Joe settles his chin on one hand, munches a mouthful of food, and watches her work with neat little bubbles on the page, closely joined. He's wearing an expression that probably reads clear all the way across the food court as the unmistakably infatuated blush of adolescent adoration.

She could be scribbling up the most shameless wreck of them all, for all he cares. But instead she's drawing the symbol of their promise, and so something in him melts faster than the ice cream sandwiched between his waffles.