The Roasted Bean was louder than the library but quieter than a frat house, which made it the perfect neutral ground. The air smelled of espresso and the rain tapping against the plate-glass windows.
Jude sat across from Natalia at a small round table.
He wasn't holding her purse. He wasn't checking the time. He wasn't scanning for exits.
He was just talking.
"Okay, stop," Jude laughed, leaning back in his chair. He was wearing the gray hoodie again, but he looked comfortable in it today, like he'd chosen it instead of defaulted to it. "You cannot actually believe that Empire Strikes Back is the worst one. That's scientifically impossible. It's a violation of nerd law."
Natalia took a sip of her oat milk latte, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. She looked relaxed in a soft cream sweater and jeans, her hair down in loose waves.
"I'm just saying," she countered, pointing a teaspoon at him. "It's depressing. The bad guys win, Han gets frozen, Luke loses a hand. It's a bummer, Jude. I like Return of the Jedi. The Ewoks are cute. They have a party at the end."
"The Ewoks are teddy bears designed to sell toys." Jude was smiling despite himself. "And the bummer is the point, Nat. It's the struggle. The moment where everything goes wrong and you have to figure out who you are when you're losing."
Natalia paused. She lowered her spoon.
She looked at him. Not through him, not past him to see who else was in the room. At him.
"You know," she said softly, "you never talk like this when we're out."
Jude rubbed the back of his neck. "Talk like what?"
"Like you have opinions. Usually you just nod and say 'yeah, cool' or 'sure thing.' You're always just blending in. But right now?" She rested her chin on her hand, studying him. "You're actually here."
Jude felt the heat rise in his cheeks, but for once it wasn't shame. It was something warmer.
"I'm trying," he admitted. "To be more present. Less of a ghost."
"Well, it's working." Natalia smiled. "You look good, Jude. Tired, still. But good."
She reached across the table, her fingers brushing his hand for a moment before she pulled back to grab her muffin.
"So," she said. "Tell me more about your Ewok theory. Why do you hate joy?"
Jude laughed, a real laugh, loose and easy.
"I don't hate joy. I just think that—"
"Excuse me?"
The voice was soft, melodic, and aggressively polite.
Jude turned in his chair.
Standing next to their table was a boy who looked like he'd wandered out of a children's book about very polite woodland creatures. Thick cream-colored cable-knit sweater. Oversized glasses that magnified his eyes into wide, innocent saucers. A messenger bag clutched to his chest like a security blanket.
He was beaming at them.
"Hi! I'm so sorry to interrupt your date. You two look adorable together, by the way. Very aesthetic."
Natalia smiled, charmed instantly. "Oh, thank you. We're just—"
"I just had to ask," the boy continued, turning those big eyes toward Jude. "Are you Jude? Jude Miller?"
Jude scanned the guy's face. He didn't recognize him.
"Yeah," Jude said slowly. "That's me."
"I knew it!" The boy clapped his hands together softly. "I'm Fernando! We were in that First Year Seminar together? Intro to Ethics with Professor Gabe? Freshman year?"
Fernando leaned in, his smile widening.
"You sat in the back! You always wore that same hoodie! I sat in the front. I asked a lot of questions about the moral implications of stealing bread to feed your family."
Jude racked his brain. Freshman year was a blur of depression and anxiety, but he usually remembered faces. He didn't remember Fernando. He definitely didn't remember a human cinnamon roll asking about bread theft ethics.
"I think you might have the wrong guy," Jude said. "I took Intro to Supply Chain Management freshman year. Never had Gabe."
Fernando's smile didn't falter. Not even for a microsecond.
"Really?" He tilted his head, glasses catching the light. "Oh my goodness. I could have sworn it was you. You have such a memorable aura."
He giggled, adjusting his bag.
"My mistake! I must be confusing you with another Jude. There are so many Judes! It's a very popular name for people who look sad and mysterious."
Jude frowned. "Right. Sorry."
"No worries!" Fernando waved a hand. "You two get back to your coffee. Enjoy the Ewoks! They are cute, by the way. Don't listen to him."
He winked at Natalia, gave Jude one last look that felt like being scanned by a barcode reader, and skipped toward the door.
"Adiós!" Fernando called out, pushing through the glass and vanishing into the rain.
Jude stared after him. A weird shiver ran down his spine, not the supernatural coldness Bob had warned him about, just unease.
"Who was that?" Natalia asked, watching the door. "He was cute. In a weird, nerdy way."
"I have no idea. I've never seen him before in my life."
