Dylan held the flyer up like a cue card. "It's literally at Atrium at eleven," he said again, softer this time, as if repeating it could file the edges off.
Alex looked at the paper, at the cheerful blue header that pretended bank magic could be boring on purpose. He let the beat exist. Then he put the decision where it belonged.
"I'm not texting a heads up," he said. "We treat it like weather."
"Umbrella posture," Dylan said, satisfied by metaphors.
"Consistency reduces scrutiny," Jack said, which sounded like a rule and worked like one.
Alex slid the flyer under his laptop and set his phone on the desk face up. The Do Not Disturb crescent sat in the corner like a closed door.
[Mode: Do Not Disturb - ON][Public visibility: LOW - maintained][Reminder: depart dorm 10:25; bring book + ID]
Dylan's chair squeaked a protest as he leaned back too far and then saved his own life with a quick foot. "Since we are a responsible household," he said solemnly, "I will refrain from proposing a parking meter right now and instead propose a thought experiment."
"No experiments," Jack said.
"Thought ones are calorie free," Dylan said. "Imagine a world where the credit union demo offers cookies -"
"Likely," Jack said.
" - and a QR code for bonus pennies if you download an app," Dylan continued. "Do we - purely as citizens - take free cookies and let the app pester our souls?"
"We take the cookie," Alex said. "We ignore the QR. We let normal explain normal. We tap, we tip, we move on."
"Look at him," Dylan said, pleased. "He was built in a lab to resist fun and yet still be cool."
Jack flicked the light off over the sink and left the overbed lamp to soften the room. The hallway had shifted to quiet hours - a few last laughs strangled themselves politely, a door clicked, water ran somewhere a long way off.
Alex checked his alarms because he liked knowing exactly what the morning would do before the morning got a vote.
[Alarm: 09:25 - wake][Alarm: 09:55 - final call][Calendar: 10:15 Library handoff - 11:00 Atrium Coffee][Travel estimate: 6 minutes on foot]
Dylan peeled his socks off with an air of personal triumph and lobbed them into a hamper he never hit. "What are the odds the app actually shows a banner when you tip at Atrium?" he asked. "Do we prepare an elegant joke, or is silence still golden?"
"Silence is golden," Jack said.
"Silence is suspicious," Dylan said. "Silence is what villains do in trailers."
"Villains do monologues," Jack said. "Silence is what grownups do when they don't need to perform."
"Rude," Dylan said, but not wounded.
Alex opened a draft to Ivy anyway. The fingers wanted to play with line and weight.
Heads up - credit union demo at Atrium at 11. Funny timing.He watched the sentence sit there, honest and too helpful. He added We can dodge the table if it's chaos, read that, hated the way dodge sounded like hiding, deleted both.
He went to the calendar instead and set a small, private nudge.
[Reminder: 10:45 - if needed, text Ivy a casual heads up]
"Scheduling your jokes," Dylan said, delighted. "Weaponized punctuality."
"It's called not letting adrenaline write my copy," Alex said.
Jack sat on his neatly made bed and opened his book again, a spine-thick paperback with a cover that pretended it wasn't about people who broke and got put back together with better screws. He read three lines, then said without looking up, "What would you say if she asks about the demo first?"
"The truth," Alex said. "I didn't know when we scheduled. It's happening there. It's a coincidence. We behave like it is."
"And if the app sparkles," Dylan said, "we look at the cookie table and say wow, branding."
"That is exactly what we do," Alex said.
His phone buzzed with a smaller, more generic life. The minimized preview showed a sender that tried hard to be friendly.
[Text - SEAVIEW CREDIT UNION]: Offers Week tomorrow - stop by Atrium at 11 a.m. for a live demo, cookies, and app tips. Tap to learn more.
Dylan leaned over the desk with all the grace of a man trying not to nosedive onto a keyboard. "Oh my god," he whispered. "The universe is committed to the bit."
Jack didn't bother to look. "The bit is marketing."
Alex tapped the notification open and then back out just to make the blue dot go away. He liked a clean screen the way some people liked a clean sink.
[Public visibility: LOW - maintained][Marketing: dismissed]
"Consider our legend verified by propaganda," Dylan said. "Pilot achieved."
"Propaganda is a strong word for cookies," Jack said.
"Cookieganda," Dylan said, proud of himself. "Write it down."
"No," Jack said.
