Second Chance At Love

Late Nights.

Brynn

I feel a hand ruffle my hair as I work on my homework in the student lounge. It's almost twelve in the morning, so it's pretty empty by now. I unplug my earphone from my ear which blasted music through my ears. I didn't even hear Cgc approach me. "Here's your coffee," he says, placing the cup near my open laptop. We've been here for a couple of hours catching up on school work together. Our majors are different but we both have a lot of work to do nevertheless. Here I was thinking that senior year was going to be a bit more chill, I was wrong.

Cgc sits back down next to me where his homework is sprawled out all over the table. He's working on actual worksheets while all my assignments are online. I open the cup and blow on the coffee a bit, deciding to let it cool off a bit. "How much longer are you planning on staying here?" he asks me, looking at my coffee. My professors decided to fill up my plate with an excessive amount of work these past two days so I've been taking tonight to finish these assignments up since I was busy all of today. "I'm aiming to finish most of it tonight so. . . maybe three more hours? If I'm lucky?" I say uncertain myself.

These assignments can either take me thirty minutes or two hours. It just really depends on how much reading and problem solving I have to do with each question. I can't use any apps to help since my professors have ways of knowing when you cheat. Luckily for me, I never use them except when I'm too tired to function. My coffee will hopefully prevent that from happening tonight. "Are you done already?" I ask him. He shakes his head, fixing his unorganized papers. "Not yet, I was just wondering since you have that whole not staying out later than 12:30 rule," he says with a small smirk.

"That only applies when I'm out being social not when I'm finishing homework," I say with a small chuckle. "Makes sense, same," he says with a smile.

Both of us continue working on our respective assignments, even occasionally trying to help the other out. He was more help to me than I was to him but still. I'm on my last assignment when he finished about thirty minutes ago. He said he would stay to keep me company since he didn't feel like driving back home yet. I look towards up the righthandside of my computer. 2:12 a.m. It's pretty late and I'm still not tired. Every time I look over to Cgc though, his eyes hang low. I've told him he should get home before he ends up falling asleep here but he refuses to leave until I do.

Cgc's legs are on two other chairs and his arms are crossed over his chest like he's about to fall asleep right here. "Don't you have practice tomorrow?" I ask, one brow arched. He nods his head and yawns. "Not until later on in the afternoon though. If I'm tired, I'll get in a nap before I go," he says. I think about bugging him a bit more to see if he'll leave since I don't want him to be tired tomorrow, but he's already resisted the twenty times I've done it so far. "Question," he suddenly says after I don't answer. I stop typing and look over at him, his eyes closed. "Yeah?" I ask.

His eyes flutter open softly and his gaze is already on me again. "What made you come to Oak Hill, again?" he asks me. I told him brief reasoning on why I moved out here the first day we met. It's the same reason I tell everyone besides my parents and some friends from Miami who know I've been wanting to transfer since sophomore year. "I wanted to change. Believe it or not, Miami was getting boring. I never really enjoyed my time here in Oak Hill when I came to stay with my parents but my mom insisted I apply," I explain.

His eyes never leave mine and I turn away every now and then getting slightly nervous. I would get nervous if it was anyone looking at me for that long. I'm not good at keeping eye contact for so long because I feel like I'm being judged or something. "But you came anyway?" he asks, one dark brow arched. "Yeah. . . I don't know why," I shrug "but it's growing on me," I say sincerely. I like my classes and professors and I did miss my brother, sister, and parents more than I initially thought.