I wanted to be stubborn, to keep pushing, but I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Wait, don’t tell me that was an actual joke! I think you’re getting soft.’
Blake rolled his eyes, but there it was again, the gentle smile that softened his features. He reached out and touched the brim of my cap, nudging it back so that we could see more of each other’s faces.
The smile dropped from my mouth, and Blake’s eyes leapt straight to it. My lipstick was a pastel red called Cloudy Mind. My own mind felt cloudy, too, as he stroked his thumb over my cheekbone.
‘Next time don’t wear the cap,’ he said in a low voice, barely audible. ‘I like seeing you properly.’
‘My face, you mean?’
‘No. I mean… you.’
I wanted to smile so badly that I had to bite my lip. ‘Okay,nowyou’re flirting with me.’
‘Maybe.’ He drew his hand back and looked at it again, as if realising how contemptible everything about the situation was.
‘But you don’t want to be,’ I realised gradually. ‘So… what am I, like an inverse pain aux raisins?’
‘What?’
‘Something you might sort of like a teeny bit but wish you didn’t?’
He smiled, a proper one this time, then turned on his heel and walked back to the path. Reaching it, he turned around again and recited a string of numbers.
I frowned, baffled. ‘What’s that?’
‘My number. Put it in your phone–then next time you have a question, you won’t have to randomly show up at my house.’
I tapped the brim of my cap. ‘And you say you’re not a nice person, Heathcliff.’
I saw the words repeated in his eyes:You’re wrong. But he didn’t say them out loud, he only turned and walked off down the path. And although he hadn’t told me much–most of it I’d inferred from what hehadn’tsaid–I sensed something had changed. Maybe not for my research. But for me. For him and me. For an us that wasn’t real and never could be.
Chapter12
Mabel
It was past eight o’clock when I left the Wren Library. Trinity College lay before me, dimly lit and almost deserted. I adjusted my scarf more tightly around my head, having forgotten my hat. And my gloves, I realised, with a muttered swearword as I rummaged for them. I’d spent the last few hours sitting by a draughty window, and my fingers felt numb.
I was supposed to be doing a big presentation in one of my supervisions just before Christmas, but over the past few weeks it had taken a back seat. All the extra bird-related research was coming back to haunt me now, and I had to force myself to focus on my academic studies for a while. I’d been finding it more and more difficult in the two weeks since June’s death.
Talk had died down, especially now that the administration and the police were both referring to it as a definite suicide. The college buildings were plastered with reminders of the university counselling service, and everybody seemed to consider the matter settled. At least, almost everybody. I would have preferred to concentrate on what happened to June, but I knew if I started slacking, then I could kiss goodbye to my bursary, and that would put an end to my little side-project altogether. At least Davie was still on it, and he was continually reassuring me that he’d keep me in the loop if he found anything interesting. The thought made me reach for my phone to check my messages. He hadn’t texted, but Zoe had.
Zoe
Did you leave a bar of chocolate on my bed?
The light under the colonnade was as dim as it had been in the stacks, and the dazzle of the display made my eyes sting. I stopped to type a reply.
Mabel
There wasn’t any room left on your desk. You should tidy up a bit.
After I hit send I waited uneasily. Zoe was still online, but she wasn’t typing. In the past she’d never minded if I used the spare key to her room while she was out, but lately things had been a bit awkward between us, and I wasn’t sure she’d be okay with it. I hated that. Uncertainty had never been part of our friendship before. We’d been so open with each other from the start, so honest and… secure, and that was always what I’d valued the most. Tentatively, I followed up with another message.
Mabel
Dumb idea?
This time she answered straight away.
