I stop inking and laugh. She said Peter’s name in the same tone someone else would saypig manureorebola virus. Quickly gesturing for her to give me my tablet, I start to type, making a face at her to let her know I’m not typing anything complimentary about that dude.
“The man’s the most intolerably pretentious and self-important little shit,” she continues. “Sadie seems far too interesting and sparky for the likes of him.” She smiles wryly. “I’m being a bitch, but my experiences of Professor Lang have not been at all favorable.”
I hand the tablet back.
Yeah, just between us, none of us can stand him. Kind of hoping she’ll see the light soon.
She nods. “He’s…what’s the vernacular? ‘Punching above his weight’,” she agrees. “I almost want to sit her down and grill her. Is he sweet and romantic on the quiet when they’re alone, does he have an epic cock, are his cunnilingus skills expert level…?”
Oh,man. Hearing her say the word ‘cock’ does something wicked to my own. If I had my voice back, I’d probably have let out a really inappropriate groan.
I think she knows it, as she turns her head fully to look at me, eyes full of humor. “Sorry,” she murmurs, “I…don’t really have a filter. As you’ve probably noticed.”
I bend my fingers towards me, asking for my tablet back so I can type a reply.
I like that about you. I like that you say whatever’s on your mind. It makes life easier, and more people should do it.
Her expression kind of melts when she reads it, and I never imagined she was even able to look shy, but there’s a touch of insecurity in the way she lowers her eyes and sets her mouth. I want to wipe it all away and bring back her usual self-assured beam, because that’s how sheshouldfeel, all day every day. “Iknow I rattle on most of the time. I just…I’ve always talked a lot, ever since Icould. And I pretty much had to, growing up, even if I hadn’t wanted to. But fortunately I did.” Her lips purse, and she looks down at her hands.
I type again.
I like listening to you.
She reads it and smiles, and it’s not a practised, polished thing. I’ve made her blush a little, and there’s a weird swell in my chest that feels a lot like what pride used to feel like when I was younger. To be the one making her go pink…it’s a great feeling.
Toogreat.
Her nose is so cute. It’s perfect, slightly tilted upwards in an elvish way, and I gently boop the end with my finger because she’s so fucking sweet. It makes me giggle, and I blink, abruptly realising what I’ve done. And then I smother a grin when I see I’ve left a small ink smudge on the tip.
“What?” she asks, and I point at the long mirror straight ahead from her. She grins. “Woops.”
Sorry, I sign, and offer her a box of tissues.
“It’s OK, I have face wipes in my bag.” She’s not quite able to reach it where it’s fallen on the ground, so I quickly move around and pick it up for her, crouching down.
Our eyes meet.
I’m not an idiot. I can tell, from the way her breath stills and the way she looks at my mouth, and the way our eye contact is like a physical feeling, that I wouldn’t be rejected if I leaned up and kissed her. God, look at those soft lips. The way her tongue peeps out to dampen them a little, like she’s readying them for mine…
She looks in the mirror, and we stare at each other in the reflection for a moment. Her eyes are all lit up, as if she likes what she sees, but for me the spell is broken. There’s that grayfaced dude again, the one I can’t recognise as myself anymore. There’s his mass of scars. She’s sunshine; I’m a black hole, consuming everything around me until there’s nothing. This ain’t even beauty and the beast. This is beauty and the asshole who doomed a pregnant woman to her brutal murder.
She was hidden, you rat fuck, my guilt snarls at me in my head, singing his usual hate track.If you hadn’t gone in there, if you had caught those fucking keys, he might have missed her, and her kid would be a high school sophomore by now. Almost as old as you were when you killed them with your stupidity…
Both pulling my mind back from where the bad memories lie,andshying away from the light of her smile in the mirror’s reflection, I move back around and pick up my needle again. I offer a thumbs up, and she wordlessly nods her consent, so I carry on.
She doesn’t pass comment on the broken moment. Instead, she goes back to the questions I prepared on my tablet, and I spend the rest of the evening being tortured by getting to know her better. Getting to know more reasons why my cock isrightto ache for her and my belly isrightto flip when she talks, but knowing in my bones that if I do anything about those feelings, I’d be nothing but a selfish bastard.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Liaden
Ipick up a jacket potato with cheesy beans and plenty of salad for a late lunch. Simple, but satisfying. The cafeteria on campus is actually pretty good. Granted, it’s no Harvard Dining Hall, but I’ve never had food poisoning from there, and the menu is diverse, in spite of my boring choice today. Plus, if you go at the right time, it’s not swarming with boisterous or keyed up students, so you can actually hear yourself think.
Once I’ve paid, I turn towards the tables, just in time to see the Vice Chancellor himself walk in. He’s accompanied by a selection of the Pro-Vice Chancellors for the different Schools - and, inexplicably, Peter Lang. He’s not so much as the Deputy Dean of his School, so I wonder how he managed to finagle an invitation to lunch with thesehigherhigher-ups slumming it in the canteen with the rest of us mere mortals.
“Peter!” I call exuberantly with a friendly wave. I’ve been dying to chat with him ever since I met Sadie, because, although I find this difficult to believe, Imusthave misread him somewhere along the line. People say that judging peopleis wrong, but we all do it all the time, reflexively. We measure people up and say, this one I like, this one I can see myself relating to, this one I don’t. There’s no moral dimension to it. I once looked at Peter, spent a few moments in his company, and put him on my ‘no’ pile. But there must be more to the man who didn’t exert himself to show me the most basic, scant levels of politeness when we met, if he’s actually landed a woman like Sadie.
Tim really doesn’t like him, though, which is a pretty strong validation of my first impressions. But then, Sadie seems to be a smart woman, not the type to be fooled.