The room assigned to them was too small.
That was Aria's first thought when she walked in.
A rectangular study room on the third floor of the library. One long table. Two chairs. A whiteboard that had seen better decades. No windows—just fluorescent light humming softly above them.
No escape.
Lucas was already there.
Seated. Still. A notebook open in front of him, pen resting between his fingers like it had always belonged there. Noah leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, chewing gum like he'd been forced into babysitting duty.
"Well," Noah said brightly, breaking the tension instantly, "this feels illegal."
Aria shot him a look. "Why are you here?"
"Professor Kingsley's orders," Noah replied. "Supervised prep. Apparently, if you two are left alone, the building might collapse."
Lucas didn't look up.
Aria sat anyway—across from him. Too close. Close enough that she could notice the faint crease between his brows when he focused.
Silence fell.
Not awkward.
Heavy.
The kind that pressed against your ribs.
Aria opened her folder. Closed it. Opened it again.
Lucas flipped a page.
Noah cleared his throat. "Okay, I'm going to say something uncomfortable so we can move past it. You two are terrible at pretending this is just academic."
Aria didn't respond.
Lucas didn't deny it.
"Great," Noah muttered. "Love the teamwork."
They started with structure.
No debate. No sparring.
Just preparation.
Aria wrote on the whiteboard—bullet points, clean and deliberate. Lucas watched, occasionally interrupting with a single word.
"Redundant."
She erased a line.
"Assumption."
She rewrote the premise.
Noah observed quietly now, interest replacing humor.
"You're not fighting," he finally said.
"We're working," Aria replied.
Lucas nodded. "There's a difference."
Their movements began to sync—Aria outlining frameworks, Lucas compressing them. She expanded; he refined. Where she built breadth, he carved depth.
It was unsettling.
Because it worked.
Aria hated how easily it worked.
At one point, she paused mid-sentence. "You're anticipating my next step."
Lucas glanced up. "You telegraph when you're about to over-prepare."
Her jaw tightened. "I don't over-prepare."
"You armor," he said calmly. "Different thing."
She stared at him.
Noah slowly backed toward the door. "I'm going to get coffee. If I come back and one of you is emotionally bleeding, I'm pretending I didn't see it."
The door shut.
The room felt even smaller.
The room felt smaller without Noah.
Not physically—nothing had moved—but the air changed. Thicker. More aware of itself.
Aria exhaled slowly and turned back to the whiteboard, marker tapping once against the plastic frame before she wrote again. This time, she didn't look at Lucas while she did it.
She felt him anyway.
"Let's reset," she said, professional, controlled. "We're prepping for a panel that favors efficiency over flourish. You already made that clear."
Lucas didn't argue.
He stood, moving to the opposite side of the board. Close enough that their shoulders almost aligned—but didn't.
Almost was worse.
"You start with outcomes," he said. "I'd start with cost."
Aria paused. "That shifts the burden."
"Exactly."
She considered it. Crossed out a heading. Rewrote it.
Silence again.
Not empty.
Working.
They moved like that for a while—writing, erasing, adjusting. No wasted words. No personal commentary. Just the quiet sound of markers, pages turning, the faint hum of the lights overhead.
Aria noticed things she hadn't meant to.
Lucas wrote smaller than she did. Tighter. His handwriting leaned slightly right, controlled but fast, like he didn't like lingering longer than necessary. He always capped the marker immediately after using it.
She hated that she noticed.
"You're hesitating," he said suddenly.
She stiffened. "I'm thinking."
"You don't usually stop there."
She looked at him now. "And you usually don't comment unless you're certain."
His mouth curved—not a smile. Recognition.
"Fair."
She adjusted the framework anyway. Hated that he was right.
They sat down again, facing the same side of the table this time, papers spread between them. The distance felt different—less confrontational, more… cooperative.
Aria scanned his notes. "You cut an entire supporting argument."
"It wasn't pulling weight."
"It establishes credibility."
"It drains time."
She tapped the paper. "You assume judges reward minimalism."
"They reward clarity," he corrected. "Minimalism is a byproduct."
She looked up at him. "You always this precise?"
He met her gaze evenly. "Only when it matters."
Something tightened in her chest.
She looked away first.
"Kingsley said this partnership was about balance," she said. "You strip things down. I build them up."
"And somewhere in the middle," Lucas said, "we stop wasting energy."
She huffed softly. "You really think debate is about energy conservation."
"I think burnout ruins more talent than failure," he replied.
That made her pause.
Not the words. The certainty behind them.
"You talk like you've seen it happen," she said carefully.
Lucas's pen stilled.
For half a second, she thought he wouldn't answer.
"I have," he said.
That was all.
She didn't push.
The silence returned—but gentler now. Less sharp around the edges.
Aria leaned back, rubbing at her wrist absentmindedly. "You know," she said, "most people think my preparation is obsession."
Lucas glanced at her. "Is it?"
She considered the question longer than she meant to. "It's… control."
"Over what?"
"Over the moment," she said. "Over how I'm perceived. Over not being caught off guard."
His gaze sharpened—not predatory, just focused. "You hate being surprised."
"Yes."
"Even by success?"
She frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means," he said slowly, "you don't leave space for anything unplanned. Including yourself."
Her throat tightened.
That landed closer than his critique in the debate room.
She closed her folder with more force than necessary. "We should take a break."
Lucas didn't argue.
He stood, stretching his shoulders once, then moved toward the whiteboard again—adjusting a line she'd written earlier, refining it with two additional words.
Efficient.
Infuriating.
Perfect.
She watched him for a moment before she could stop herself.
"You don't waste motion," she said.
He glanced back. "Neither do you."
"That's not true," she replied quietly. "I just hide it better."
Something shifted then.
Not dramatic.
Subtle.
Lucas capped the marker and turned to face her fully.
"You don't need to hide here," he said.
Aria's breath caught. "You don't get to decide that."
"No," he agreed. "You do."
The air between them felt charged—not with attraction exactly, but with recognition. Two people who worked too hard. Who measured themselves by output. Who mistook control for safety.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
They both stepped back at the same time.
The door opened.
Noah leaned in, coffee cups in hand. "Okay, nobody's bleeding. That's a win."
He froze, eyes flicking between them. "Why do you both look like you just ran a marathon without moving?"
Aria grabbed her folder. "We're done for today."
Lucas nodded once. "Productive session."
Noah raised an eyebrow. "That's academic code for emotional exhaustion, right?"
Neither answered.
As they filed out of the room, Aria felt it again—that strange, unsettling awareness.
Working with Lucas Vale wasn't breaking her rhythm.
It was rewriting it.
And that scared her more than losing ever had.