The room tilted toward got quiet in a way schedules approved of. Dylan scrolled for half a minute and then flopped face down on his bed with a sound like a relationship ending. Jack read, patient and slow. Alex put the black crewneck and the jeans on the chair back with the care of a person who liked to meet the morning having already done at least one thing right.
He flipped his phone over so the screen faced the desk - a gesture that belonged to a previous version of him who had needed to prove he wasn't waiting for anything. He let it be theater and utility both.
"Hey," Dylan said into his pillow, voice muffled. "If the demo has a mic and a polo-shirt kid asks for a volunteer, do not do what my heart wants and raise your hand. Say it with me."
"Do not perform," Alex said.
Dylan lifted one thumb over the bed edge. "Look at us with our boundaries."
Jack killed his lamp. "Lights," he said.
"Lights," Alex echoed, and shut his off too. The room narrowed to two rectangles of brightness on the blinds from the parking lot and the charge light on someone's ancient power strip. The dorm hum belonged to everybody and to no one. Alex breathed into the dark and tried not to write the morning in advance.
His phone found him anyway - a gentle double haptic that his hand recognized before his brain did.
He rolled it toward himself and checked the minimized preview.
[Text - IVY MONROE]: Heads up - credit union's doing an 'Offers' demo at Atrium at 11. Apparently cookies. Still good for that time?
Dylan raised his face off the pillow by an inch. "Is that an oh-no text or a oh-yes text?"
"Neither," Alex said. "It's weather."
Jack turned a page with the kind of precision that made paper feel seen. "Answer like a person," he said. "Not like a strategist."
Alex let his thumbs hover, felt the urge to impress and then let it go. The truth was easy if you didn't dress it up.
Still good. If there's a table, we pretend it's furniture.
He sat with it for a second and then added a line so the tone didn't go dry.
I do accept cookies - as a concept.
Dylan made a pleased noise. "Look at us, flirting with bakery."
"Be ordinary," Jack said, which was his version of a blessing.
Alex hadn't hit send yet. He watched the words for a tell - a shine that would turn tomorrow into a scene instead of a day. The sentence didn't preen; it breathed. He felt his shoulders loosen around the idea of walking through a demo like a person who had errands.
His phone buzzed again before his thumb moved.
[Text - MAYA_H]: Hi again - sorry - transfer is ready now if that's easier. Otherwise I'll do it after 10:15.
Dylan half sat. "Tell her now is fine so we can cheer at numbers."
"Tell her 'after 10:15' so you don't stack triggers," Jack said.
Alex typed After 10:15 is fine - keep your evening. See you at the doors. He sent it, watched the message slot into the thread, liked the way it made the morning simpler.
He went back to Ivy's draft, read it once more, and hit Send.
The reply came fast, like she'd been holding the same breath he had.
[Text - IVY MONROE]: Furniture it is. I'll find the window table. Good night, strategist.
"Strategist," Dylan whispered in a terrible British accent. "Someone's been seen."
"Someone's going to be insufferable," Jack said mildly.
Alex let the phone face down again. He didn't close his eyes yet. He pictured the library doors - glass smudged by a hundred hands - a blue backpack, a quick exchange that looked like any exchange. He pictured Atrium's plant wall and a folding table with a polite banner and a person in a polo who would not be able to make him perform if he didn't offer to. He pictured Ivy behind glass and the room not pretending to be anything except a place where people chose caffeine.
The HUD kept quiet. He appreciated that about it - the way it didn't insist on being the main character when the work was small and human.
From the hallway, Parker's voice traveled like a soft law. "Quiet hours, folks. Save the karaoke for the quad."
A door clicked. The building settled. Dylan made one more tiny celebratory noise into his pillow and then surrendered to gravity. Jack's breathing evened.
Alex rolled onto his back and let the ceiling be a ceiling. The flyer under his laptop made a rigid line against the desk edge like a ruler checking a margin. He liked knowing where margins were.
His phone vibrated once more - softer, on delay. He flipped it.
[Text - IVY MONROE]: Also - if the demo tries to hand you a mic, I will push the ficus in front of us and we will hide behind it like professionals.
He smiled into the dark. He typed Noted. Ficus protocol and didn't send it, not yet. It felt like a line you say on a stage and then pretend you didn't rehearse. He let it sit where good lines live when they're not needed.
Dylan's hand flopped off the bed, palm up, as if asking the room for one last favor. Jack's book made a small sound as it reached a chapter break.
The minimized crescent glowed. The world lay exactly where he'd put it for the night.
His thumb hovered over the unsent Ficus protocol and the send plane waited - small, bright, and easy.