#6167

Mark hears a shuffling noise in front of him and his fingers still as he looks up from his laptop, focusing on the guy hovering awkwardly at the edge of the table Mark’s camped out in the library. Paper is slipping out from between the books in his arms, a notebook shoved in one of them closed haphazardly, his open laptop balanced awkwardly on top. 

“Hey,” he says. “I am so sorry, but the table I was at doesn’t have a wall plug and my laptop is about to die.” His, frankly impressive, eyebrows scrunch together in a wince and Mark wonders what it’s about. 

“Oh,” Mark says, “yeah sure of course.” He waves at the empty end of the table  Mark pulls his glasses off his face and tries to wipe off the huge smudge with his shirt tail. He looks through them, realizes he’s only made it worse, then sighs and pulls a disposable wet wipe out of the front pocket of his backpack. He cracks it open, looking over at the guy settling across the table from mark out of the corner of his eye. 

The mild alcohol smell of it fills his nostrils as he wipes his glasses, then wipes them on his shirt again to dry them off. Mark crumples the wipe back into its original packaging, and tucks it into the side pocket of his backpack. 

Books spread out on the desk, laptop settled in front of one of the chairs, the guy walks around the table to get to the plug on the wall on Mark’s right. Mark looks over as his shadow falls over Mark’s laptop. 

He stands up straight, and up close Mark notices his gorgeous brown eyes, even though they’re squinted with how hard he’s smiling. Smiling at Mark. He sticks his hand out, saying “Hi. I’m Max.” 

Mark looks up at him, smiling helplessly back, caught in the gravity of Max’s smile. “I’m Mark.” 

“Nice to meet you.” Max bites his bottom lip on a smile. Mark sees this, feels his cheeks go hot, and looks back at his computer. 

“Nice to meet you, too.” Max takes this as a signal to walk back around the table and work on his paper. 

Mark keeps looking at Max out of the corner of his eyes, barely focusing on the problem set in front of him. 

Max is a decent table partner, not loud doesn’t take up too much space. But he’s distractingly gorgeous, even in the terrible overhead fluorescent lighting. Mark doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything, leaning over his scratch paper and typing the results into the answer space. 

When he’s done, he realizes he’s hungry, and reaches into his backpack for a granola bar. Max looks up at the crumple of the wrapper, head tilted slightly, a soft look in his eyes that Mark interprets as longing. 

Mark pulls another granola bar out of his bag and slides it across the table to Max. 

“Oh,” Max says, soft, “You don’t have to…” he trails off, but it’s obvious to Mark that he wants it. His hand twitches on his notebook, clenching around his pen. 

“You look hungry,” Mark says, encouraging. “Go on, it’s not a big deal.” 

“Do you have anything to drink?” Max asks, biting at the corner of his lip. 

“No?” Mark had left his water bottle on his desk when he left this morning. 

“I’ll grab us a drink.” Max stands, and pulls his wallet out of his pocket. “What kind of soda do you want? On me.” 

“Uhm,” Mark says, trying to figure out if he should take it, but he’s thirsty, and he doesn’t want to walk all the way downstairs just for one gulp of water. “Sure. A Sprite?” 

Max winks at Mark and says, “You got it.” 

“I’l uh,” Mark says as Max walks away, “watch your stuff.”