Example of a Caught Staring Romance Scene

She was reading. That was the thing — she wasn't doing anything remarkable. Just sitting cross-legged on the library floor with a highlighter cap between her teeth and a textbook in her lap, frowning at something about cellular biology. He had stopped walking seven seconds ago. He knew because he'd been counting, the way you count when you're aware you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. She looked up. The highlighter cap fell out of her mouth. "Hi," she said. "Hi." He should move. He should have kept walking. He should be in the computer lab right now, finishing the assignment that was due in four hours. Instead he was standing in the stacks like a man who'd forgotten how doors worked. "Were you—" She tilted her head. A strand of dark hair fell across her cheek. "Were you watching me study?" "No." "You were standing still." "I was thinking." "About?" He had nothing. No excuse, no deflection, no clever line. He was empty-handed in the worst way, and she was looking at him with those brown eyes that always seemed to be quietly solving him. "You do this thing," he said. "When you're concentrating. You bite whatever's closest to your mouth. Pen caps. Your thumbnail. Right now it was a highlighter." She blinked. "You noticed that?" The silence said everything his voice couldn't. "Sit down," she said quietly, moving her bag off the carpet beside her. "If you're going to stare at me, you might as well do it from closer." He sat. His shoulder touched hers. Neither of them studied anything for the rest of the afternoon.

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