Bharath leaned against the low wall outside the CoC building, the early buzz of campus life milling around him. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his bandaged side still aching, but his mind elsewhere entirely.

  He was nervous.

  Not about css.

  About her.

  And then, like some karmic reward for surviving the previous 48 hours, there she was - Marisol - walking up the stone path like she owned the sidewalk and the sun. A short bck skirt swayed around her hips. A fitted tee hugged her in all the right pces. Her hair was wild, her earrings catching the light like little warnings.

  Bharath’s mouth went dry.

  Students turned to look. One guy practically walked into a trash can.

  And then she was in his arms.

  She kissed him before he could speak - hungry, public, unapologetic. Her hands were in his hair. His were at her waist, then sliding lower, then stopping just short of danger.

  A few feet away, someone wolf-whistled.

  “Jesus Christ,” someone else muttered. “Get a room.”

  Marisol pulled away, flushed and radiant, and turned toward the voice. “Get me one,” she said sweetly, then turned back to Bharath with a satisfied smirk.

  He stared at her, dazed. “You’re... dressed to destroy me.”

  “That was the idea,” she said, straightening his colr like a challenge. “You’re healing, not dead.”

  “Barely.”

  They started walking toward the CS building, still holding hands.

  “Also,” she said casually, “you’re coming home with me tonight.”

  Bharath nearly tripped. “Wait - what?”

  “My mom wants to meet you.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “Your mother?”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile too wide to be reassuring. “I told her about us.”

  “All of... us?”

  She nodded. “Everything.”

  Bharath stared at the pavement. “Marisol, that’s... a lot.”

  “I know,” she said. “But she’s old-school. She worries. You disappeared with me for a whole weekend, and I didn’t come home till Monday night. If I don’t bring you home, she’s going to assume you’re either married to someone else or pnning a murder-suicide.”

  “That’s not comforting.”

  “She’s going to love you.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Marisol’s face softened. She stopped, stepping in front of him. “Hey. It’s just dinner. You’ve done harder things. You got stabbed.”

  “Exactly. I’ve met knives. I haven’t met Latina mothers.”

  She ughed - not unkindly. “It’ll be okay. You’re polite. You’re smart. You’re respectful. You’re...” She tilted her head. “Weirdly formal, which she’ll like.”

  Bharath still looked uneasy. “What if I mess it up?”

  “You won’t,” she said. “Just... be honest. Be you. And maybe don’t bring up Star Trek.”

  He cracked a reluctant smile. “Noted.”

  They resumed walking, her fingers squeezing his lightly.

  Up ahead, Ravi and Jorge were waiting near the lecture hall doors.

  “Finally!” Jorge called. “We thought you two eloped.”

  “Or died of horniness,” Ravi added.

  Bharath waved them off. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “Barely,” Marisol muttered under her breath, brushing imaginary creases from her skirt.

  “Damn, Marisol,” Jorge said as they approached. “You’re dressing like the semester’s already over.”

  Marisol smirked. “Maybe it is. For me.”

  Ravi leaned toward Bharath. “You ready for css today? Or is your girl keeping you too... occupied?”

  Bharath didn’t answer - just shot him a look halfway between embarrassment and wonder.

  Ravi whistled. “This man’s gone.”

  They all ughed and walked into the lecture hall, but Bharath’s nerves lingered.

  Tonight, he was going to meet her family. So soon!

  And somehow, that felt scarier than any knife.

  The lecture hall buzzed with the low thrum of fluorescent lights, keyboard taps, and the occasional click of a pen. Professor Matthis was already halfway into a spiel about inheritance hierarchies and polymorphism, gesturing wildly at a Java css diagram projected on the screen.

  And Bharath?

  Bharath was drowning.

  Not in the syntax. Not in the code.

  In her.

  Marisol sat exactly one seat away from him, her legs crossed, her spiral notebook tilted just so, her pen moving with casual grace. The hem of her bck skirt kept sliding up just a bit more each time she shifted, and Bharath couldn’t stop looking. Or rather, gncing, then immediately forcing his eyes back to the whiteboard. Then failing. Repeating. Dying.

  She looked... unfair.

