Liara had to admit, she was acting entirely too much like her age, and she rather detested it when she did. Here she was feeling flung in about twelve directions, waiting for her dad to pick her up, and hoping that her crush would just happen to wander by and confess an undying love. She tried not to blush or act too obviously annoyed, she also valiantly fought off the desire to talk to herself. It had been a bad habit she'd developed over long nights of working on her dissertation and longer days working digs alone. Even alone in her class room, Liara did not want to start up again with that particular tick. She could see herself now, muttering to herself during physical education and suddenly remembering the students staring at her in confusion.
She did not need to encourage the students.
Playing with the edge of her sleeves Liara frowned slightly. Tali appeared to be the instigator for the school's growing obsession with Liara's inability to ask Shepard out, although Liara was well aware that everyone seemed to be in on the joke. Including her father, Athame shield the children of Aethyta. Liara was not surprised that for some reason when she ate from the cafeteria that she ended up with plenty of red and green foods, often shaped at first glance like hearts and at second glance—Liara was grateful that student's never saw her tray. Of course the occasional batch of tea with alcohol was probably also her father's doing but Liara was loath to make that particular behavior stop even if it did break school rules.
The tapping at her door finally snapped Liara out of it. Her father did not tap things; she typically broke them or made sarcastic calls via omni. Making sure that her blouse and skirt were still presentable, Liara pulled back the butcher paper to see Jane standing outside. Liara decided she didn't care if Aethyta caught them talking or hanging out, it was future her's problem.
"Jane, come in!" Liara smiled at the distinctly distracted look on the other woman's face.
Jane squinted for a second before blushing bright red and fiddling with her omni tool. "Sorry, forgot I turned the ear mite down." Instead of coming into the room she proceeded to fiddle with the Velcro on her bag, she had recently put some sort of badge on it promoting the Armax Arsenal Arena and had a bad habit of pulling it off and on multiple times. Finally realizing that she was standing outside and that Liara was struggling to not laugh at her, Jane stepped inside and proceeded to nervously fiddle with the straps on her bag which was her default when trying to not play with the velcro.
Liara managed to force her amusement at Jane's distractedness away and asked, "Is everything alright?"
"It's raining." Jane blurted out, huffed, and returned her gaze to her bag. "Don't you ride the bus or something?"
"Yes, although a little rain never hurt anyone." Liara opted to not mention that she was getting a ride home from her dad or that Jane's concern was sweet.
Jane finally looked at her with something like exasperation and pointed at Liara's windows. With a slight pause Liara walked over and lifted the blinds revealing the torrential downpour and occasional student huddled under various rickety over hangs that dotted the commons.
"Oh!" Liara glanced over her shoulder and tried to find her smile again. "Well, despite my student's belief otherwise I'm not a wicked witch to melt in water. I'll be," Liara floundered to find a word that didn't sound dirty or desperate before settling on, "drenched but it's alright."
Jane chewed on her bottom lip before trying to casually say, "I can give you a ride."
Liara was instantly torn. This was a perfect opportunity to spend time in close physical proximity to Shepard. This was primary objective one, not that Liara had a plan, or list, or organizational style chart. No. Shush! But it was Shepard driving. She saw them talking and laughing, Shepard's hand accidently grazing her thigh or knee as she shifted gears. She saw them flying through traffic as if there were no laws, and herself squeezed into the bucket seat with a terrified smile frozen on her face. No I'm fine, I'm fine, I'M FINE TRUCKTRUCKTRUCKTRUCK!
But she would lose years of her life while with Jane, and that was worth something.
Liara, once again, wished that she had learned how to drive. Growing up with her mother's followers and attendants meant that Liara had never needed to learn, and during University she had everything she needed in walking distance. She had gotten one lesson from father a scant three or four years back, which had soured her disposition to driving even more as she'd laughed at every failed start and stall out Liara had managed. The bottom of that car was still slightly dented from when Liara had stalled them over a small boulder. Considering most air cars were designed with fail safes to prevent someone from stalling out and plummeting to their death, Aethyta had been tickled at her ability to break the computer's code via sheer will. Liara had been mortified and called the company to complain viciously about a faulty product. They had offered to hire her and Liara had eaten a tub of ice cream while writing an apology out to Jane for ever complaining about her driving. Could she really judge Jane's driving when she could magically stall out an air car?
Flashes of Jane running stop signs and passing illegally sprung to mind. There was a particular memory of horror as Jane honked and flipped off a nearby driver before performing barrel rolls around them. Liara had begun to stock Jane's glove compartment with vomit bags just in case.
Still…sick to her stomach and desperate to see flat land again with Jane.
All of this in the span of a few awkward seconds before Liara gave a small smile. "That would be nice, thank you."
Shepard lit up and puffed up with a smile. "Yeah? Alright! I mean, cool, let's uh, uh," Her hand had been digging through the rucksack as she frowned. "Give me a second I swear I have an umbrella."
Liara noted the sound of hail and nodded. "Take your time."
Jane's pawing became more frantic before slowing down to a halt. The apologetic look on her face combined with her slightly hunched over form made Liara want to apologize.
"Don't suppose you have one?" Shepard asked voice almost cracking.
Liara shook her head before a thought occurred to her. "I, well I do have a full length rain coat. We could hold it over our heads?" She lifted her hands up to demonstrate and felt the tips of her crest burn with embarrassment.
There was an almost dreamy smile that spread across Jane's face before she snapped out of it. "That, uh, that would be nice. Let's do that."
Liara gathered her work, homework, student's homework, and fun reading material in what felt like seconds. Her yellow and gray rain coat clutched in one hand, bag fit to burst slung over the other. Liara noted with a snort that Jane patted the room number as she locked up; the woman appeared in love with it which Liara suspected was due to it being a J room. After all, Jane was in L12 and Liara had always found it funny. They paused just outside the building doors, fussing and struggling to get the coat held comfortably over both their heads despite the height difference.
"You ready to run the obstacle course? I'm seeing water a foot deep at least, several floating cans, and the parking barriers." Jane grinned and sounded almost breathless already.
Liara smirked back. "Just try to keep up!"