When Sasha's break starts her coworker hands her a drink; Sasha takes it and drinks it almost absentmindedly. Some kind of cherry vanilla thing. It's good. 

And then he looks up at the barista who's on break and realizes, suddenly, that she is the most beautiful girl in the world.

He stares at his textbook and bites his tongue. She's too pretty to talk to him. 

At some point during her break she looks up from her phone at the boy in the corner and — 

— something falls into place that she hadn't realized wasn't already in place until right now. 

She goes over to his table. 

He turns bright red. "Hi."

Oh no he's adorable. "Hi," and she's blushing too. 

"Uh. I'm Lev."

God, that is such a stupid thing to say, she's going to hate him--

"I'm Sasha. Can I sit here?" 

"Yeah!" Sasha is the prettiest name in the world and she's sitting next to him and everything is so good.

He clears off the electrical engineering textbooks; while he's moving their knees brush together and it feels like electricity.

So normally she would say something very flirty and maybe implying that the person she was talking to should take her home when her shift was over but instead what comes out of her mouth is "You're so pretty." 

He says, "Really?" in a tone of surprise--

And then immediately cringes at himself.

She'd like to hug him but that's weird she can't do that — "Yeah. Really." 

"You're really pretty too! But probably everyone tells you that."

She thinks he's pretty, she thinks he's pretty-- the corners of his mouth hurt from smiling--

"Thank you." She's so sincere about it. (He's so pretty oh god this is not fair —) "— can I hug you is that weird —" 

He reaches out and clumsily hugs her.

It's been a long time since anyone has touched him.

It hasn't been very long at all since someone touched her, but it's been a long time since she got a hug. 

She's holding onto Lev maybe a little bit tighter than one would usually hug a stranger in a coffeeshop. 

That's okay. He holds onto her very tightly too.

"Is your break over soon--"

"It is. But, um, my shift ends at six —" 

"Do you want to maybe uh talk or something after?" he mumbles into her shoulder.

What she wants is to go home with him but she can ask for that after they've talked or something. 

"Yes." 

"I can't wait," he says.

The most beautiful girl in the world!!!! Wants to talk to him!!!!! It's so good!!!!!

"Neither can I," she says, and means it. 

Her shift goes so slowly but Lev is there at the end of it. (Sasha's backpack, which she pulls from under the counter, is weirdly large and weirdly full.) 

He tries to concentrate on his grading, can't, opens up a notebook and starts writing incredibly bad poetry in praise of Sasha's beauty. (If Sasha's paying attention, she might see him tapping out iambic pentameter to make sure his sonnet has proper scansion.) 

"Hi!" he says at precisely 6:01 pm, and bounces.

Oh no that's adorable. (Of course she's paying attention.) 

"Hi! Um, the library will still be open for a while I think —" 

He wants to take her back to his place and hold her and touch her hair and fall asleep in her arms. 

"The library's great!" he says, and reaches out to hold her hand. "Are you a student?"