  Hair loose, lips glossed, earrings swinging with every scribble. And then there was her chest - contained only technically by the snug fitted tee she’d knotted slightly at the side. He’d seen those breasts st night. Touched them. Tasted them.

  His mouth remembered more than he wanted it to at 10:12 AM.

  A little whisper of memory stirred at the base of his spine.

  Stop it. Focus.

  He turned back to the board.

  Something about csses extending other csses. A diagram. Circles. Arrows. Words.

  “Bharath.”

  He blinked. Ravi was nudging him. “What’s ‘method overloading’ again?”

  Bharath opened his mouth.

  Nothing came out.

  Ravi stared.

  So did Jorge, from the other side.

  “Hermano,” Jorge whispered, frowning. “Are you high?”

  Bharath shook his head violently. “No. No - just... tired.”

  Ravi looked unconvinced. “Bhai, you’re never tired. You’re usually three pages ahead of the professor. You didn’t even open your ptop.”

  Bharath blinked. He hadn’t. It was still zipped in his bag.

  Shit.

  Marisol leaned slightly toward him, breath warm at his ear. “You okay, baby?”

  He swallowed hard. Baby. The word hit him square in the chest.

  “I’m fine,” he muttered, already turning red.

  She gave him a knowing smile. “You sure? You seem... distracted.”

  Distracted? She was the distraction. Sitting there like a fever dream in a skirt, skin still glowing from his hands the night before.

  And now her mom wanted to meet him?

  He tried to focus on the board again.

  “Let’s define a css hierarchy,” the professor droned. “Dog extends Animal. Cat extends Animal. But Cat can override speak() differently…”

  Speak?

  He couldn’t even breathe right now.

  In his peripheral vision, Marisol uncapped her lip balm and ran it slowly across her mouth.

  Bharath's leg bounced under the desk like it was trying to flee the building.

  “Hermano,” Jorge hissed. “Expin this stuff. Please. I’m lost.”

  Bharath stared at the slide. The words blurred.

  “…We can override a method from the supercss if we use the same signature - ”

  He could recite this in his sleep.

  But not today.

  His brain was full of soft moans and bck ce and the way Marisol arched when he bit her nipple just right.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll send notes ter.”

  Ravi looked genuinely worried now. “Oh mere bhai. What’s happening? You’re never off.”

  Bharath dropped his head into his hands. “I think I’m broken.”

  Jorge leaned in. “Is it the stabbing?”

  “No,” Bharath said ftly. “It’s her breasts.”

  Both of them went still. They looked at her.

  And then, together: “Fair.”

  They backed off for now.

  But Bharath sat through the rest of the css hearing none of it. Just the soft, echoing whisper of Marisol’s breath in his ear the night before. Just her fingers curled in his hair. Her body pressed against him like she belonged there. Like they were already something inevitable.

  He was in love.

  He was overwhelmed.

  And he was one dinner away from being cross-examined by a Latina mother who probably thought he was either a nerdy rebound or a future problem. He had taken her virginity. It wasn’t the kind of thing a person could apologize for and return back if they were not happy about it.

  His pen hovered over his bnk notebook.

  Inheritance, abstraction, polymorphism?

  Not today.

  Today he was fighting the battle of hormones vs. survival.

  Bharath shuffled behind Marisol like a shell-shocked soldier.

  His backpack hung lopsided on one shoulder. His eyes were gzed. His hair - usually tidy - was sticking up in odd pces from all the times he’d run his hands through it during css. Jorge had stopped talking to him altogether. Ravi just muttered “desi Casanova’s glitching” under his breath.

  Marisol gnced back and frowned. “Mi amor, qué pasó?”

  No response.

  She stopped walking. Bharath nearly bumped into her.

  “Okay. What’s going on with you?”

  He blinked slowly, like he was just now seeing her. “What?”

  “You’re not okay,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “You didn’t speak for an entire hour. You didn’t even correct the professor when he mixed up compile-time and runtime polymorphism.”

  He groaned softly. “Please don’t say polymorphism right now.”

  Marisol blinked, confused.

  “Mi amor,” she said more gently, stepping in closer. “Is this about... tonight? Meeting my mom?”

