Hey, Noah

s e v e n | Future Boyfriend

s e v e n | Future Boyfriend

"Riley! Yo, Riley Dawson!"

I stopped at the sound of my name and Ella halted right next to me where we'd been walking across the quad. I scanned the people behind us to locate the source of the sound.

"Is that Mac Ellison over there?" Ella squinted. "You know, Noah's friend?"

"Where?" I turned to look in the direction of her line of sight, and sure enough, there he was quickly making his way over to us, waving with a huge smile on his face.

"I was trying to get your attention from the window there," he declared breathlessly, pointing towards the right where Coffee Bean, the campus cafe, was situated a little distance down. "But God, you're not all that attentive, are you?"

I ignored the dig, moving on to ask him, "What's up?" This was a change of pace. We'd never really interacted on campus, but that was mostly attributed to the fact that he was always somewhere wreaking havoc and I wasn't.

"Are you doing anything right now?" He asked in return.

"Why?"

"Well, I've got Mr Moody in there," he grinned, pointing at the cafe again. "And I was thinking you guys could maybe join us?"

He wanted us to join him and Noah?

Okay, that wasn't fine.

I wanted to see Noah, yes. But I didn't want to be in his face twenty-four seven. The guy had to have gotten to sick of me at this point.

"Nope, we're not doing anyth—" Ella finished with a yelp after I elbowed her in the side and gave me her trademark are you crazy look.

Mac frowned as he took that in. "Uh... is everything okay?"

"I don't know," I answered him honestly. "It's just... I don't really think that's a good idea. I really don't want to be intrusive or anything."

"Oh trust me, you're not being intrusive," he snorted immediately. "When I say Ice Cold in there can't keep his eyes off of you through the window of a cafe when you're like twenty feet away, you gotta trust me."

Now it was Ella poking me in the ribs.

Maybe Mac had read to much into it...? He'd joined us on our walk last night and now he was just trying his hand at playing matchmaker. Yep, that had to be it.

Perhaps I didn't do a good job of hiding the thoughts warring in my head—being an open book was so not working for me right now—because that was when Mac's tone was quieter than I'd ever heard it, his words kinder than I'd ever predicted.

"Riley," he began, voice low. "I don't know much about whatever's going on but I think he'd like you at that table with us. So what do you say? You want a hot cup of coffee in this cold?"

It was just like Noah to make me sway even when he wasn't here.

Damn him.

"Okay," I murmured and Mac grinned in victory.

He then turned on his heel, promptly throwing a "Follow me!" over his shoulder.

Ella, who'd gladly been silent through most of this exchange, leaned in next to me as we started off behind Mac and snickered, "We're going to have coffee with your future boyfriend."

Seriously, this girl.

"Keep it down," I hissed. "And none of that at Coffee Bean."

"Just wait till I tell Matt," she gloated and I just sighed at the prospect of even more teasing.