He slid a granola bar onto the table. “Granola bar is the good news.”

“Then what’s the bad news? Is Gerald going to bust out another PowerPoint?”

“That would be the worst news. No, the bad news is that it’s broken,” he said, shaking the package a few times to illustrate his point. He cringed at her. “Sorry.”

She reached for the package, and the tips of their fingers touched. She carefully opened the wrapper, splitting it down the foiled seam, and then placed it on the table between them. “It’s easier to share this way,” she whispered, tilting her head so no one — Alejandro, Toni, and Marie, especially — could see her smile.

Alejandro leaned back in his chair, raised his eyebrows at her, and leaned over to press his arm against hers. “Look at you, being optimistic,” he teased. Deja laughed and then bit her lips shut. Alejandro bent over and whispered directly into her ear. “I like the way this looks on you.”

She frowned and dropped her chin to her chest to look at her boring gray sweater and blue jeans.

“Happiness,” he corrected. “I’ve always loved the way you smile.”

Deja sucked her bottom lip into her mouth as he pulled back and smiled down at her, his own bottom lip clenched between his teeth.

Deja heard her phone vibrate against the table, but she ignored it. Unfortunately, they couldn’t ignore Alejandro’s friend Mike, who sat on his other side.

“Is that a communal granola bar?” he asked, leaning into Alejandro.

“No. Bring your own snacks,” he said, pushing the granola bar closer to Deja. “I tell you that every month.”

Deja grabbed a shard of the granola and popped it into her mouth. She reached for her cup of coffee and then plucked up the nerve to check her phone again, not surprised to see another text message, this one from Marie.

GET A ROOM! ;)

Eleven

Saturday

Alejandro didn’t believe in working through the weekends. Ever.

He’d done enough of that during graduate school to know that it wasn’t worth it; his brain needed time to reset. He’d had to bend the rule every now and then while he was on the tenure track, but now that he had job security, he never broke that embargo; he finished all of his grading and class prep before he left campus on Friday afternoon, or it got pushed to Monday.

But then he started dating Deja.