Chapter 33 Good Team
POV: Carly
They were second to last.
Which meant she had to sit through ten other presentations with her note cards on her desk and her knee bouncing under the table and Niko beside her doing that thing where he appeared completely relaxed while she was quietly coming apart at the seams.
He sketched while they waited.
She caught a glimpse of the poster he had been working on for the past week. Clean lines and warm colors and a detail in the border that she had not expected from someone who claimed to have no experience with spell work. She remembered the afternoon he had been so focused on it that he hadn't looked up at her once for almost two hours. Just sat across the desk with his head down and his pencil moving and that crease in his forehead that showed up when something had his full attention.
She had watched him for longer than she should have.
She looked at her note cards.
When Professor Swanson finally called their names Carly felt her stomach do something dramatic and Niko stood up beside her and said nothing and she was grateful for that. He propped the poster against the whiteboard and she arranged her materials and they both turned to face the class and she made herself breathe.
He spoke first.
She had not asked him to do that. He just did it. Stepped into the space before she had to and gave her thirty seconds to remember how to be a person who did presentations without difficulty.
She found her footing by the time her segment started.
The truth serum came together the way it had in rehearsal. She moved through it cleanly and efficiently and when the serum lifted off the demonstration dish in a thin coil of vapor right on cue she heard the room respond and felt that familiar pride settle through her chest.
Niko was watching her from beside the poster.
Not performing attention. Actually watching. His arms loose at his sides and his expression open in a way he didn't usually let it be in public and she could feel it without looking directly at him.
She finished her segment.
The class applauded.
Professor Swanson said something about impressive execution and noted their collaboration as one of the strongest in the group and Carly nodded and smiled and felt Niko shift beside her.
"Ultimate power couple." Katy's slow clap came from the third row. "Whoops. I mean duo."
Niko raised an eyebrow.
Carly dug her fingernails into her palm and smiled pleasantly and walked back to her seat.
"Friend of yours?" Niko said quietly when they sat back down.
"Definitely not." She said. "Roommate."
"Ah." He said. "The vampire. The one you charged down to the headmistress' office over."
She shoved him again.
He let her.
She caught herself smiling at her desk and covered it with her hand and looked at the next group presenting and told herself to stay focused for the remaining eight minutes of class.
She managed it.
Professor Swanson dismissed them when the last group finished and the room erupted into the specific chaos of people who had been sitting still for too long. Bags zipping. Chairs scraping. Everyone talking at once.
Carly packed her bag slowly.
She could feel the end of the period the way she could feel weather changing. Something shifting in the air around them now that the thing that had given them a reason to be in each other's orbit officially had a conclusion.
Niko stood and picked up his sketchbook and swung his bag over one shoulder and she stood too and smoothed her skirt and pushed her hair back and neither of them said anything yet.
They walked toward the door.
She was trying to find the words and not finding them and hating herself for not finding them and they reached the door and Niko stopped.
He turned to face her.
"Okay." He said. "Out with it."
She blinked. "I don't know what-"
"Yes you do." He said. "You've been somewhere else all period and it's not the presentation anymore so something else is in there." He looked at her. "What's wrong."
She looked around the hallway automatically. A habit she couldn't seem to break.
He noticed. She saw it land on his face and felt a small pull of guilt.
She sighed. "What happens now. With us." She said it before she could overthink it any further. "The only reason we started spending time together was the project. Now that it's done I just." She stopped. "I didn't know if."
"We're still friends." He said. Simply. Like it was the most obvious thing.
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
He looked at her for a moment. "Do you honestly think I asked you out because of an assignment?"
She scoffed. "Don't laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing at you." He said. "I'm laughing at the assumption." He took a step closer. "I enjoy you Carly. Your company. If you haven't realized that by now then I don't know what else I can do." He said it evenly. "I'm actually a bit insulted you'd think otherwise."
She snorted. "Can you blame me."
"Yes." He said. "Because you sound completely mental." A pause. "In all seriousness. These past few weeks have been the most fun I've had in five years at this school. And I think you can say the same." He held her gaze. "It's going to take a lot more than an insignificant class assignment to get rid of me. You can't shake me that easily."
She bit down on her lip to keep the smile from getting away from her. "No harm in trying."
He hummed and looked at her and she felt the air between them shift into something warmer and more loaded and she was standing in a public hallway and she was aware of that and she was also aware that she did not want to walk away from this conversation yet.
"So." She said. "Still friends?"
He took one step closer.
She felt the wall behind her without having moved toward it.
His hands stayed at his sides. He wasn't touching her. He wasn't doing anything except standing close enough that she could see the faint green rim around his irises and the way his jaw moved slowly when he looked at her.
She looked at his lips without meaning to and looked back up and he had seen it.
His eyes were darker than they had been a minute ago.
Neither of them moved.
The breath in her chest went shallow and she was furious at herself for it and also completely unable to do anything about it.
"Friends." He said. Quiet and certain.
Then he flashed.
Gone. Just the faint displacement of air where he had been standing and she was alone in the hallway with her back against the wall and her heart going at a completely unreasonable speed for a conversation that had been about nothing.
She stood there for a moment.
Then she picked up her bag and walked to her next class and told herself she was fine.
She was getting very good at telling herself that.