"So, there I was, high on like three tabs of acid, driving my friend to the ER for alcohol poisoning, and the world is like...technicolor at this point, you know?"

I smiled with my eyes, desperate to escape the unfortunate situation I'd stumbled into. The finance major encroaching on my personal space had chosen to wear a tank top and salmon pink shorts in the dead of winter. He twirled his vape around in his fist like a fidget-spinner, and he reeked of liquor.

He laughed himself into a fit. "I park the car like shit and basically drag my buddy into the hospital lobby, right? Both of us are covered in—"

"Hiya!" Baker interrupted, materializing out of nowhere like the blessed angel she was. She stuck her head between me and my intoxicated companion, then grabbed hold of my wrist and slowly pulled me toward her—like a fisherman reeling in a flaccid, empty line. "I'm gonna need to steal this gem, sorry man."

Before Salmon Shorts had a chance to finish his story, Baker dragged me into the sea of party guests and away from the most disturbing conversation of my life.

"Why do guys think bragging about their exploitation of drugs is attractive?" I complained, weaving through bodies and unfamiliar faces. Music blared from the speaker in the living room, and the bass vibrated through my body like a war drum. "Like, do they want a reward for surviving this long? Are they seeking praise?"

"It's your own fault. You have to stop feigning interest to preserve people's feelings."

She wasn't wrong. I'd tried to dodge his flirtations by asking him about his Christmas. Little did I know, by skirting his advances, I'd sentenced myself to fifteen minutes of a low-budget Pineapple Express.

"I was just looking for genuine conversation."

She shot me an annoyed look over her shoulder. "You're not here to talk philosophy and politics, Rivas. It's a party! You're supposed to forget real life, remember?" Her gaze dipped to my empty hands. "And where's your drink?"

"I finished it."

She gawked at me. "The tolerance of giants amazes me." She nodded toward the kitchen and the collection of vodka bottles and red solo cups strewn across the counter. "Let's get you another. You're way too sober for a Friday."

We made our way to the other side of the house, circumventing the living room dance party, sweeping past a beer-pong tournament in the dining room, and cutting through the line for the ice luge on the back porch—an activity that had kept the engineering students entertained for several hours.

Once we reached the kitchen, I felt much better in the open space it provided. Crowds always made Carl irritable, and as soon as Carl was grumpy, it was a fast track to my mattress.

Thankfully, the townhouse was too small to accommodate more than sixty people at a time. The unit was one of many old buildings within the Village, an apartment complex off campus known for its neighborhood-wide holiday parties. The hosts usually alternated between club presidents, student body representatives, and someone from the ultimate frisbee team, and while the gatherings attracted more than enough people, they didn't promise the chaos of other college spaces. People weren't breaking floors like they did at the football parties, and the girls looked out for each other here, as opposed to the frat houses, where you risked your sanity and your safety.

The Village also didn't attract any cops until well after 2 am, and the laid-back environment was the only reason Baker had pried me away from the comfort of my own home tonight.

The pocket-sized extrovert examined the row of half-consumed alcohol bottles with a grimace. Sighing, she lifted a bottle of Smirnoff to her nose and sniffed its contents. "Cheap ass bastards..."

Her getup tonight was daring and glorious. Her smokey-eye enhanced her intimidating factor tenfold—and her fierceness was only exemplified by the pixie cut, the black army boots, the ripped jeans, and her fishnet-style crop-top.

Baker's style embodied her unique and fierce identity, and she was easy to pick out in a city that embraced casual clothing and activewear.

And then there was me.

I wasn't even sure I had a style to begin with. Most of what I owned consisted of hand-me-downs and birthday gifts from my Catholic family, and for the majority of the school year, I was cocooned in winter apparel and nap-inducing sweaters.

On the rare occasions I dressed to impress, I still chose comfort over style, lest I trigger a self-esteem debacle and a possible panic attack. Although this evening, with my blue jeans, vans, and oversized plaid shirt, I felt like I'd been copy-pasted from a college brochure—or maybe an ad for a lumberjack company.

"Babe," Baker murmured, quirking an eyebrow at me. "Can you at least try not to look so miserable?"

