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“You’re kind of gross, you know that?” he says, though he’s clearly holding back a laugh.

“You’re the one giving away the best part of the burger. Pickles are basically the whole point.”

“They’re a crime against food.” He takes a huge bite. “The only thing worse would be putting them on the side, so you have to look at them the whole time you eat.”

I snort and grab a fry out of the bag. “Where did you say you got these? I really thought nothing was working at this hour.”

“There’s a place a couple blocks over that’s open late. The guy at the counter knows me.” He pulls out a soda too and cracks it open, and we pass it back and forth because he, apparently, only bought one drink for two people.

“One soda,” I say. “Real generous.”

“I like to share.” He takes it back and downs half of it in one go, probably just to be annoying about it, and I roll my eyes at him.

We eat for a while, trading fries and insults, and it’s the most normal I’ve felt in weeks. He tells me about his team’s last game against a team he clearly hates, and how one of his teammates completely missed an open goal in the final minutes.

“The net was empty,” Jayden says, waving a fry around. “The goalkeeper was down on the ground and no one was near him. All he had to do was tap it in. And somehow, he sent it straight up into the stands. Into the fucking stands!”

“Maybe he panicked. I would.” I snatch another fry. “If everyone was watching me and expecting me to score, I’d freak out for sure.”

“You don’t strike me as the freaking-out type.” He tips his head, and I roll my eyes, even though I kind of like that he thinks that.

“Did you at least win?” I ask.

“Barely, and I’m still not over it.” He shakes his head. “He owes the whole team food for the rest of the season now. It’s a rule.”

And while I’m laughing at that, he plucks the last pickle right off my burger and holds it out of my reach. What the hell?

“You hate pickles!” I lunge for his hand, but he moves it away.

“I hate you having them more,” he says, tossing it into the bag where I can’t get to it.

“Hey! Rude.” I pick at what’s left of my burger. “My professor spent a whole hour today on a dramatic reading of letters a guy wrote to his rival a very long time ago. It was a whole lot of very polite threats. Two grown men insulting each other in the fanciest way they could manage. Like, may your name be forgotten and your house fall to ruin. Stuff like that. It was actually kind of amazing. People used to put so much effort into being petty.”

He laughs and asks me what they were even fighting over, so I explain the whole feud, how it started over some patch of land no one remembers now, and went on for years, right up until one of them died and the other wrote a bitter little note about the funeral. Most guys’ eyes glaze over the moment I get excited about history, but Jayden doesn’t or he hides it really well, which is almost as good.

At some point, I glance at my phone to check the time and groan out loud. It’s way later than I thought, and I’ve still got stuff to do. Jayden stretches out on my bed, leaning his back against the wall. Wait, he seems to be in no rush to leave, which means he expects sex. Why else would he stick around my room this late? Besides, he brought me food, and many idiots seem to think that’s their ticket into a girl’s pants.

I brace myself, because I’m about to ruin whatever he’s got in mind. “I actually have to do homework. Like, now. My paper’s due in the morning and I haven’t finished it yet.”

I wait for him to get annoyed, say something about how boring I am, or to storm off, but he just shrugs.

“Do you want help?” he asks.

I blink at him. “Help? With a history paper?”

“Sure. I’m not completely useless.” The corners of his mouth curve up. “I can read and look things up. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

“Don’t you have your own stuff to worry about?” I ask, since he’s a student too and the captain of the soccer team on top of everything, so his plate has to be way more full than mine ever is. “Homework? Practice? An actual life?”

“Nothing urgent,” he says, lacing his fingers behind his head.

“Lucky.” I sigh and glance at my desk chair. “Ugh, that chair is the worst. My back’s killing me after a few minutes in it, and then all I can focus on is how badly I want to get up.”

“Then don’t use it. Bring your laptop over here.” He pats the spot next to him. “Do it from the bed.”

“The bed’s worse. When I hunch over my laptop, my neck cramps up and I go all stiff, and then I’m just miserable in a different way.”

He cocks his head at me, and a grin tugs at his mouth. “Not if you use me as a pillow.”