“It’s not a curse,” Vaughn says quietly.
I give him a sideways glance. He’s still staring at the Dudley family crest.
“Yeah, I know,” I say finally.
After we’ve exhausted ourselves by soaking in England’s bloody history, we stop for coffee at a café near the river. It’s one of those places with mismatched chairs that’s trying very hard to be charming and mostly succeeding. Vaughn grabs a table near the window while I order.
The guy behind the counter is around my age. Dark hair, nice eyes, the kind of forearms that suggest he either works out or carries a lot of milk crates. Probably both.
“Here you go.” He sets my coffee down with a smile that’s a few degrees warmer than customer service requires. “Have you just done the Tower?”
“How can you tell?”
“Everyone who comes in from that direction has the same slightly shell-shocked expression. It’s a lot of beheadings for one morning.”
“We paced ourselves.”
He laughs. “Did you know there used to be a zoo in the Tower? There were lions, bears, and an elephant. For about six hundred years, they kept exotic animals in there alongside the prisoners.”
“That feels like a health-and-safety issue.”
“Apparently, a lion mauled a soldier in the 1680s, and they just sort of carried on.” He shrugs. “Different times.”
“Very different times.”
He’s leaning on the counter now, and his body language has shifted from friendly to interested. I recognize it because I used to be fluent in this particular dialect.
“We do a live music night here on Fridays,” he says. “Jazz, a bit of folk. It’s actually really good. If you want to come back sometime?”
My shoulders stiffen.
He’s asking me out.
Three months ago, I’d have said yes. He’s attractive and friendly, and he apparently shares my enthusiasm for the darker corners of history.
But the thought of sitting across from someone who isn’t Leo, laughing at jokes that aren’t Leo’s, being seen by eyes that aren’t Leo’s dark ones, makes my chest do something painful.
“That’s really nice of you,” I say. “But I’m not… I’m not really in the right place for that at the moment.”
The barista takes it well. Easy smile, nice guy. Wrong time. Wrong person. Wrong everything.
I head over to the table, carrying coffee for Vaughn and me.
Vaughn greets me with an amused expression. “Was the barista hitting on you?”
“Ah…yeah.”
“Did you turn him down?”
“Yes.”
Vaughn studies me with a frown.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you turn down the good-looking barista who was clearly into you?”
