Page 9 of Finding Answers For Confused Succubi

"Ah, typical athlete fair."

"Mmhmm."

He digs through his bag and pulls out a bag of something."Well, if it doesn't break your serious athlete's diet, I have some chocolate raisins.It's not exactly a meal, but they might stop the dizziness if it's because of low blood sugar."

"I can't take your raisins."Without meaning to, I start laughing.

Darius raises an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why that was so funny, but when I said it, I just started laughing."

An amused smile tugs at his lips, and a sparkle enters his eyes, it makes me want to make it happen again."It kind of is.But I promise, it's all good."

"Maybe we should share them," I respond, taking the bag from him and opening it up to place it on the table between us."But I should warn you that I eat chocolate raisins weirdly."

"Considering we're studying psychology, I think it's safe to say that weird isn't really a thing or a problem.But I have to admit to being a little intrigued."

I laugh and pick up one of the raisins, putting it in my mouth and then taking a sip of tea so the hot liquid melts the chocolate around it.

"That's an interesting way of eating them," he says."Maybe I should try it."

"You should, I like melting the chocolate off.Though maybe it's not as fun with coffee."

"I'll let you know, though never having done it with mint tea, I can't really compare."

"I'd say you could try with some of mine, but I don't think we're there in our friendship yet," I respond.

He chuckles."No, probably not."He picks up one of the raisins and puts it in his mouth before taking a sip of his coffee.

I watch him surprisingly closely to see how he responds, even though I don't really know why that matters to me.I guess it's just that this feels nice.And it's actually doing something to distract me from the gnawing within me.

"Okay, that's pretty good," he says."Like some kind of cheats tiramisu."

"Just a student's version.We can't afford the real thing, so instead we make our own with chocolate raisins and coffee."

"Or mint tea."He gestures to my cup.

"I do drink coffee," I assure him."Normally after a night out when I have an early lecture."

"Mmm, it makes you wonder why we do that to ourselves," he muses.

"It's cheaper than going out on a Friday night and the academy doesn't care when it schedules our early lectures."

"Or they want to punish us for not paying enough attention to studying," he responds.

I snort."Yeah, and maybe they'd have a point if we weren't sitting here in a study group Though we're not doing much studying are we, though?"

He shrugs."Half our group is still missing."

"That is weird, I wonder where they are."Not that I'm in a hurry for them to show up, it's nice getting a chance to talk to Darius just the two of us.

As if summoned by our conversation, the door swings open and a frazzled-looking Erica bursts inside.She pushes a strand of ginger hair behind her ear."Sorry, my Organisational Behaviour lecturer wouldn't stop talking.That's what I get for taking a business lecture."She flops down into her normal seat."I amsoglad there's coffee, thanks, Mandy."

"No problem.Do you know where Carlton is?"

She shakes her head."I'll shoot him a message.Doesn't he have swim practice before this?He probably lost track of time at the pool or something."

"Ah, right, that makes sense."I'm lucky that I didn't have another lecture before this meeting, it means that I can get here in time.I'm not sure about Darius, but he clearly doesn't have much of an issue as the other two.