I gave in to his offer to take me to where he worked on assignments when he wanted to be out of his apartment, he'd said it was not too far off campus and so I just nodded, no words. Just a nod.

He asked me if I wanted to walk or not, I said i'd prefer if we went in his car, specifically because I didn't want to have to walk with him for longer than needed with tension in the air, all that tension which would have to be filled with chatter that I didn't want to be the start of.

Any car would be quicker than walking together, plus somehow for some reason walking together felt all too intimate.

Friends walked together to bask in one another's company, to talk and laugh, to engage and get lost with one another because you were free and able to say whatever in that moment, friends walked together, not two strangers who were forced to work on a project together.

I sat in his car in silence, playing with the seatbelt, thinking about just how different we were.

He was rich, evidently, he had some sports car im pretty sure was a black mustang but I didn't know much on cars anyway. He listened to any song that came on the radio, not as easily annoyed as me when a song he didn't like came on.

He was nice, he kept asking me for my input, he kept talking to me and trying whereas if he'd chosen to never speak to me again, I would've been fine with it, I would have not had made any effort to even get him to speak to me.

I was watching him every once in awhile, trying to build my story on Karsen, like Carson, just with a K instead of a C and an E instead of an O. Which was weird in my opinion, but maybe his parents tried to make him unique, which he kinda was.

He had a look of content on his face, he tapped his finger on his steering wheel when he drove and he actually used his seatbelt unlike most people, he bit at his cheek every few minutes before licking at his bottom lip making me notice the indent of a dimple on his left cheek. I wonder if he had one on the other side. I don't think he did. So one deep dimple huh?

Cute.

Karsen's story would be something along the lines of a star football player in a good family with a good future, a handsome guy who'd probably succeed at everything he wanted to succeed at because he deserved it because unlike most people who were like him, he was not at all an asshole, he was good, sweet, handsome.

In the eyes of people, he'd be categorized as someone who was deserving, I guess, someone who often donated to various charities and cared about people, who wasn't heartless, instead he was probably a man with a good heart which was scarce nowadays.

Karsen Krist's story would thus be good, it'd start good, and it'd end good.

I looked away.

We really were opposites.

"We're here." He said as he parked and I looked up to a twenty four hour coffee shop, hues of the color brown, black and nudes on the outside.

I unbuckled my seatbelt, noting it had only taken us around fifteen minutes to get here, so walking here was definitely a big no. It'd probably take longer than twenty minutes to walk here, which was too much for me to bear.

I opened my door and got out the car, closing it behind me after i'd got my bag strap over my shoulders once again.

I slid my phone out my jean pocket to see that my mother hadn't texted back after i'd told her i'd be home late.

She probably was asleep, or watching tv, just doing something unproductive as she usually does.

I slid my phone back in my pocket and crossed my arms over my chest, walking over to him, following close behind, noticing a few cars littering the parking lot but not too many.

I huffed softly, closing my eyes, wishing once again that I was just dreaming, that I wasn't actually walking behind Karsen to get into an expensive looking 24 hour coffee shop to discuss a sculpting assignment that we were forced to do together.

I opened my eyes and of course.

I was not dreaming.

He held the tinted glass door open for me as well and I blinked, looking at his hand on the door.

I just walked in without any second thought and looked around the place. A brown and gold accented café on the inside, but it didn't look too fancy to be snobbish, it looked a little bit comforting with the darker colors in here, as well as the fireplace at the back.

He let the door close behind him and thats when I looked to the people seated, all in their own little bubbles, only a few people, I counted the tables occupied and there was only five.

Five is okay.

I can deal with five.

He cleared his throat and walked around me, letting me follow him to a table I presume.

I stare at his black bag which looked kinda empty from its size, probably just a book and pen and stuff like that but then again why would he have anything more in it?

He slid into one of the booths and so I took the other seat in front of him, not wanting to sit beside him even if it would've been easier to work and write that way.

I sat there for a second before a waitress came by, someone he knew because he fell into conversation with her easily and so I took my pad of paper out, taking a blue pen too and placed it down to the table.

I looked to the girl, very obviously flirting with the way she smiled suggestively and kept her hand close to his on the table.

I heard him order his black coffee with three sugars and almost grimaced. Who drinks black coffee with so much sugar? Apparently Karsen. Thats who.

