity, and the third a mixture of friends and couples.

She finished rattling off her final observations about the guy and girl who she heavily suspected were hooking up but not letting anyone in their friend group know and looked at Zach. She had purposefully avoided his gaze up until this point, worried any scrutiny she found in his eyes would disturb her presentation. He only nodded and took a sip of his water.

"Seriously?" she asked, flopping back in her seat in defeat. He looked at her questioningly but she just waved the look away, too annoyed to give him an answer. She had just perfectly profiled three tables and all it had earned her was a nod. "Whatever," she grumbled.

Sherry arrived a moment later with their food and Ash let silence descend on the table as she ate her nacho cheese and chips. As her belly filled her annoyance began to fade. The more she thought about it, the more she knew her disappointment was her own fault.

Zach had only ever responded in the slightest of ways. But as Ash ate a new idea started to develop. She now knew how Zach reacted when she profiled people correctly. How would he react if she got something wrong?

"Alright, on to round two," she announced as she neatly stacked her dishes and pushed them to the edge of the table.

She looked back at the bar and after a minute, zeroed on a couple that was a part of a large group. The guy was splitting his attention between watching the TV and the girl next to him while the girl's focus was on her phone.

They were a different couple but it seemed like they hadn't been together for that long. There was a nervous energy to the guy when his attention switched back to the girl but he was completely at ease with the rest of the group. When the girl wasn't looking at her phone, her focus was on the guy and she only gave polite responses to the other people at the table.

Ash guessed that this was one of the first times the guy was bringing his girlfriend to hang out with his friends. She wasn't comfortable with the friends yet and the guy was nervous because he wanted it to go well but he wasn't sure his girlfriend was having a good time.

"Got it!" Ash snapped. "Third table to the right, with the big group. The guy in the red hat and the girl in the pink shirt." Zach nodded that he understood and Ash continued. "They aren't a couple but the girl really wants to be. The guy already has a girlfriend but pink shirt doesn't care.

"She is trying to convince Red Hat to break up with his girlfriend and be with her. Red Hat came to watch the game with all his buddies and Pink Shirt showed up knowing she could get some good one-on-one time with Red Hat. All of Red Hat's friends are annoyed with Pink Shirt."

Ash finished and smiled proudly at Zach. He stared at her blankly until Ash caught the corner of his eyes tightening. It only lasted a moment but she didn't need more time to pick up on his curious confusion.

"Shall I do another one?" she asked as she quickly looked away, worried something on her face might tell him that he had revealed something to her.

"You're wrong," he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. "About the couple," he clarified.

"Funny," she laughed to cover up her excitement from her victory. Her plan had worked indeed. She looked away, certain her face would ruin her plan. "How about the guy in the blue jersey?"

"They've been together for almost a year. Red Hat thinks Pink Shirt is going to break up with him and he is correct. If she doesn't do it tonight, it will be in the next week. I would guess Pink Shirt came to watch the game with all red hat's buddies as a parting gift before she lands the blow. He'll ask if there is someone else and she'll say no but they will both know that is a lie." He paused his neat list of observations and tilted his head just slightly to the left.

"Pink shirt was nice enough to come to the game so I guess she'll wait about three weeks before making the new relationship social media official."

Zach kept his eyes on the couple for a moment longer as if to make sure he hadn't missed anything before he sat back, crossed his arms, and looked at Ash.

Ash just stared at him in stunned silence. When he had first started talking she had been excited her trick had worked but then she had listened to what he was saying and her victory was wiped clean from her mind. He spoke with such authority and certainty about details that seemed impossible for him to know.

She had looked back at the couple as he laid out the end of their relationship and tried to pick up on small details that would confirm his analysis. The more she watched the couple the more she began to think he was right and her original observations had been dead wrong.

"What...?" she stuttered. "I mean, how...?" She looked at Zach then back at the couple then back at Zach. He simply shrugged like anyone could have come to the same conclusions.

"How?" she repeated.

He shrugged again but leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. "His phone screen is a picture of them together but hers is a picture of her with friends. The way she smiles when responding to texts. Red Hat's worried glances and the way his friends all react the same way every time Red Hat looks at her."

Again, Ash watched the couple as Zach spoke and could almost see the details popping out as he listed them off. They were all there, right in front of her eyes and she had completely read them wrong.

"Wow," she breathed out. She looked at him in amazement. He held her gaze for a moment and right before he dropped his head she caught his lips pinch in the corner like he was uncomfortable.

"Do another one!" Ash said, refusing to let him crawl back into his non-expressive self. She looked around the bar, searching for his next subject.

"The guy in the green collared shirt at the end of the bar," she said.

Zach looked up to find the guy and while he studied green shirt Ash studied Zach. It was like watching a machine as Zach slowly scanned the guy from head to toe, his gaze intense.

After a minute he looked back at Ash. "Okay," he said, "but you have to answer a question first."

"Shoot," Ash said quickly. She would happily hand over her social security number if it meant she could hear him analyze another person.

"You really don't like cake?" he asked with a playful smile.

Ash had been bracing for some sort of personal or deep question and the simplicity of his threw her off. It took her a moment to smile back. "No, I don't."

"Cupcakes?" he questioned.

"Nope," she shook her head.

"Cake pops?"

"I've never tried one."

"What?" he asked, his genuine shock taking her by surprise. "The coffee shop you work at sells cake pops."

"I know that," she said. "I just never felt the want or need to spend three dollars on something the size of a quarter."

He looked at her in amusement. "Interesting," he said after a minute, leaning closer as he studied her.

"Not really." She held his scrutinizing gaze for as long as she could but after a minute she looked away.

"Whatever. Now, green shirt," she said and they both looked to the guy sitting at the end of the bar.

**********************************************************************

Subodhayam (telugu)

🖐️ Stop everything you're doing right now! Wait... you're reading this and I want you to still read this, never mind! Keep doing exactly what you are doing because you're doing it perfectly! And since you're doing it so well I know you can add more thing.

I want theories! You heard (read) me, I want your theories on what's going on. Who Zach is? Who Ash is? What a side of nacho cheese tastes like on its own. I want all the theories. 💬🗯💭

Here's my theory. So think that Zach is *turns on blender, starts lawnmower, jumpstarts chainsaw, plays the drums, activates a jackhammer* And so you know, I think my theory is extremely logical. I laid out some really good points. So let me know if you agree with me.

HAHA! I know I usually know exactly what's going to happen but that's with my own books so I like feeling like one of you. Now it's not my book so I can just be smug that I know something you don't know!

Am I mean? Yes but all bookworms know what I feel so by the transitive property we're all mean.

Answer me this: blonde male lead or dark haired male lead?

Vote, comment, follow because I hold all the knowledge of what's to come and so you have to do my bidding.