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He’d figured she would go back to her own table. He’d hoped. And he’d certainly glowered enough to make it seem inevitable. It’s not like Warren enjoys the fact that people are always scared of him, no matter what he does, but he’s certainly not above using it to his advantage. And fine, he might enjoy it a little bit. It always works, too, which is what makes it even more surprising when he arrives at his usual, solitary lunch table and finds Layla sitting there for the second day in a row. She’s absently nibbling at a sandwich that’s been cut in half diagonally, her hair tucked behind her ears as she reads a book. If the sandwich had the crusts cut off, Warren would wonder if he’d somehow time traveled back to third grade when he was the new kid and ended up at Shelly Frobisher’s outcast table by default.
“What, you didn’t bring the Geek Squad with you this time?” he growls by way of greeting. She shoots him a mildly reproving look.
He reaches over – slowly and as deliberately as possible – and snags her cookie from her lunch bag. If he has to put up with this bullshit, at least he can get dessert out of it, he figures. He expects her to protest or say something or, ideally, go back to her own damned table, but she just rolls her eyes and buries her face in her book again.
The next day, and every day after that, there’s an extra cookie in her lunch. She never says as much, but he knows the second one is for him. It’s the sort of thing a guy might get goofy over, if he were the type to get goofy, which Warren is so not.