Time passes by and they're still talking, and it was sort of amusing at how oblivious she was to me being here but I didn't really care about that, I just didn't want her taking up too much time with her flirting because I wanted to go home.

After sometime of talking she looked to me, "And what would you like?"

Oh, I was going to be ordering stuff too?

"I'll have tea, two sugars please and the milk can be put on the side." I said knowing that when I usually said just a little bit of milk they'd look at me like I was crazy.

She nodded at my order before she smiled at Karsen and walked away to give it in to the kitchen.

"Not coffee?" He asked me as I looked back to the paper, instead I redirected my focus to him.

"No, not coffee."

"Why?"

"Don't like it." I answered as I looked down.

"You're very curt."

I shrugged, rubbing a finger over the design of the table top, tracing the dark lines across the wood. I yawned softly before I picked my pen up.

"Did you have any ideas so far?"

"Not even one." He said, leaning closer on the table and I blinked, wanting to scowl at him but I refrained from doing so, I forced myself to just stare at him, to just settle for imagining how satisfying it would be to slap him upside the head.

"Can we start with the emotion?" I asked, cocking my head to the side a little and he nodded, which annoyed me for some reason. He was making me talk now and he was the one just listening.

"Happiness is the easiest." I started, just about to draw out a rough sketch of something like family, family is happiness, apparently. "Its everywhere."

He stopped my hand by pressing his hand down onto mine and I blinked at it, our skin on one another's was... weird.

His hands were calloused from football yet, soft.

No.

I moved my hand back and looked to him.

"What?"

He wasn't affected by my offhanded tone, instead he nudged his head to the people beside us and I looked around, "Happiness is too easy, everyone in that class will do happiness and sadness, emptiness, loneliness, you know? The usual shit."

I nodded slowly at that. He wasn't exactly wrong, those were the obvious choices too.

"People are disgusting." He states and I blinked as I looked to him. Thinking, how out of character of you, golden boy, calling people disgusting? Shameful.

I looked back to the people around us, "So...disgust?"

I heard him snort at that, which only furthered my confusion, "No, they're disgusting because we all know whats gonna happen later today when all the couples in here are alone."

I grimaced and looked to him when realization knocked me like a ball in the head, "So you want us to sculpt what? Fucking?"

His lips twitched upward and he looked like he was restraining a light laughter from slipping past his pink lips, but I on the other hand was confused and tired and was just trying to get this done whereas he was playing games with me.

"No... I mean desire."

I clicked the tip of my tongue at the roof of my mouth.

That makes so much more sense.

"Not everyone yearns for something." I tell him, playing with the pencil as I scratched out my idea because truthfully, desire was a good focal point.

There was always so much to want. Always more to want. Not just sexually. Desire, want, you could want anything in this world.

Desire was a drive for most people, you worked hard for the items you desired, for the outcomes your desired.

Desire was really something extraordinary, because desire kept most people going.

He hummed but didn't agree or disagree just when the girl came back with our drinks, setting them down and I looked to his coffee in a to go cup whereas my tea was in a mug.

I made my tea silently and he stared at me as I put my milk in it.

"That like just one tablespoon." He says.

I hummed with a nod, drinking some of the warm liquid and he snorted.

"You're an enigma Adrien- oh and whats your last name?"

"Adrienne Eva Faye is my full name." I tell him and he nods slowly, drinking in my answer.

"Adrienne." I said, licking my upper lip of the wetness from the tea, his eyes dropping to my lips for a millisecond that it might as well have been my imagination, that is before it returns back to my eyes like it had never happened, "I prefer to be called just Adrienne."

He hummed, tapping his fingers on the table top in a continuous rhythm, "Addy then."

I blinked, because that was not at all what i'd said.

"Adrienne."

He nodded, taking a drink of his coffee and I could see the slightest twitch of his lip upwards behind the lid of the cup, "Addy."

I didn't press any further, he probably wanted to get some sort of reaction out of me, and I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of succeeding.

I drank my tea and thought in silence for a long time, "Maybe we should get inspiration before we draw them out, then we can start." He says as he eyes my tea for a moment.

Getting inspiration and drawing it out meant that I wouldn't have to work with him for a week or something.

Oh hell yes.

"Sure." I'd agreed immediately which should've been his sign that I was in board for other reasons but he just smiled a little, as if he thought he'd gotten me out my shell.

I want to smile back but I refrain from doing so, he did in fact not get me out of my shell.