“Ha,” he said, because it was a running joke between us that the canteen coffee was little more than tepid, discolored water. And then, suddenly, “You should come to Cambridge.”
“Sorry?” I lowered the T-shirt I’d been folding.
“Come to Cambridge. Stay for a bit. Feels weird I won’t see you for three weeks.”
I nodded. “I know. I’ll miss you.”
He looked down at the floor. “I nicked something earlier, too. From the canteen.”
“Did you?” I was confused for a moment. What did he mean? Max was far too honest to steal.
He nodded, then reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a sprig of green plastic, slightly bent.
Mistletoe.
A smile spread through me, and my heart started to spin, instantly out of control on an axis I didn’t know it had.
Max lifted the mistletoe with one hand, his other arm behind his back, gray eyes steady against mine. “I needed an excuse, Luce. To do something I’ve been wanting to do since we met.”
My blood got hot then and my heart became wild, every part of me rushing with wanting. And so I stepped forward, put my lips to his, and then we were kissing, hard and warm and fast, Max’s arm firm across my shoulders as the gap between us closed. And soon the mistletoe was somewhere on the carpet, kicked under the bed as we toppled onto it.
Somewhere along the corridor, someone was playing Christmas music, a jingling tambourine-heavy melody. Doors were squeaking and banging, there were footsteps and voices, laughter and whooping, the ever-present scent of browning toast in the air. We were surrounded by people, and yet—just as I had felt on our very first night in halls—their presence only seemed to heighten the privacy between us, hidden away behind my closed door.
I wanted to sleep with him. It didn’t seem to matter that this was our first kiss, let alone anything else. I knew Max and I had something special, even though we hadn’t explored what that was yet. I felt a future with him. Isensedit. Some inexplicable knowing that we were destined for each other.
“Lucy,” he breathed, as we began to tug at each other’s clothes, “have you... Have you...?”
“No,” I breathed back. “But it’s okay. I want to.”
“Are you sure? Because it’s fine if...” The words were muffled, but I knew he meant them.
“Yes,” I gasped, kissing him harder, more insistently. I didn’t even care that I was wearing my scruffiest jeans, and a T-shirt so old the logo had faded right off it, or that I was completely free of makeup. I could only think of Max—the deep press of his kiss, the damp warmth of his newly clean skin. “Yes, I’m sure.”
So Max was my first, on that bright, chilly December afternoon in my university bedroom. And it was nothing like the way my sister or friends had described it—not awkward, or painful, or just a little bitlacking. It was full-hearted and special, tender and memorable. Everything I’d hoped it wouldbe.
Seven
Stay
It’s early evening, and I’m on one of the sofas in Tash and Simon’s living room. Dylan’s curled up in an armchair with Tash’s iPad, already bathed and in his pajamas. He’s supposed to be playing a times-table app, but I know he’s really watching kids unwrap pricey toys on YouTube. He announced he wanted to make his own videos last week, and my heart kind of broke for him, because I know that deep down, he doesn’t understand why other boys get to play with all these awesome toys on tap, and he doesn’t. Tash and Simon might be well off, but Dylan’s never spoiled.
Tash and Simon have cracked open a bottle of wine from their basement—or as I like to think of it, lower-ground floor, given the basement is roughly the size of your average bungalow. I’m trying out a margarita made with nonalcoholic spirits: I was skeptical at first, but Tash is one of those people for whom my not drinking is a bigger deal than it is for me, who feels guilty about drinking herself unless I’ve gota nonalcoholic alternative in my hand. So I let her faff about with limes and ice and agave syrup, and the result is actually not bad.
It’s been a peach-warm afternoon, and the brocade curtains are still parted at the French windows, which are open to entice a breeze. The sound of bleating lambs drifts through the gap. Beyond the boundary of the vast lawned garden, the landscape undulates, giving way to a tapestry of fields and hedgerows that leads, eventually, all the way to the sea.
“So, we read your pages,” Tash says, tucking her feet up beneath her on the other sofa.
Tash and Simon have been pestering me to let them have a sneak peek of my novel, so a couple of days ago, I e-mailed Tash the first ten pages or so for them both to read. And then, before I could change my mind, I e-mailed the same to Caleb, with a note that said,One condition: you can’t say it’s good if you think it’s terrible x.
He e-mailed back within thirty seconds.Pretty sure that’s not going to happen. But of course—I promise x.
“So... what did you think?” I ask Tash, tentatively.
“We thought it was lovely,” she says brightly, like she’s reporting back on a wedding that secretly bored her stiff.
Next to her, Simon nods with an enthusiasm that hints at rehearsal. “Really, really good.”
Simon’s what I guess you might describe as classically handsome. He keeps his dark hair short—it’s little more than a neat shadow, really—and there’s a crisp line of stubble along his jaw. He’s a mortgage broker, which seems to involve a lot of golfing and attending a never-ending series of niche midweek awards dos.