I was about to apologize for my existential crisis when I caught sight of a familiar red beanie, and my train of thought tumbled from the tracks.

No way.

There's just no way...

Aghast, I stepped around the fridge to get a better look at the man descending the stairwell—dark hair sticking out of his beanie, a gray shirt hugging his frame, black jeans sitting low on his hips. It could have been any skinny punk in a hat, really. But then he turned around, and my mouth dropped open at the irritating face I'd come to know.

Theodore was here.

At a college party. As a college student. As a party guest.

Without his apron.

My mind couldn't compute his presence. It was like spotting a professor outside of school or an employer at the beach—weird and unsettling.

He descended the last of the stairs with a beer in hand, his brow furrowed and his mouth moving at a rapid pace. A young blond woman hurried after him, pushing other people aside to catch up to him in the foyer.

Baker followed my gaze and huffed. "Wow. Even Theodore has a better social life than you. That's saying something."

I squinted at the tension in the couples' posture and frowned. "Better might be an overstatement."

Our subject spun around to glare at the girl behind him, shaking his head profusely. Their argument grew louder and louder by the second, and the commotion was beginning to draw concerned and wary gazes.

"Baby...baby, please," the girl begged, on the verge of tears. She gripped the front of Theo's t-shirt, and he pried her hands off with his free hand, visibly aggravated and exhausted. She shook her head, reaching for him again, and he shoved her away. His beer splashed onto the floor, but he didn't pay the mess any attention.

"Dammit, Lyssa!" he snapped, stepping away from her. Swaying a little. "I mean it. It's over. Now leave me the fuck alone."

Everyone in their immediate vicinity was staring at them now, and the music fell like heavy heartbeats as Theo backed away from her and the emotions she triggered.

"O," she pleaded, her voice brittle, but it was useless. He'd already made for the exit, and I watched, horrified, as he pushed through the door and stormed down the driveway with his keys in hand.

"Shit," I breathed, and before I knew what was happening, my feet had propelled me forward—into the living room, out the door, and straight into a tempest of poor decisions.

Out front, I cut through a swarm of perplexed students sharing a joint. Then I ran after Theo's drunken form, ignoring Baker's distant, baffled exclamations.

I caught up to the unhinged barista at the edge of the block, where he approached an old, rust-colored pickup truck. He yanked the door open, cursing under his breath, and I slammed it shut before he could slip inside.

He flinched, spinning around to shout at me. But when his gaze settled on my figure, he frowned in bewilderment. "...Stains?"

I glared up at him and his red, bleary eyes. The neighborhood streetlights shuddered in his pupils, and he looked about three seconds away from a total panic attack.

"Okay, first of all, my name is Mona. And secondly, you're not driving anywhere like this." You incapacitated imbecile.

He tugged on the handle, but I pushed the door shut again.

"Move," he demanded.

"You're drunk, Theo. And upset." I removed the crinkled beer can from his fist, and my voice dropped to something a little more coaxing as I said, "I can't let you drive like this. I'm sorry."

My tonal shift cut through his rage, and he hesitated, glancing down at his empty hand, flexing his fingers. After taking a few moments to assess his own mental state, he let out a defeated breath and surrendered his keys to me, recognizing how unfit he was for the road.

His glistening eyes shot to the house and back down to his feet. "I gotta get out of here."

"I know." I wasn't sure what possessed me to say it, but it slipped out before I could think it over. "I'll drive you home."

He shook his head at the pavement, as if that was the stupidest idea he'd ever heard. "Forget it. I live twenty minutes away."

"Would you rather pay for an Uber?" I didn't give him a chance to respond; I was already nudging him toward the hood of the truck. "Get in the passenger seat, idiot."

He nodded, conceding to reason and my evident sobriety. Then he paid the house one final, tortured glance before turning his back on the party and the trauma it embraced.

We drove in silence, save for Google Map's cheery directions and Theo's occasional sniffle. At one point, I was pretty sure my drunken companion had nodded off, but after the overstimulating environment of the Village, I welcomed the quiet.

When we finally made it to his apartment building in South Reno, I texted Baker to let her know where I was. She only responded with an eye-rolling emoji, which was her way of chewing me out for abandoning the party at the first opportunity.

