#beaman

“It’s not my fault the stupid bus driver hates my guts,” Diego said, placing his backpack on his desk and putting his book in it.

A piece of paper was shoved into his hands. Diego scanned it before realising it was the notes he’d missed from the beggining of the lecture. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He smiled. “Thanks, Dora.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Eudora Patch was unlike anyone Diego had ever met. Then again, Diego hadn’t met that many people. Eudora was top of the class at everything, getting straight A’s at every test, acing every exercise, and somehow, she was his friend.

“Sure,” he said, not bothered enough to shake the smirk off his face. “Though I thought we’d reached first-name basis.”

Eudora rolled her eyes. “Well,” she helped Diego zip his bag closed, her fingers playfully brushing his. “My name isn’t Dora.”

“Right, right.” Their fingers were still touching even after the backpack was fully closed, and the heat of her touch was starting to make its way up Diego’s face. “Eudora.”

It was the most beautiful name he’d ever heard, and his heart skipped like a thousand beats whenever it rolled off his tongue. It wasn’t until recently that she’d let him use it—him, only him, while everyone else called her Patch—and he’d never wanted to use his voice more before. To say it, with a stutter or without. He just wanted to hear her name.

She slipped her hand into his, and Diego stroked the back of it without thinking about it much. In fact, he wasn’t thinking about anything, except for how close the two of them were, of how closer they kept coming—

“Jeez, you two look like newlyweds or something.”

They pulled away in less than a second, Diego reaching for his backpack to look casual and Eudora taking a thousand steps back. Dammit, Rodriguez.

“Eh, maybe for now,” another voice argued. “They usually look like an old married couple.”

They were their friends, and Diego loved them, but Beaman and Rodriguez could be really annoying sometimes.

“We do not.” Eudora crossed her arms. “I was just giving him my notes.”

“Well, did he ask you for them, or did you just take them for him before he even showed up?”

“Fuck off, Rodriguez,” Diego mumbled, clumsily shoving the notes in his pocket and putting on his backpack.

The man patted his back. “Relax, we’re just messing with you.”

“When aren’t we?” Beaman asked and Eudora slapped his arm. “Christ, Patch, that hurts!”

Eudora shrugged. “Oops.”

Diego bit his lip and looked away as he tried not to think of what would have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted before.