Just Out of Reach

Ch. 2: Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

"Everybody needs somebody. Everybody wants somebody to love. Honey, to hug. Sugar to kiss. Baby to miss now. Baby to tease. Sometimes to please. I need you, you, you. And I need you, you, you." - Solomon Burke

* * *

When the semester officially started, you couldn't help but think of Peter. Not that you thought about him often, and not that you had a lot of free time to think of him, but he was on your mind.

He seemed to always be on your mind now, because you had a feeling you had overstepped.

You'd offered him your number, which he would have had to see when he opened the cupcake box, and yet a week later as classes had gone into full swing, you hadn't heard from him once.

Not that you had expected it? But your expectations had of course been too high for the let down to feel normal, and you kept wondering if you were going to see him on campus at all.

The humanities buildings were nowhere near the science buildings, so you were sure there was no way you'd run into one another just casually from class to class. But the thought kept crossing your mind, regardless.

You were busy though, too busy, to be spending so much time thinking about someone you hardly knew, and someone you were sure hardly gave you the same amount of thought. So you cut yourself off and delved deeper into your studies, petitioned for different plans of action for your multiple clubs, and found yourself at FEAST on Friday sitting in the lobby waiting for May Parker's assistant to come and get you.

"Hi Y/N," you heard a flustered May stepping into the lobby area, "God, I'm so sorry you've been waiting so long!"

"Oh no I've only been here for a couple minutes -"

"It's been a crazy day," May continued, hardly hearing you as she swept you into a hug like you were old friends, "My assistant Carson had to go and check on some shipments and - well, I don't want to bore you with the details. It's so nice to see you again!"

"Y-Yes thank you!" you cleared your throat, snapping back to your senses, "Thank you. I'm really honored to be here."

May gestured for you to follow her and you fell into step behind her.

"Did you have a good first week?" she asked, "I know the first week of classes can always be dreary with the syllabuses all shoved down your throat."

You chuckled, "Something like that," you nodded, "I mean, I already have homework so we're obviously off to a great start."

May laughed, her long hair seeming to cascade down her back as she tossed her head back and adjusted her glasses.

"Sounds about right," she smirked, "I think Peter already has he said like, one or two group projects he's being forced into or something."

The announcement of Peter's name, and even more information of him being in school, caused your heart to spasm and your palms to sweat. Peter's accident had been so severe and just a week ago he was without over half his entire arm. You couldn't imagine the pain he must have been feeling, not to mention the fact that his whole world had significantly changed.

And yet he was in classes just like that?

You wanted to say something but you knew it wasn't your place, so you simply nodded, following May into her office surrounded by glass walls to oversee everything that was going on around her.

"Okay Y/N, I'll be blunt because I'm busy and I know you're busy," May smiled, a hectic kind of look in her eyes as she shifted in her seat, "I want to offer you an internship."