"Really?" Natalia raised an eyebrow. "He seemed pretty sure. Maybe you just forgot? You were kind of a zombie freshman year."
"Maybe," Jude muttered.
He looked at the door again. Bob had told him to stay frosty, to watch for threats. But Fernando looked like he volunteered at soup kitchens and knitted sweaters for shelter cats. He wasn't a threat. He was just confused.
"Anyway." Jude shook off the feeling and turned back to Natalia. She was waiting, smiling, looking at him like he was the only person in the room.
The weirdness evaporated.
"Where were we?"
"You were explaining why you hate fun," Natalia teased.
"Right." Jude leaned back in. "So, the Ewoks…"
Outside, in the drizzle, Fernando stood just out of sight of the window.
He pulled a small notebook from his messenger bag and clicked a pen with a cartoon frog on top.
He wrote: Target Identified. Jude Miller. Confirmed visuals. Contact made.
He drew a little smiley face next to the name.
"Found you," Fernando hummed to the tune of some Broadway show, and skipped off down the wet pavement.
After another thirty minutes of Ewok discourse, Natalia glanced at her phone and her eyes went wide.
"Shit." She grabbed her purse. "I have Comm Theory in eight minutes, across campus. The professor locks the door at 1:30 sharp."
She stood up, swinging her bag over her shoulder.
"This was fun, Jude. Seriously. We should do it again."
She turned to leave.
"Wait," Jude said.
He commanded the space. He didn't stand up, but he leaned forward, catching her gaze before she could turn away.
Natalia stopped, surprised by the tone.
"Friday," Jude said.
"Friday?"
"Friday night." He ignored the pounding of his heart. He ignored the voice of the mascot telling him to sit down and shut up. "I want to take you out. On a real date. Not a group hang. Not a 'meet up at the bar.' A date. Just the two of us."
Natalia blinked. She stared at him, visibly recalibrating.
She was used to Jude the Follower. Jude the Listener. She wasn't used to Jude the Guy Who Asks for What He Wants.
A slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
"A real date?" she asked, tilting her head. "You think you can handle that?"
"Try me."
"Okay." Her eyes gleamed. "If it's a real date, I get to pick the place. And the time."
"Name it," Jude said without hesitating. "I'll be there."
"The Tops. Rittenhouse Square. 7:00 PM."
Jude didn't know The Tops. He didn't know it was a high-end steakhouse where the cheapest appetizer cost more than his weekly grocery budget. He didn't know they had a cheesesteak on the menu that cost $140.
He just knew she said yes.
"Done," Jude said. "I'll pick you up at 6:15."
Natalia studied him for a long moment, searching for the crack in the facade. She didn't find one.
"Okay, Jude Miller." She was grinning now, genuinely delighted. "6:15. Don't be late."
She turned and practically bounced out of the coffee shop, disappearing into the campus crowd.
Jude sat there for a moment, letting it sink in.
He did it. He actually did it.
A grin spread across his face, so wide it almost hurt.
He stood up, threw his empty cup toward the trash with a three-point arc shot—swoosh—and walked out onto the sidewalk. The rain had stopped. The sun was fighting through the clouds.
Jude didn't walk. He strutted.
He moved through the campus crowd with a swagger he'd never felt before. He felt tall. He felt powerful. He had wings in his soul and a date with the prettiest girl on campus. He was an angel. A demon hunter. The main character of his own life.
I am invincible, Jude thought, adjusting his hoodie. Nothing can touch me. I am the apex predator of this—
WHAM.
He rounded the corner of the library at full speed and slammed directly into a solid object.
Not a wall. A person.
The impact was jarring. Jude stumbled back, barely keeping his feet, while the other person went down hard.
SPLAT.
A cup of hot coffee exploded across the pavement, soaking the fallen figure's cream-colored sweater.
"Oh fuck!" Jude gasped, his ego deflating instantly. "I am so sorry. I wasn't looking."
He reached down to help.
The person on the ground groaned, adjusting thick, crooked glasses. They looked up with wide, teary eyes.
Fernando.
"Oh my goodness!" Fernando squeaked, staring at the giant brown stain spreading across his chest. "That was a very strong tackle! You are quite strong!"
"God, I'm so sorry." Jude grabbed Fernando's arm and hauled him to his feet. The cream-colored sweater now sported a massive, dripping coffee stain like a Rorschach test across his torso.
Fernando adjusted his glasses, which were hanging off one ear.
"Oof, that burns!" He flapped his sweater away from his skin. "Very hot! Very, very hot!"
"I can buy you a new one," Jude said, wincing. "Or pay for dry cleaning. Seriously, my bad."
