Victor catches up to him the next morning on his walk back from the gym to his dorm. It looks like he's on his way to work out himself, if the bag hanging from his sweatshirt-clad shoulder is any indication. "Hey, I'm trying to get everyone together to go to this all you can eat that opened up over recess. Tonight at seven. You game?"

"Uh, duh."

Pumping two thumbs up in his direction, Vic moves to split their paths. Two things occur to Gar. One: he should have asked to make sure it had vegetarian options. Two: "Uh… everyone? Like, Dick, Kori. And… Raven?"

Now a senior and, supposedly, wise beyond his years (or at least, that's what Vic keeps saying), he squints at his young friend. "Dude."

Gar presses his palms to his eyes and groans. "I knowwww."

"Then do something about it. Ask her out."

Theatrically, Gar gasps and jerks his chin back. "I can't do that. She'll kill me if she finds out I like her."

"Well," Vic draws out, rolling his eyes. "Then you're just gonna have to get over her. Honestly, man, this is painful to watch."

With a hefty sigh, Gar kicks at the pebbled walkway they're on. "I can't do that either."

A muscled arm slings across his shoulders, jostling him in a brotherly fashion. Thinking he's about to get some warm words of comfort, Gar glances up at him. "Sucks to be you," he gets instead, and he rolls his eyes. Some friend he's got.

"Thanks." He observes the scuffs on his sneakers, wondering what it would take to impress Raven. Would she care that he goes to the gym? Tara liked him before he had any definition, back when he was as gangly as they came, but she certainly didn't mind when he started to shape up towards the end of high school. He knows Raven cares more about substance than looks, but if he found an opportunity to show off…

It's a stupid thought, so he dashes it. Besides, that whole preference for substance is an issue all its own. He likes to think he's a good guy with morals and generosity, but he knows he gets on her nerves. She's also crazy smart, and more than likely wouldn't even consider attaching herself to someone that couldn't be considered an intellect. He's smart in his own ways, and he's absolutely acing bio, but he's hardly what one would call book smart.

"Look, Gar. You never know unless you try. Maybe you can just try flirtin' a little tonight, see how she reacts." Victor withdraws his arm, slapping him on the shoulder. "Or find a fling to distract yourself with," he suggests with a wink, walking away without letting Gar answer that.

A fling. Even if he thought that would work, Gar wouldn't do that to someone. Leading them on while he's got feelings for someone else. He sighs and picks up his trail to the dorms. Looks like he's just stuck all alone forever, pining uselessly for the barista who hates him.

Well, maybe not hates him. Tolerates him at best, though. He glances surreptitiously at her across the table at the all you can eat that night while she scrolls the menu on her phone. They've only just sat down, but Victor's already squirming in his seat. "I'm sorry, Raven, but I need a chair. The booth's too close to the table and you've got way less bulk than me. Swap?"

She nods wordlessly and stands to the side, letting Vic take her chair. It's while she's sliding gracefully into the booth next to him that Gar catches his friend's smirk and wink, and he pales. The schemer! It's not a big table, meant for four. Dick's situated on the side between Gar and Kori with a chair borrowed from the neighboring table, pushing Gar closer to the middle of the table and, inevitably, closer to Raven. Somehow, the air around her is cooler than the rest, but maybe that's just the way he perceives her mature perfume.

He's too tense and distracted to think about capturing the QR code on the table to pull up the menu, so when the waiter comes around to collect their first orders, he's caught entirely unprepared. Everyone tosses out their requests way too fast for it to even occur to him to grab the menu real quick, so he ends up just staring uselessly at the waiter for a moment. "Uh…"

"Double my order for him," Raven interjects on a sigh, probably annoyed by the stretching silence. The waiter nods and hurries away, leaving Gar to stare at the side of his seatmate's face. Sensing his gaze, she tosses him a raised eyebrow. "Vegetable potstickers," she provides in monotone. "It's marked vegetarian, you don't have to worry about hidden meat products."

"Ah. Cool." It was only once that he mentioned to her that he's a vegetarian. He orders soy milk all the time, more for taste and nutrition than desiring to be a complete vegan, which could easily serve as a frequent reminder to his dietary preferences. It shouldn't surprise him, then, that she remembers him to be a vegetarian, but for some reason it does. Maybe it's because most other people don't care.

He glances across the table at Vic, who mouths in an exaggerated fashion the word 'flirt.' Gar scrunches his nose up and shakes his head, drawing Raven's attention. "Problem?"

"N-no, just uh. Had to sneeze. It's gone now, though, don't worry." She stares at him steadily, not even a twitch or a blink. "I'd sneeze into a napkin, anyway. Germs."

Now she blinks, and from the corner of his eye he can see Vic swinging his head slowly from side to side in disappointment. Gar, it seems, is an affront to society. Truly pathetic. He grimaces and ducks his head, eyes trained on the glossy surface of their table. It's probably best to just not say anything at all. To his left, he can hear Dick and Kori engaged in a hushed conversation, blissfully unaware of his fumbling mere inches in front of them. How do they do it? Talk to each other so casually, so flawlessly despite their glaring differences in personality?

Raven's scary, honestly. She stares him down in silence, and he has no idea what's running through her head. It makes him unfairly nervous.

She clears her throat softly, hand landing on the booth seat between them, close enough that her pinky nearly brushes the fabric of his pants. It dries his mouth instantly. "How was your break?"

It takes a second for him to realize the hushed question is directed at him, mostly just because he expected her to avoid any unnecessary interaction with him after the whole sneeze conversation. "Uh, good. I spent the holidays with my family. I'm… adopted," he adds on impulse, wanting to add any amount of depth to the conversation that he can.

"I remember." He finally gathers the nerve to look at her, surprised. He doesn't remember ever telling her that before. It must have come out during one of his ramblings at the coffee shop.

"How was yours?"

Raven draws a section of hair behind her ear, baring the soft curve of her jaw. "Fine. I worked."

Eyebrows coming together, Gar leans in a little without meaning to. "You didn't visit family?"

Her dark eyes meet his. "I don't have one," she informs him without any particular infliction to her voice. His attention darts down to her mother's red necklace, the one he's never seen her without. She notices, fingers coming up to trace the sharp edge of the pendant.

"I guess you picked up a lot of hours at work, huh?"

For once, it seems, he's said the right thing. What he really wanted to ask about was her mom, but somehow he knew she'd prefer not to travel down that road, despite the frankness with which she told him she doesn't have a family. Her hand falls back into her lap, face tipped inquisitively in his direction. He manages to meet her stare this time, until she's the one to look away first. "Funny, how quiet the shifts were."

"Well, I guess most of the college crowd was gone."

Her lips tip into something resembling amusement, but she doesn't say anything. He's about to ask what's so funny, but their food arrives, and he forgets about it until later on that night when he's skimming through a syllabus. And he thinks, maybe, and he thinks it might not even be wishful thinking: the shifts were quiet without him there, in particular.

Not that it's a good thing, he supposes. She probably prefers the quiet. And yet… he can't forget the curve of her mouth as she mentioned it. Like there was something fond about the statement.