  Bharath’s stomach twisted. “Maybe.”

  She reached up, brushing his cheek with her knuckles. “It’s going to be okay. My mom’s tough but fair. She just wants to look into your soul and make sure you’re not going to ruin her daughter’s life.”

  He gave her a look. “You’re not helping.”

  Marisol smiled sympathetically. “Okay, okay. Then let’s make a deal.”

  She leaned in, lowering her voice to a purr. “We skip lunch. Find somewhere private. You use my body to relieve all that tension you’re carrying.”

  Bharath inhaled sharply - audibly.

  His eyes widened, and his backpack actually slipped off his shoulder and hit the ground.

  “W-what?” he croaked.

  Marisol arched an eyebrow, clearly enjoying herself. “I’m serious. You’re clearly wound up. And it’s my fault, isn’t it? Walking in here looking all edible - ” she gestured vaguely at her own figure “ - and then talking about moms and dinner and God knows what else.”

  He swallowed hard, backing up a step. “You’re trying to kill me.”

  She ughed. “No. Just trying to make my man function again.”

  “I’m barely functioning as it is!”

  “Oh, I noticed,” she said sweetly. “You were staring at the whiteboard like it was a vision from the Bible.”

  “I was trying not to picture your breasts in my mouth during a lecture about Java csses!”

  Marisol’s eyes glittered. “And were you successful?”

  He gave her a helpless look.

  She sighed dramatically, then kissed him - quick and hard.

  He staggered again, grabbing a bike rack for bance. “Okay. You’ve definitely broken me.”

  She leaned in close, whispering against his ear. “Physics next. You better pull it together before I start thinking I need to punish you.”

  Bharath whimpered.

  She winked. “Now walk. And maybe think about anything that isn’t under my clothes. Like my panties.”

  “That only made things worse! Why would you say that?”

  As she turned and strode off toward the physics building, hips swaying slightly, Bharath stood there in the middle of the quad - dazed, flushed, half-erect, and convinced he had no hope of surviving the rest of the day.

  The lecture hall was only half full. Most of the css sat near the back, hoping to avoid the professor’s eye - a wiry man with a permanent scowl and a voice that sounded like he gargled chalk every morning.

  Bharath sat near the front. That had been the rule. “Focus zone.” “No distractions.”

  Today, he was in hell.

  Because next to him - legs crossed high, skirt somehow shorter than he remembered it being this morning - sat Marisol, taking zero notes.

  Instead, she was leaning back in her chair, casually chewing on the end of her pen, eyes fixed on the board as if she were paying attention.

  Her left hand, however, was under the table.

  On his thigh occasionally rubbing his cock when she felt noone was looking.

  Bharath’s pencil twitched mid-equation.

  A warm squeeze.

  Bharath jerked upright in his seat, eyes wide.

  Marisol’s hand moved higher.

  He coughed, choking slightly, then reached for his water bottle and missed.

  She giggled soundlessly beside him.

  Then slid a folded scrap of paper toward his elbow.

  He looked at it like it was radioactive.

  Then, cautiously, opened it.

  "Still thinking about my breasts? Or are you onto thighs now?" "PS: I’m not wearing panties."

  He nearly died.

  His leg hit the underside of the table. His chair made a sound like a wounded animal.

  A few heads turned.

  Bharath smiled weakly. “Sorry. Just… excited about… atoms.”

  Marisol’s eyes glittered with wicked delight.

  The professor continued his lecture, oblivious to the emotional carnage happening in row four.

  Bharath dug into his notes, desperately pretending to care about dispcement.

  Focus. Focus. You’ve done this before. You aced physics back home.

  But then Marisol leaned in - slow, deliberate - letting her breath warm his ear.

  “I’m going to ruin you after dinner,” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes and physically whimpered.

  And still - somehow - took down perfect notes on projectile motion, friction coefficients, and thermal equilibrium.

  Because he was Bharath.

  And no amount of under-the-desk hand py, sexy whispers, or “no panties” decrations was going to break him.

  Outwardly.

  Inwardly? He was already pnning revenge.

  Sweet, thorough, utterly depraved revenge.

  And she had no idea what she had just unleashed.