It was fine. I'd make it up to her with a free coffee or two. That always seemed to do the trick.

I decided to walk Theo up to his room to make sure he actually got home in one piece and didn't like...choke on his own tongue or something. In the state he was in, I wouldn't be surprised if he just collapsed on the stairway and called it a night.

He didn't object to me following after him, though, and I let him lean on me for support as we ascended four flights of stairs—which he seemed to appreciate, even if he didn't voice it.

At long last, we arrived at his unit, and I snorted at the satanic symbol painted on his door. "Seriously?"

"Don't read into it," he said, resting his head against the doorframe as he fumbled with his keys. "It keeps the missionaries away."

We pushed into his studio, and I reflected on our mutual distaste for door-to-door ministry as Theo flicked on the dim ceiling lights. Then he set his keys down on the kitchen table, threw his jacket onto his bed, and walked straight into the bathroom without a word.

...Alrighty then.

"Should I wait for you?" I asked the darkness, unsure if that was a dismissal, or if he just really had to piss. Obviously, if he was emptying his stomach, I had no intention of sticking around.

When no answer came, I decided to spend a few minutes observing his living space while I waited for him to reemerge and bid me farewell—and ideally, a proper thank you.

Concrete walls kissed a wooden ceiling, and giant windows with steel muntins covered the west end. The space was barren except for his bed, a couch, a coffee table, a guitar, a speaker, and a small kitchenette, and I would have thought his minimalism obnoxious, maybe even sociopathic, if I hadn't known he spent so much of his time on campus.

With a gray color scheme, the entire space was rather daunting—kind of like a prison tower—but the harsh décor was juxtaposed by an inviting warmth and, predictably, the scent of coffee beans. Which made me wonder if all his clothes and belongings smelled like Grounds, or if he just consumed so much coffee, he sweated it out.

A stack of textbooks lay upon the small table in his kitchen. Intrigued, I examined his current read, a copy of Cancer Pharmacology: The Essentials.

I frowned and lifted the book to peer at the texts below it.

Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy.

Development of Anticancer Drugs.

I heard the bathroom door open and spun around to behold my enigmatic barista. He walked out with his face clean, hair damp, eyeliner gone, head beanie-less, and shirt...missing.

My gaze lingered a moment too long before flying back to the textbooks. I blinked away the image of his bare chest and cleared my throat. "You're studying to become a pharmacist?"

He plucked a fresh shirt from his dresser and pulled it over his head. "Yeah. I'm writing my thesis on treatments for pediatric brain tumors."

I stared at him as he retrieved two glasses from his cupboard and a Coke from the fridge.

He glanced over his shoulder when I didn't say anything. "That surprise you?"

"It just doesn't...match my image of you," I admitted. Then again, neither did the green crew neck, his ink-free arms, and the healthy fringe of dark hair.

He certainly isn't going bald. That's for sure.

He grinned. "Can't picture your favorite barista in lab goggles?"

"Favorite? That's bold of you." I angled my head to see what mysterious contents he'd poured into my glass. "What are you trying to poison me with?"

He turned and offered me the beverage, and I inspected the fizzling brown mixture, then his own glass of water.

Suspicious.

"Relax. It's Rum and Coke. And more Coke than rum. I know you require a specific sugar to liquid ratio." He grunted at my puzzled expression and leaned back against the counter. "You had to leave the New Year's party for me. The least I can do is offer you a mind-numbing night here without terrible music."

That sent my brow skyward. "You're inviting me to spend the night?"

"Offer's on the table. We can see the casino fireworks from here."

My eyes immediately flitted to the single bed, and he tutted, rolling his eyes. "The couch pulls out." He took a sip of water and reflected. "Okay, yeah, I can see how that could come off extremely creepy. You're welcome to leave anytime. I'll pay for an Uber in that case."

I thought about it. Leaving now, dusting my hands of this strange evening, forgetting the night I saved my barista from a DUI. But something about the agreeable heat here—the frigid cold of the outside world, the idea of sitting in an Uber alone for twenty minutes with nothing to talk about—made the choice rather simple.

I accepted the drink. "Are your cocktails as good as your lattes?"

He shot me a pleased, lazy smile. "I'll let you be the judge of that."