Here they come.

Merry Whitehill peeked over her laptop screen, eyes narrowing as she spotted the group of rowdy boys entering the coffee shop. They pushed and shoved at each other, trading barbs and insults back and forth. Loud, invasive, cocky boys.

Merry huffed and returned to her work. Graphic design was kicking her ass this semester. The professor graded too hard, found her work twee and therefore mediocre. Her latest assignment was returned with a harsh, red “C”-- the plus only serving to taunt her. Merry had never gotten a C on anything let alone an art assignment. Art was her thing. The one thing she had that set her apart from her other towheaded siblings.

“Rowing team,” Boremund Moss said, looking over his shoulder at the boys. They leaned against the cafe counter, some of the them to flirt with the red-faced barista clumsily taking their orders. “They love to walk around like they own the whole place, don’t they?”

“You sound jealous,” Tabby Lake teased. She was bent over a notebook full of scribbles--poetry, she called it. “Didn’t you try out for the team earlier this year?”

“No,” Mund replied, sharply. “I wouldn’t join up with those idiots if you paid me.”

Merry rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You’d kill to be one of those dick-swinging jackasses.”

“They throw all the best parties.” Tabby thoughtfully tapped her pen against her lips. “Get all the best girls.”

“Grades are shit,” Merry said. She tilted her head in the direction of one of the taller boys. His hair was a deep russet color, grin bright and troublesome. The sort of grin you stayed far away from if you knew any better. “That one’s in my geology class. Even dumber than the rocks.”

Tabby snorted into her tea. Mund reclined in his chair, hands behind his head, amused.

“Merry, you’re something else.”

“Good to know.”

Her voice dripped with sarcasm--residual annoyance from the C+. She felt it burning a hole in her backpack. Elyse and Karl wouldn’t have gotten a C+, she thought as she ripped up her napkin into jagged strips. Tabby gave her a concerned look which she ignored. Usually being around good friends and good coffee (with doughnuts) would cheer her up. The smell of hot chocolate, cinnamon, and vanilla wafting through the air only stung her nose and gave her a massive headache. Or maybe it was the douche canoes causing a ruckus only a few feet away. This was her space dammit. A pack of wild bros weren’t allowed to invade her space.

“I’m going to kill every last one of them,” she growled. “Put holes in the bottoms of their boats so they all sink to the bottom.”

“They’re not being too bad today.” Sometimes Tabby reminded her of her mother with the sweet, placating tone of her voice, the way she tried in vain to give everyone a fair shot. Merry, meanwhile, carried the Whitehill temper like a curse, and no one was safe.

“I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. For you.”

The words had not left her mouth before the entire rowing team decided to take over the table right behind Merry and her friends. Her shoulders hunched, wincing at the increase in noise levels. The boys yammered and guffawed at each other’s stupid jokes. One directly behind Merry “whispered” to the boy in her geology class, loud enough for the entire cafe to hear him.

“Nice ass on that one, right?” He was talking about the barista, Merry assumed. She gritted her teeth. She recalled nights out with Tabby where men had attempted to grope them and get their numbers afterwards. She would’ve kicked their asses if her friend hadn’t talked her off the ledge.

“Eh,” Dumber Than Rocks said. He took a long sip of his drink. “I’ve seen better.”

“Who?”

“Your sister’s.”

The table erupted as if Dumber Than Rocks had said the funniest thing they’d ever heard. One of them was due to keel over and die from laughter at any moment.

Across from Merry, Mund made a face, but kept doodling in the margins of his psych textbook. Tabby played with the string of her tea bag. She looked nervous. Like she knew…

“Hey--excuse me.” Merry had turned and tapped Dumber Than Rocks on the shoulder. She wore a sweet, artless expression--a look she had perfected over the years thanks to watching Karl and Roslin always get their ways with it. Thanks to Merry’s doe-eyed Bole features this came almost too easily.

Dumber Than Rocks eyed her with interest, his attention fully captured like a fish on a hook. Time to reel his ass in.

“You’re being a bit loud,” Merry said. ‘My friends and I are trying to study.”

“There’s a library on campus,” one of the row bros said, smugly. “You could maybe go there?”

Merry smiled thinly. “Wow… did you come up with that idea all on your own? I didn’t know a guy like you could think.”

The row bros let out a chorus of low oohs and jostled their friend. He soured and went to reply, but Dumber Than Rocks put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, she’s just playin around,” he said. He directed his smile at her like a floodlight. “Right?”

“I’m actually being really serious.” Merry’s smile didn’t waver. She felt Tabby beside her take a deep breath and hold it. “And if you shits don’t keep your voices down I’m going to use this…” She held up the plastic knife she’d been given with her bagel. “To castrate each and every one of you.”

