Lydia walks down the stairs in her dorm, passing her car because the health store is only a few blocks away, and pulls her jacket's hood over head to protect her from the lightly misting rain, something she probably wouldn't have done back in high school.
She made it sound like such a long time ago, and it was, because she felt that way. The two years of college she has attended so far had been good to her; very few headaches but lots of coffee. The coffee is probably Stiles' fault; he works at the health store and it surprisingly has some really great caffeinated beverages that they both shamelessly guzzle daily. In Stiles' words.
She passes Stiles' dorm on her way, where he still roomed by himself. Scott was no doubt still upset about this fact, but it was pointless since her and Stiles' university was halfway across the country from Scott's.
She was heading down to the store because over the past few weeks all the girls she knew (which was all of them, ever) and some of the guys, too, had been obsessing over someone supposedly very attractive who had been loitering around the same health food store where Stiles worked, and she was going to pester him until he told her who it was.
The door opens before she walks in, and sees Stiles perched on the counter. He's wearing a leather jacket, a very familiar leather jacket, and she looks around instinctively for the brooding Alpha that always accompanies it, but there's no one in the store besides Stiles and someone with dirty sneakers over by the dairy department.
"You didn't steal that again, did you?" Lydia asks disapprovingly and a little judgementally. "He's going to kill you." She grabs a cup and starts pouring the hot and steaming liquid gold they've both come to cherish into it. "Dead." She clarifies, and then adds, "Again" because Stiles just rolls his eyes.
"Well, there's no one else here who is even remotely good-looking so you must be the cute guy everyone's completely crazy over this week." She says, leaning against the counter.
"Nope, I'm pretty sure it's not me." He looks over and points to the back of a head disappearing behind a row of cereal boxes. "Must be that guy who sulks around the breakfast items at all times of the day. He doesn't even buy anything." There is a muffled "shut up!" and Stile grins. "He's the one who's really worth salivating over," He winks, stealing the cup from her hands. "I should know."
Her eyes widen slightly, and as Stiles grabs a pad of paper and a pen, she whispers a mantra of "I knew it!"'s until he holds up a finger for silence. She all but rips the paper from his hands when he lifts the pencil off, but it only reads: Derek's here.
She hastily writes "I KNEW IT" with several exclamation points, handing it over with a victorious look on her face.
Stiles gives it back a moment later with a hastily scrawled Of course you did, looking over his shoulder as if Derek could hear the words Lydia was putting down.
When he read the note, he looked exasperated, blushing, and a little proud; and indeed, when she reads his note (underneath her "How long", and "Erica owes me 30 bucks for me finding out first and another hundred for you guys putting it off until now, because you certainly weren't together at Christmas; she would have smelled it"), which says simply Not long enough which is crossed out and replaced with It's March, how long do you think? This is also crossed out and as Lydia looks over his shoulder (with effort; he's teller than Derek, even when he's not sitting on the waist-high counter.), he writes Let's see if we can sneak up on him and you can pester him instead.
"How romantic." She snarks, smiling sardonically at him when he shushes her in his usual overly-loud fashion, completely defeating the purpose.
Derek appears in front of them, coatless and a little sheepishly, and Lydia can just imagine the onslaught he's going to receive from the pack later tomorrow, when the rest of the pack would arrive for Spring break and when, she assumed, they were planning on telling the rest of them. Also, she'd forgotten he wore black sneakers. She was getting off her game being away from the 'wolves for so long.
"Well," she harrumphs, crossing her arms. "If it's not Derek, and it can't be since he doesn't work here, and it's not you, Stiles, than who is the insanely cute guy who works here, then, hmm? Because other than the pair of you, who by the way make the most predictable couple in the history of ever, there's no one else here." Stiles must be rubbing off on her.
"Who said it wasn't me?" Stiles squawks, at the same time Derek says almost the same thing.
"Aren't you compatible?" She gets another well appreciated grin from Stiles, from where the two have migrated until Derek is lounging between his legs from where he still perches atop the counter, the steam from the coffee between their faces. Derek doesn't even look fazed; she guessed that since they haven't really been together that long and never around other people that this was mostly natural, and the way he's looking at Stiles-
"Okay, I'm going to go before you two do something I don't want to see." She steals her cup back from Stiles. "Actually," She hands the cup back. "Keep your sexually charged coffee."
She darts out the door with a "Don't be late to the airport tomorrow morning " and a particularly pointed look in Derek's direction, who has taken to nuzzling Stiles' neck, already pulling her phone out to text Erica and Alison, though Erica replies that and Isaac walked in on them (oh, the pleasures – Horrors – of living at home) but Derek made them promise not to tell, and she spends the walk back discussing with Alison about how glad they are not to have to obey an Alpha, especially someone with a brain like Derek Hale's. Which is probably blissed out on Stiles pheromones right now, Alison says.