He heard about her job interview not too long after she had it, and he had been incredibly supportive.

Alyssa noticed how good he smelled, like herbs and wood. She broke away from him before she did anything weird.

She lost a lot of her common sense around him. The perils of having a crush. She was just surprised she made the first move to hug him this time.

“Thank you. And I’m not telling my parents,” she said with a huff. She could already imagine what they would say.

They would claim that since she had a job now that she had extra money to send their way. If she said no, they would call her selfish. She had heard it all before.

Elias gave her an amused look.

“So that they don’t guilt you into giving them money,” he said with an understanding nod.

“This is my achievement, not theirs,” Alyssa murmured as she slipped her phone back into her pocket. She mostly spoke the words to herself.

She did something good. She needed to be proud of that because there would be moments in her life when she wouldn’t accomplish anything or she would fail. If she remembered these moments, those failures wouldn’t weigh as heavily.

“Well, even if you can’t tell them, know that I’m proud of you,” Elias told her as he stepped closer to her. He reached out to gently caress her upper arm.

Alyssa swallowed hard as she lifted her eyes to his. It was strange having him so close so much. She noticed that the distance between them got less and less with each time they hung out. She didn’t mind that at all.

“That means a lot,” she said. “I can’t explain how much.”

She only heard that someone was proud of her so many times in her life. She didn’t hear it from her parents, so she really only heard it from her teachers.

It meant a lot when they said that to her, but it didn’t strike her as hard as when Elias said it. He knew her. He didn’t have to tell her that. It just meant all that more to her.

“You don’t have to,” Elias said gently. “Just know that someone is in your corner.”

Alyssa had known that she could create great friendships in college, but she never thought that she would be involved in such deep connections like the one she shared with Elias.

She told him things she had never spoken aloud. It was so easy to trust him, and she had never felt that for another person.

“I’m here for you too, you know,” she told him. It went both ways, and she wanted him to feel like he could open up to her.

They were at a point in their lives when things were harder than normal. They were out on their own more.

They made their own decisions, which meant that they would mess up more and would have to deal with the consequences.

It was so much easier to go through all of those daunting motions when she knew that someone had her back. She wanted him to feel that same comfort.

Elias nodded as he gently rubbed her arm.

“I know,” he replied warmly. “I should get going.”

Alyssa nodded, figuring he had things to attend to. She needed to get her things ready for tomorrow anyway.

Just because she was hanging out with him didn’t mean she could ignore her tasks and schoolwork.

They were the last things on her mind when she was with him, though, even if they were studying.

“Bye, Elias,” she told him as her eyes locked onto his again. It was so natural to find his eyes, like there was a magnetic effect between them.

She found comfort and excitement in them all at the same time, and it killed her to have to look away. For once, she wanted to not have to.

Elias suddenly leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek in a faint touch. He pulled back and smiled at her.

“Bye, Alyssa,” he said before turning and walking off like that kiss had been the most casual thing in the world.

Alyssa could only stare after him as her cheek tingled from his lips. That had to mean something. People didn’t just randomly kiss their friends on the cheek.

It was a special touch spurred by certain feelings. Kisses were far more intimate than hugs or holding hands.

She told herself these things over and over again, trying to make sense of what just happened. It wasn’t like it was her first cheek kiss she had ever experienced, but it felt like it was.

She had never obsessed over one like she did with this one, but Elias wasn’t any ordinary guy.

Her fingertips graced her cheek as she finally snapped herself out of her daze and headed to the dorm.

She replayed that moment over and over again in her head, watching him lean forward and kiss her cheek on a loop. His lips were so soft and warm. She felt like a giddy high schooler.

When she got back to her room, she immediately texted Zoe, unable to keep this moment to herself.

This was real progress, but that didn’t mean she was going to say anything about her feelings to him yet.

Just in case it was just a friendly gesture, she was going to wait for him to take it a step further before saying anything. That was the safer option.

Zoe would obviously disagree and push for Alyssa to admit her feelings now, but she didn’t feel ready to do that yet.

She just got a job. She wanted to handle one big thing at a time, and she didn’t know if she could juggle the stress of starting a new job and admitting her strong feelings to a guy she really liked.