Weeks had passed since the fair and what had occurred was long forgotten. Luca hadn't seen Ashton once since and he was all too glad, because when he did—his butterflies only increased.

Instead of waking home on Thursday with him and Betsy he stayed behind and read in the library until it was dark out.

He didn't want to see Ashton.

Except on this particular day, Luca was staying back in the library when a rowdy group of boys entered—disrupting the usual quietness and annoying the librarian.

He glanced up from his book and internally groaned when he saw the one person he didn't want to see.

He and his friends stalked over to a nearby table and plopped themselves down in chairs.

Luca rolled his eyes and silently, went back to reading his book and jotting down words to annotate particular pages.

His first thought was, why wasn't Ashton with Betsy and secondly why was he and his dumb fuck friends in a library? Like shouldn't they be throwing balls or something?

"Hi Luca."

Luca shot his head up, eyes meeting a familiar smile. Benji. He hadn't talked to the boy since the fair, just like he expected but he didn't mind one bit.

Luca sent him a small wave to where he was leaning behind him to fetch a book from the shelf.

"Classic literature. My favourite, yours too?" Benji had asked, eyeing the shelf in fascination.

"Second," Luca replied, sneaking a guilty glimpse at the cover of his book.

The dark haired boy looked over at the book held in Luca's hands, attempting to read the title and when achieving this—his smile turned into a grin.

"Romance huh? Didn't pick you to be that type."

Luca just shrugged, "Me neither."

Benji's grin faltered and he was quick to cast his gaze towards his friends before taking a seat next to Luca.

"I need to ask you something," he whispered, eyes not leaving his friends.

"Yes?" Luca said, motioning for him to continue.

"My friends. Well Mateo really..he's like Hitler."

Luca coughed—as quiet as he could, "W-What..?" he choked out.

"Maybe not exactly Hitler, but a bad, bad dictator. He's putting everyone in the group against me—saying I'm gay as if it's a bad thing and just shit talking me. He wants me out of the group..that's why I came to the fair with you guys," Benji explained.

"I'm sorry to hear this, I really am but what does it have to with me?" Luca questioned, following Benji's gaze.

The group of boys continued chatting, some taking out work to do yet most completely failing to notice the encounter between Benji and Luca that was occurring.

"I want to know if I can sit with you. At lunch and stuff...?" Benji sounded nervous when he asked and shuffled in his seat.

An awkward smile made its way onto his lips as he awaited Luca's responses with nothing but hope.

"Why me?" Luca asked, scrunching up his nose.

"Because you're kind of cool," he replied, "And you need to smile a little more."