Gabriel stirred but didn't open his eyes, brushing her hand away as he tried to remain asleep. It took too long to get to sleep on the lumpy couch the night before. But then the more rational (yet still sleepy) part of his reminded him that he lived alone. His eyes snapped open and he looked up to meet hers. It took a moment before he remembered he let her stay the night.

"Iris..  Good morning.  How are you feeling?"

She gave him a small smile. "Alright." Iris remained standing behind the couch. The color of her cheeks were turning a bright pink due to embarrassment. "Sorry about all of this. I hope I didn't cause you any problems. I don't remember anything. Did I say anything last night?" Iris was anxious about this. She remembered why she kept drinking last night. She let her frustration and depression about Beau get to her.

Gabriel stood and stretched while thinking about the best way to tell her she'd poured her heart out to her design professor in an alcohol induced semi rant.  "Well.." he started, tapping his finger against his leg. "You told me a lot of things.  Enough to indicate you're unhappy with your current situation and are marrying your fiance to make your parents happy instead of finding someone you love."

"Oh," said Iris and she looked down a the floor. Now her face was red from the embarrassment. "I'm sorry you had to hear all of that." She started to shake slightly. Iris was upset. She didn't want anyone to find out about this. "Just forget about everything I said.."

Gabriel paused and studied her. It would make her happy in the short term if he did what she asked, but..  But this was a huge mistake in the making. He shook his head while ignoring the voice in his head telling him to leave well enough alone.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to forget about it this quickly.. Iris, you are obviously unhappy with the current arrangement. You're lucky I'm the one that you ran into." He paused to give her a moment to think about that before crossing his arms and continuing.  "Also, marrying someone to please your parents is the worse mistake you can make. It condemns you to a life of unhappiness."

He was right everything he said. She should break it off with Beau, but her parents' happiness was important to her. Plus it would make things up to her father since she didn't want to take over the family business.  She just shook her head and looked at him. "I loved him once. Maybe the spark will return after we're married."

Gabriel stared at her.  That was the dumbest reasoning he'd ever heard.  Was he really in the position to try and influence her life, though? She was his student. He knew for a fact he only had the ability to influence her schooling.  But she was also his friend...  Friends were supposed to help each other with these things. So advice wasn't off limits...?  

He sighed. "Look, Iris. I'm not convinced that's going to happen, but if that's what you want then I can't tell you otherwise.  Just really think about why you don't love him anymore. Really think about if you can stand being in a relationship with him long-term just to please your parents. I don't want to hear that you had another night of drinking and ended up getting hurt... or worse..."

Iris fidgeted as Gabriel spoke. He was right again. She already knew why she didn't love Beau anymore. They had similar personalities, but nothing in common. That kind of thing didn't matter when they were teenagers. But now they were older, it was bothering Iris that they didn't have similar interests. Plus didn't really seem to care about her hobbies.

She just smiled at Gabriel, when he was finished speaking. "Don't worry last night it was a fluke. I didn't mean drink so much. It just kind of happened. Thank you for taking care of me. I'm really sorry about all of this. I promise it won't happened again."

Gabriel frowned, unhappy that she didn't seem to listen. But it wasn't his life, so he couldn't really blame her for making her own decisions. Hopefully, she would keep her promise and never end up that drunk again.  He nodded, "If you say so."  His eyes traveled to the clock. "Well, it's time to get ready for the day. Do you want to meet up and get breakfast in about twenty minutes?"

Iris's eyes lit up. He wanted to spend time with her. For some reason this made her extremely happy. "Of course! How about at Rose's Cafe? They have a good breakfast. It's closed to both of our apartments." She gave him a big smile.

"That sounds good," Gabriel answered. He wasn't sure why he wanted to spend more time with her this morning. Sure, they were friends (which was still strange to him), but that didn't mean he would usually invite people out. He wasn't really a people person.

Once Iris left, he took a shower and got ready. Then he headed out to the cafe.

When Iris got home, she took a quick shower. While she was getting dressed she heard her phone ringing. Iris glanced over at the phone which was on the nightstand. She read the caller I.D and ignored the phone. It was Beau. Once Iris was ready, she headed to the cafe.

As she made her way over there Iris felt somewhat bad for not answering the phone. Beau could have called her last night while she was out. He could be worried. She shook her head. So what? He shouldn't expect to answer the phone 24/7. She had a life!

When Iris made it to the cafe, she saw Gabriel standing outside waiting for her. She walked over to him and smiled. "Hey. I hope I didn't keep you waiting."

Gabriel shook his head. "I haven't been waiting long."

They went inside the cafe and were seated. Now that they were together for a second time that day, Gabriel wasn't sure what he should say. He was never good at small talk, and starting a conversation about Iris's fiance again was not the right thing to do. He inwardly shrugged and pulled out the best small talk that he could figure out. "So, do you have any interesting plans for today?"

She shook her head. "No not really." Iris leaned back in her chair. She could tell he was trying to small talk. She hated small talk. Iris gave him a small playful smile. "You suck at small talk."

Gabriel sighed. "Good. I hate it too. But I wasn't sure what you would want to talk about. I doubt you'd want to talk about anything school related on the weekend."