Then recognition clicked.
"Wait." Jude squinted at him. "You're the guy from the coffee shop. Fernando, right?"
Fernando froze. He looked at Jude, then at the coffee stain, then back at Jude. His eyes went wide behind the thick lenses.
"Yes!" Fernando chirped, his voice cracking slightly. "Fernando! That's me! The guy from the… from the pottery class!"
Jude laughed, shaking his head. "You sure you're not following me? That's twice in twenty minutes. Should I be worried?"
It was a joke. A throwaway line to lighten the mood.
Fernando crumbled.
"Nope!" He yelped, taking a frantic step back and waving his hands like he was trying to physically dispel the accusation. "No following! Zero following! I was just walking! To look at squirrels! There are very nice squirrels in this quad! Total coincidence! Statistical anomaly!"
He was sweating. Visibly.
Jude raised an eyebrow. "Whoa, relax. I was kidding."
"Right!" Fernando laughed a high, nervous sound like a dolphin choking on something. "Humor! I love humor! Knock knock! Who's there? Not me following you!"
Jude stared at him. This kid is wired way too tight. Probably had too much espresso before I spilled it on him.
"Right," Jude said slowly. "Well, again, sorry about the sweater. I gotta run though. Way behind schedule."
He stepped around Fernando, aiming for the library.
"Wait!"
Fernando pivoted, blocking his path. He seemed to realize he was being aggressive and shrank back, clutching his messenger bag.
"I mean… where are you going?" Fernando asked, flashing that innocent smile. "If you are walking that way, I am also walking that way! We could walk together. To save space on the sidewalk."
Jude checked his phone. He had time. And honestly, he felt bad for scalding the kid.
"Sure." He shrugged. "I'm headed to the library."
"The library!" Fernando exclaimed, falling into step beside him. "A temple of knowledge! A sanctuary of silence! I love the library. The Dewey Decimal System is a masterpiece of organization."
They started walking. Fernando talked enough for both of them.
"I actually prefer the smell of old books to new books," Fernando rambled, his curly hair bouncing with each step. "It's the lignin breaking down into vanillin. Did you know that? It's basically tree rot, but it smells like baking cookies. Science can be beautiful like that."
"Uh-huh," Jude said, nodding along. He was half-listening, his mind drifting to The Tops and what the hell he was going to wear.
"And the microfiche!" Fernando continued, undeterred by Jude's lack of engagement. "Do you ever look at the microfiche? It's like spying on the past. I love spying… I mean, observing! Observing history. That is what I meant."
Jude chuckled. "You're a weird dude, Fernando."
"My mother used to say I was 'eccentric.'" Fernando beamed. "It was a polite way of saying I talk too much."
They reached the steps of the massive stone library.
"So," Jude said, stopping at the turnstile. "This is me. I've got about two weeks of Economics homework to catch up on in three hours. I'm probably going to die in there."
"Economics?" Fernando's ears seemed to perk up.
"Yeah. Macro. Supply curves, elasticity, all that shit. I missed a bunch of classes because I was sick."
Because I was dead, Jude corrected internally.
"I love Economics!" Fernando announced. "It's just psychology with numbers! The study of scarcity! The allocation of resources!"
He looked at Jude with big, eager eyes.
"I could help you!"
Jude paused. "You want to help me do my homework?"
"Yes!" Fernando nodded vigorously. "I am a very good tutor! I have a 4.0 GPA! I can explain the Invisible Hand so well you will feel it touching you!" He paused. "Metaphorically. That is what I mean."
Jude hesitated. He thought about the pile of unread chapters. His failing grade. Fernando, vibrating with helpful energy like a golden retriever in human form.
Bob had told him to stay low. Avoid new variables.
But Fernando was harmless; just a lonely, nerdy kid who liked the sound of his own voice. And Jude really needed to pass this class if he wanted to keep his scholarship and stay in school long enough to, you know, save the world.
"You sure?" Jude asked. "It's boring shit."
"I thrive on boring," Fernando insisted. "Please. It can make up for the coffee incident."
Jude smiled. "Alright, dude. You're on. But if you start talking about Dewey Decimals again, I'm putting headphones on."
"Deal!"
They swiped their IDs and walked into the library.
As Jude turned toward the elevators, Fernando lingered a step behind.
He reached into his pocket, touching the small device hidden there. He watched Jude's back, and for just a moment, the smile faded from his face. Something cold and calculating flickered behind the thick lenses.
Target acquired. Asset secured.
Then the smile snapped back into place.
"Wait for me, Jude!" Fernando called out, skipping to catch up.