To celebrate opening his first bank account by himself, Bharath insisted on treating everyone to coffee.

  “Your first bank account and you’re already wasting money on us?” Ravi teased.

  “It’s not wasting,” Bharath said. “Just a treat.”

  “Your funeral,” Jorge said.

  They went to the on-campus coffee shop, which was full of over-caffeinated graduate students typing on ThinkPads.

  Bharath stepped up to the counter first.

  The girl behind the register looked at him, eyebrow arched. “What can I get you?”

  Bharath looked up at the menu.

  And immediately regretted everything.

  There were too many options.

  Espresso. Americano. Cappuccino. Cold brew. Nitro cold brew. Latté. Mocha. Macchiato. Pumpkin spice something. Oat milk. Soy milk. Whole milk. Almond milk. Skim. No whip. Extra shot. Venti. Tall. Grande.

  “Where’s your... filter coffee?” Bharath asked helplessly.

  “What’s that?”

  “You know where they put the hot coffee with powder into something with a filter and you collect it in another bowl?”

  “Drip?” she said.

  “Drip?”

  “Drip,” she stated with certainty.

  That settled it. She seemed to know what she was talking about until her next question.

  “Hot? Bck?”

  Why were there so many questions to answer just to get a cup of coffee? “I guess”

  “Size?”

  He paused. “Uhh... medium?”

  “You mean grande?”

  “Sure”

  She nodded. “Room for cream?”

  Bharath blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe? Is the cup not big enough? How do you like it?”

  She gave him a strange look as she scribbled something. “I have a boyfriend, you know. I’m not interested. Anything else?”

  “I think that’s enough confusion for today.”

  Jorge ordered an iced vanil tté. Ravi got a mocha. Tyrel got a triple-shot espresso “with menace.”

  They sat by the window, sipping slowly.

  Bharath took a cautious sip of his drink.

  It was hot. Bitter. A little sour. But oddly comforting.

  “Not bad,” he admitted.

  “Freedom in a cup,” Tyrel said.

  “You can’t even spell freedom hermano,” Jorge muttered.

  Tyrel flipped him off.

  Bharath hadn’t expected to feel this exhausted from something as simple as managing paperwork and buying books. His shoulders were sore from his first real morning at the gym, his head still spinning from the banking jargon, and his tongue felt slightly burned from the harsh bck coffee that now sloshed around in his stomach like sour motor oil.

  He was walking back from the restroom in the bookstore, still tucking the printout of his schedule into his hoodie pocket, when he saw her again.

  Marisol.

  Standing under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the textbook aisle looking like an angel without her wings.

  She had one hand on her hip, the other leafing through a used Discrete Math textbook with the air of someone trying to divine the future through its margins. She wore tight, dark jeans and a burnt orange crop hoodie with a Georgia Tech logo that had been stylishly cut to hang loose at the colr. Her wavy hair was half-tied - somehow only enhancing her magnetism rather than softening it.

  Bharath stopped dead.

  She looked up. Saw him.

  Her lips curved.

  “Lost in the math section, huh?” she called out.

  He smiled, awkward. “Always.”

  Marisol slid the book back into the shelf and walked over, her bck boots making confident, measured clicks on the linoleum.

  “Are you following me?” she said, arms crossing in front of her. “Should I be worried?”

  “No,” Bharath said quickly. “I swear I’m not stalking anyone. Just… absorbing America. Slowly.”

  She ughed. “You still look like you’re about to ask someone if this entire week is a prank show.”

  “Is it?”

  “Only emotionally.”

  He smiled, but was still too stunned to find a real comeback. She was standing close now - not too close, but enough that he could smell the faint scent of citrus shampoo, maybe some coconut lotion, and whatever confidence smelled like when it came wrapped in curves and sarcasm.

  “I was picking up the books for CS,” she said. “Do you already have all of them?”

  “Almost. Got lucky. Used ones. Pages intact. Some answers scribbled in. Best kind of theft.”

  “Smart man,” she said, tilting her head. “We really are in all the same csses?”

  He nodded. “Looks like it.”

  “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

  Stuck was the st word he would’ve chosen.

  She stared at him for a moment, eyebrows raised. “You gonna say something, or just keep looking at me like I walked out of a music video?”

  Bharath blinked. “Sorry. You’re just… always dressed like you’re about to star in a music video. Like Shakira. Only prettier.”

  She ughed - warm, genuine.

  “That’s... not a bad line, actually,” she said.

  He scratched his chin, flustered. “It wasn’t a line. I meant it.”

  Even better.

  Something about his honesty disarmed her. She was used to smooth talk from men. Slick. Guys who looked at her like a trophy. Bharath looked at her like a phenomenon he hadn’t prepared for. A pleasant disruption to his operating system.

  “I’ll take it,” she said. “You’re charming. Accidentally. It’s cute.”

  Just then, a voice echoed from the next aisle.

  “Yo, B! We done here or what?”

  It was Tyrel, followed by Ravi and Jorge, each carrying a few books and looking mildly lost.

  They rounded the corner, saw Marisol - and stopped.

  Ravi blinked. Jorge smirked.

  Tyrel grinned like he’d found gold.

  “Well damn,” Tyrel said, stepping forward. “Who dis fine thang talkin’ to our boy like he the prince of Tech?”

  Marisol turned slowly.

  Her eyebrow arched.

  Tyrel leaned in slightly, the swagger oozing from every inch. “I’m Tyrel. ATL native. Triple espresso connoisseur. Sometimes I DJ. You need someone to show you where the real party’s at?”

  Bharath visibly winced.

  Marisol stared at Tyrel like she was measuring him for burial.

  “That’s your opener?” she asked.

  Tyrel’s smile widened. “Straight to the point.”

  She crossed her arms. “Here’s a point: if I wanted to hear someone butcher hip hop sng while imagining they’re God’s gift to women, I’d rewatch a Milli Vanilli interview.”

  Jorge and Tyrel gasped.

  Ravi and Bharath were confused. Bharath blinked and asked, “What the hell is a Milli Vanilli?”

  “Exactly,” Marisol said.

  Jorge whispered to Bharath and Ravi, “She just dropped a nuke.”

  They just tried not to ugh too loudly, still a little unsure about how much of an insult it really was.

  Marisol turned back to him, now smiling as though the moment had never happened.

  “Catch you in CS tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely,” Bharath said, still stunned.

  She looked at the others. “See you around, boys.”

  And with that, she walked away, hips swaying, hair bouncing, a stack of books banced on her hip like she owned the entire campus.

  The silence she left in her wake was thunderous.

  Ravi exhaled. “I think I just fell in love.”

  Jorge cpped Bharath on the back. “You lucky bastard.”

  Tyrel muttered, “She disrespected me like I was a parking ticket.”

  “Yeah,” Jorge said, “but you kinda earned it.”

  Bharath was still smiling, eyes on the st pce she’d stood.

  He didn’t know what this was.

  But he liked it. A lot.