* * *
First yearof university
“Hi.You mind if I sit here?”
The lecture theatre was busy and I was late, unusually so. I’d only just got back from spending the weekend at home for the twins’ birthday and still had my weekend bag with me. And I smelled of trains in the rush hour.
“Sure.” The girl smiled at me.
I’d seen her before in the lecture theatres but we hadn’t shared any practicals or classes. She was always intent on what was being taught, never checking her phone or getting distracted like most of the rest of the first years. To be fair, I was usually concentrating too. I needed top grades to justify to my father why I’d chosen veterinary medicine rather than law.
“Thanks.” Now wasn’t the time for making nice. This was the first lecture in the locomotor module and I knew it would be a step up from what we’d covered at school. I’d done a bit of reading on the train on the way back, topping up the pre-reading that had been set. My brothers hadn’t seen me; I didn’t need the ridicule.
The lecture was interesting and I lost all concept of time or where I was. Animals fascinated me and it was something I knew I could be genuinely good at without having to compete with my brothers and Claire. Every time my fucking father told me what mark or grade Jackson had got or Max I wanted to hide in a hole and become invisible.
The girl next to me stretched and knocked into my shoulder by accident, bringing me back into reality.
“Sorry,” she said, sounding sheepish. “I forgot you were there. You weren’t checking on your phone every two minutes like most people.”
I shook my head and smiled. She was pretty, tiny. She had brown hair that fell straight to her shoulders and big brown eyes that reminded me of a doe. I could’ve been a little tongue tied but my default mode was to flirt.
“You looked like you were fairly into it too. Makes a change.” I gave her the smile that had once resulted in me being chased across a garden by Felicity Mawdsley’s father when I climbed out of her bedroom window.
She didn’t smile back. Instead she looked at me as if I was some weird species she’d just come across and she didn’t know if I was poisonous.
“You’re Callum.”
Shit. People knowing who I was didn’t generally bode well.
“I am.” I tipped my head to one side. “I hate to ask, but how do you know me?”
“You slept with a girl on my floor and then slept with her sister the night after.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. I vaguely remembered it. Well, I did remember it.
My grin was now channelling embarrassed Callum. “I didn’t know they were sisters. If I had, I wouldn’t…”
She raised her brows.
“Honestly. I do have some decency. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Why do you want to know? You won’t be using it later.”
If remorse was something I could feel easily, I’d feel it now, but it was one of those emotions I struggled with. I’d had a good time with both of the sisters and I was pretty sure they had too.
“Because I might want to talk to you about the lecture. And it’d be useful to know what you were called.” It was the truth. She’d taken loads of notes and it was useful to talk to someone after. Helped to process what we were meant to be taking in.
Marie had helped me study for my A-Levels, pretty much knowing as much of the biology curriculum as I did. She was a fucking superstar but I didn’t have her in London.
She looked at me seriously, as if assessing the risk she was putting herself at by telling me her name.
“Don’t laugh.”
“Why would I laugh? Unless you’re telling a joke.”
She rolled her eyes. “My name’s unusual.”
“Like Clarinda? Or Petunia? Or let me guess – Madonna because your mother was a fan.” I grinned hoping that the pretty girl would laugh at me.
