Chapter Four: Blueprint Wars

POV: Dual (Ave & Blake)

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Ave — Three Days Later

Ave regretted letting Blake touch the whiteboard the second he picked up the marker.

“Okay, so,” he said, sketching a janky rectangle, “what if we streamlined the whole irrigation delivery system into a single central tank instead of three smaller nodes?”

She blinked. “So… ignore water distribution logic entirely?”

Blake turned, marker between his fingers. “No, not ignore it—optimize it.”

“That’s not optimizing. That’s guessing and hoping it works.”

He dropped the marker cap. “It’s streamlining.”

“It’s lazy.”

His jaw tensed.

They were ten minutes into their fourth planning session, and this was the third time she’d had to stop him from blowing up the efficiency model with some half-baked idea disguised as genius.

It was giving sophomore year déjà vu. Before the fallout. Before the kiss. When he’d always wanted the loudest idea, not the best one.

Ave tightened her ponytail and crossed her arms. “We need micro-drip sensors in at least three separate sections. Otherwise it’s just a glorified water tank.”

Blake stepped back, folding his arms too. “You always shoot down everything before it’s finished.”

“Because I finish things. You just… pitch chaos and expect me to build a miracle from it.”

He laughed — dry and sharp. “Right. Because clearly you’ve got it all figured out.”

She stiffened. “Don’t start.”

“Start what? Reminding you I’m not your punching bag?”

Ave’s mouth opened, but the library doors swung and a group of underclassmen walked in, glancing at their corner. She closed her mouth, forcing calm.

They sat in brittle silence for a beat. Then Ave quietly erased his diagram and redrew her own.

Three nodes. Narrow pipes. Solar sensor at the base.

She didn’t look at him, but she felt it—his frustration, like heat off a soldering tool.

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Blake — Ten Minutes Later

He hated the way she erased him.

Not his idea. Not his work.

Him.

Blake sank back into his chair, staring at the design she was refining. It wasn’t bad. It was smart. Clean. But it wasn’t perfect—and that was the problem with Ave.

She wanted perfect.

And Blake didn’t do perfect.

He did flexible. Adaptive. The kind of innovation that came when your code failed at midnight and you had to rewire it with coffee and panic.

“I’m not trying to sabotage your system,” he muttered, not looking at her.

Ave didn’t look up. “Good. Because it’s not just mine.”

He glanced over again. Her brow was furrowed, and her foot was tapping—a sure sign she was more annoyed than she let on.

“You’re mad.”

“I’m focused.”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s your mad voice.”

She finally looked at him. “You want honesty?”

He leaned forward. “Always.”

Ave sighed. “You’re talented, Blake. You’re smart. But sometimes it’s like you don’t care about the structure behind what we’re building.”

“I do,” he said. “I just think sometimes the structure can suffocate the spark.”

Ave paused.

And for the first time that afternoon, she didn’t have a retort.

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Ave — That Night

She couldn’t stop thinking about what he said.

Sometimes structure suffocates the spark.

It was such a Blake thing to say. Chaotic. Vague. Somehow irritating and poetic at once.

But it stuck.

She sat at her desk, blueprint spread in front of her, and stared at her own notes. Everything did follow a grid. A system. A plan. She didn’t leave room for alternate paths. Or Blake.

And yet… their work was improving. His sketches, her math. His instinct, her logic.

Together, they weren’t balanced.

They were combustion.

Maybe that was okay.

Maybe structure needed friction to spark.

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Blake — Meanwhile

Blake reread their messages from earlier as he sat on his bed.

> Ave: Just bring the wire module tomorrow. I’ll fix the power distribution in the test model.

> Blake: Copy. You still mad at me?

> Ave: I’m always mad at you. Bring Oreos too.

He grinned.

She was always mad, yeah.

But lately?

She kept texting back.