Measure Twice, Fall Once [Flashback]

Measure Twice, Fall Once [Flashback]
That eight a.m. lecture felt like it dragged on for days, mostly because my professor talked like a washing machine. Loud, repetitive, and going in circles without getting anywhere. When class finally ended at ten, I’d barely closed my laptop when my phone buzzed on the desk.
Dominic: Dios mío, Mama’s not done yet.
Dominic: It’s been two hours. Two. Hours. She’s only at the third store.
Dominic: Tell me when you’re home so I can distract her and shift the target to you.
I typed back slowly, biting back a laugh.
Gretta: Sorry, love. I’m still on campus.
Gretta: Be patient. Consider it mental endurance training.
Gretta: And please don’t expect me home soon. I value my life.
A message from Ruan popped up almost instantly.
Ruan: Traitor. If I die in this mall, I’m haunting your bedroom.
I smirked and slipped my phone into my bag. I was already in the campus parking lot and could’ve just taken the bus back to Mama’s villa. But I wasn’t an idiot. Going home now would be walking straight into the jaws of a hungry lion. And today, I wasn’t in the mood to be fresh meat.
So I cut across to the engineering building, walked down a hallway that smelled like stale coffee and acrylic paint, and knocked on the door of the architecture lab.
Sebastian was there, of course. Parked at a giant table cluttered with blueprint rolls, a mechanical pencil in his mouth, wearing the expression of a man whose deadline had passed but was still lounging like it was summer break.
“Domingo,” he said without looking up. “You’d save my life if you brought coffee.”
“I brought brains,” I said, dropping my bag onto the empty chair. “Coffee you can get yourself. Or make Delano fetch it.”
He groaned dramatically and looked up from beneath the hair falling into his eyes. “Delano bailed to the anatomy lab. Apparently dissecting cadavers is more important than saving modern architecture.”
I grabbed his pencil off the table and unrolled the sheet in front of him. “Okay, what have we got? And how badly did you destroy it?”
Sebastian slid the blueprint toward me. “You know I hate straight lines.”
I stared at his work. “This… isn’t a straight line. This is a drunk line.”
He laughed, not offended in the slightest. “That’s why I called you. You’re the only one who can make this thing look like it was designed by a sane human being.”
I sat down and started redrawing with a trained hand. As my pencil danced over the paper, Sebastian sat beside me, throwing out commentary about anything but the project.
About the first-year student who was too much of a perfectionist. About the professor who disappeared for twenty minutes in the middle of class. About the latest rumor that Reagan Milano was speaking at a seminar his family’s company was sponsoring, and how the entire campus would show up just to see his face.
“I don’t care about him,” I muttered, eyes still on my lines.
Sebastian stared at me for a moment, then smirked. “You say that every time I mention his name. But your eyes…”
“Sebastian,” I cut in, cold as glass, “if you want me to keep your work out of the trash, stop talking.”
He laughed, hands up in surrender. “Alright, jefa.”
I was halfway through a diagonal when the lab door swung open without a knock. Naturally, because the universe has a sick sense of humor, the one who walked in was Reagan Milano.
A plain black t-shirt that fit just right across his shoulders and chest, dark blue jeans that were definitely too expensive for a student, and a bomber jacket left unzipped. His hair was slightly messy, like he’d just walked through a gust of wind, but not the kind of messy you want to fix. The kind that made you want to touch it.
He walked in without looking at anyone, like the room belonged to him, and pulled out the chair next to mine.
The seat was low, putting him level with my waist. His knee nearly brushed my thigh.
I pretended not to notice. Leaned forward a little, checking the angle of the line I’d just drawn. My pencil kept moving. I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Milano,” Sebastian greeted with a teasing lilt, “you disappeared from business class this morning. Planning world domination, or just flirting with your professor again?”
Reagan leaned back, arms draped over the chair like he was on his own porch. “What if I said both?”
Sebastian laughed. “I’d believe you made her blush.”
They kept talking, their voices fading into the background I chose not to acknowledge. I kept my head down, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught Reagan watching me.
Sebastian started retelling some ridiculous incident from last week in the studio, something about a freshman spilling coffee over a scale model. Reagan threw in a dry remark that made Sebastian laugh again, and somehow the conversation shifted to Delano’s upcoming party.
“I think Gretta should come,” Sebastian said suddenly.
I lifted my head and gave him a flat look. “I think you should focus on finishing your project instead of playing matchmaker.”
Reagan rested his chin in his hand, still watching me. “If that means you’ll show up, I can make sure it’s not boring.”
I let out a slow breath and went back to my lines. “Your definition of boring and everyone else’s are not the same thing.”
Sebastian laughed like he’d just watched his favorite sitcom. “You two…” He stood, grabbing the motorcycle keys that always dangled from the belt loop of his jeans. “I’m hitting the cafeteria for coffee. You want anything?”
Without looking up, I shook my head. “Water.”
“Black coffee. No sugar,” Reagan said.
Sebastian raised his eyebrows at the both of us, like he’d just read something in the air that wasn’t there, then clicked his tongue and headed for the door. “All right, don’t kill each other in here. Or… the opposite.”
The door shut, and suddenly the room felt smaller.
I kept my eyes on the blueprint, redrawing the sloppy lines Sebastian had butchered earlier. My pencil moved with precision, the cold edge of the metal ruler steady in my hand.
But I could feel him. Not just his presence. The heat of him, inching closer. His chair scraped softly.
“You’re wearing a bracelet today,” he said quietly.
I paused, glancing over. “What?”
He gestured toward my wrist. A thin strip of worn leather I barely remembered putting on.
“You usually don’t wear anything on your wrists. You don’t even like watches.”
I glanced down at it. “Dominic gave it to me this morning.”
Reagan nodded once, but his eyes stayed on my face. “It suits you. Makes you look… a little wild.”
I tilted my head, narrowing my eyes. “What are you trying to do, Milano? Get poetic?”
He leaned on the table, closer still. “No. Poetic is Delano. I just say what I’m thinking.”
I acted like I didn’t care, turning back to the page. “I thought you didn’t notice little things.”
“I always notice when it’s about you,” he said, quick.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “And what else have you ‘noticed’?”
He leaned in, his voice dropping a notch. “The way you bite your lip when you’re measuring angles. The way your eyes narrow when you don’t agree with something. And…” His gaze flicked to the blueprint. “…the way your hand moves like the whole world could be fixed with one straight line.”
Without meaning to, I let out a small laugh. Damn it. He knew he’d just made me laugh, and that was a mistake.
He didn’t say anything after that. Just silence.
Then I felt his arm slide around my waist. Fast, but not rough, just strong enough to knock me off balance.
“Reagan—” I started, but it was too late.
He pulled me in, and I half-fell onto his lap. My hand landed on his chest, hot and solid under the thin T-shirt, while one arm stayed locked around my waist and the other rested casually on my thigh.
“Much better than that chair, right?”