The row bros blinked, all taken aback by her threat. It was an empty threat, of course--she wouldn’t touch any of them with a ten foot pole--but saying it still felt satisfying. And the looks on their faces… you couldn’t buy that kind of gratification.

The only row bro who didn’t look put off was Dumber Than Rocks. He put a hand to his mouth, stifling a laugh, until he couldn’t hold it back any longer. When he laughed he showed all his teeth. Merry blushed and hated herself for it.

“You look like someone I know,” he said as his friends turned away to talk amongst themselves--quieter this time, Merry noted. “Do I know you?”

“Geology with Professor Skinner,” Merry said. “You sit all the way in the back and come in late every day.”

“So you’ve been paying attention to me.” He seemed pleased by this.

“Only because you’re a disruption.” Merry didn’t like where this conversation was going. She shifted awkwardly in her chair. Confidence only took her so far. She didn’t have Elyse’s breeziness when it came to dealing with others. She could deliver a verbal kick to the groin, but had trouble following it up after her temper had cooled. “Maybe think about coming to lecture on time for once.”

“Maybe we can sit together,” he said, hopefully. He smiled again, making her think of a puppy.

Not a puppy. A wolf.

“Maybe.”

“My name’s Owen.” He held out his hand, and she stared at it. Did he expect her to shake it? What was this? A business meeting?

“Meredyth.” She let most people use her nickname--most friends. Owen wasn’t a friend. He was more of a nuisance and therefore didn’t get the privilege.

Behind her, Mund made a show out of closing his textbook and rustling his papers. Even Tabby fidgeted a bit too noisily with her backpack (why did she need so many keychains anyway?). Merry turned to glance at her friends and they both gestured to the door of the cafe with their eyes, desperate to leave.

“We have an exam next Friday, right?” Owen asked. If he noticed Mund and Tabby getting up to leave then he showed no sign of it. He kept his eyes trained on her, following the movement of her hands as she unzipped her own backpack.

“Thursday,” she replied. “This Thursday. Tomorrow.”

Owen face dropped. “Ah, shit.”

Merry couldn’t help but feel bad for him. A little bad. She’d done her share of forgetting exam dates in the past. Mother would advise her to be kind, to offer sympathy to those who were in need of it. Maybe just this once she could.

“If you need help I have the notes,” Merry said. “You can borrow them, but you have to promise to give them back. Or…”

“Or the castration, yeah.”

Merry flushed and began rifling through her bag for her geology notebook.

“I have a better idea. Why don’t you and I meet up later and you can tutor me?”

“That doesn’t sound like a better idea. That just sounds like you taking advantage of my good will.”

The corners of Owen’s mouth twitched. He found her funny. “Look, you’re probably way smarter at this stuff than I am. I mean, who cares about… rocks?”

“The exam isn’t on rocks,” Merry said. “It’s on minerals.”

“Those are rocks.”

“Rocks are made of minerals.”

Owen waved a hand at her. “See you’re proving my point. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’d be way better off if you taught me.”

“Merry…” Tabby said. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, impatient.

“Wait for me outside. I’ll be right there.”

Tabby sighed and followed Mund out the door. Merry turned to shut off her laptop. Before she could, she heard the sound of a chair scraping against the cafe floor. Owen had positioned his seat next to hers.

“Did you make that?” He was staring at her laptop screen. The Photoshop window with her graphic design homework was still up. Merry quickly went to close the screen, but he shooed her hands out of the way. “It’s cool. The bugs.”

“It’s not done yet,” Merry said, her face beat red. “I don’t even like it. It’s not good.”

“Did you draw them?”

“Yes.”

“They look realistic.”

Merry stewed in her own embarrassment as Owen continued to study her drawings. She’d sketched them a while ago on a family vacation down south. She’d sat for hours in the field around their summer house waiting for dragonflies. They were messy, sketched fast since the dragonflies wouldn’t stick around too long. She had to copy the details out of books.

“You can draw me sometime, if you want.” Owen said. She couldn’t tell if he was joking.

“I don’t draw people.”

Merry snapped her laptop closed and started collecting the rest of her things. Owen watched her, grinning to himself.

“So what about the tutoring?” he asked. ‘It’d really suck if I failed.”

Merry considered him a moment. His messy hair, his teeth, the sturdy muscles of his arms. She looked away, hoping he couldn’t see her red face. Just as bad as the barista. Maybe worse.

“If you show up at the library tonight--8 o’clock--I might be there.”

Owen grinned. “It’s a date.”

“Not a date.” Merry picked up her backpack and slung it over one shoulder. “It’s charity.”