30
Mia
I’m in such a rush to get over to the theatre when my renaissance drama tutorial finally lets out, I can’t quite believe it when I see Oliver casually waiting for me outside my tutor’s office.
‘Hi?’
I reach up to my hair, yanking out of the claw clip and attempting to push it into some sort of acceptable shape. This was not part of this evening’s plan. He was supposed to be getting dinner with the others. I was supposed to have five minutes to fix myself up before seeing him. Unless I forgot something? Or missed a message? Or—
‘Hi, yourself.’
He’s leaning against the wall, lithe and long-legged, in his regular uniform of loose-fitting jeans and Chuck Taylors. Today’s shirt looks like something from the Seventies, off-white with a black ring around the collar, peeking out from under his leather jacket.
‘I thought you were getting dinner with Alice and the others?’ I’m trying to tuck my hair behind my ear but after a full day in the claw clip, it does not feel like following orders.
‘That was the plan. Unfortunately, I had a last-minute meeting with our mutual friend, Dr Quinn.’
He raises a questioning eyebrow when I laugh.
‘Our Mutual Friend,’ I say back to him. ‘Like the book?’
When Oliver’s grim expression doesn’t change, I suck in my cheeks, wondering if anyone invented a time machine while I was learning about Hieronimo, the Marshall of Spain.
‘How come you had to see Dr Quinn?’ I ask as he starts walking, me quickly following him down the hall.
‘It’s nothing. I was vaguely interested in one of his courses for next term but it’s oversubscribed already. I thought he might be able to squeeze me in but apparently not. I swear, he’s got it in for me. Probably something to do with my dad.’
‘They know each other?’
He nods. ‘Quinn’s been here forever. That’s probably what’s up his arse. Still stuck in the same shitty teaching job while his students go off and do amazing things. I’m a living reminder of his failure.’
Teaching at Hemden doesn’t seem like a shitty job to me, but I know better than to argue with a man in a bad mood.
‘I know what you mean,’ I say instead, attempting to soothe his mood with failures of my own. ‘Maybe that’s why he was so harsh on my essay.’
It was the right thing to say. Oliver’s scowl softens at once. ‘Like his opinion matters anyway,’ he replies. ‘Who gives a shit what an irrelevant fossil like him thinks?’
It’s almost sacrilegious. My stomach churns at the thought of anyone hearing him because I, in fact, give several thousand fucks about what Dr Quinn thinks. Surreptitiously pulling a lip balm out of my bag, I turn my head away and swipe it on my lips, hoping I didn’t miss my mouth as I palm it into my back pocket.
The irresistible sleepy smile that knocked me off my feet on the first day, metaphorically, as opposed to Bryn’s tote bag, appearson his face as he holds open the door, guiding me out of the Lawton building and into the early evening. Dusk is settling around campus, people pulling on jackets as they leave their seminars and tutorials, lights in the windows shining behind us.
‘I love this time of day,’ I tell him, yanking a cardigan out of my tote bag and slipping my arms into the sleeves. ‘All the buildings lighting up like that, glowing against the sunset. Isn’t it magical?’
‘It’s easy to romanticize Hemden when you haven’t been here very long,’ he replies, a wash of regret flushing his cheeks as soon as he speaks. ‘Sorry, that was a shitty thing to say. Quinn always puts me in a bad mood, it’s hardly your fault. And yes, you’re right, duskismagical. There’s an H. G. Wells quote I love, something like “that pause that comes upon things before the dusk, an air of expectation about the evening stillness”.’
‘You’re amazing.’ I dig my teeth into my bottom lip so hard it hurts, eyes flaring wide. ‘I mean, it’s amazing that you’re able to remember a quote like that. I’m so bad at it. I write lines down all the time but I can never remember anything. Unless it’s song lyrics, I know a million song lyrics, and I’m rambling.’
‘You’re not rambling, you’re passionate.’ He gives me such a sweet look that his rant against Quinn is completely forgotten. ‘I’ve always said if the great poets were alive today, they’d be writing songs instead of poems. Two hundred years from now, English students will be studying lyrics. It’s the same thing, words from the heart. Probably even more difficult since you have to have the musical talent as well as the lyrical. No one wants to admit that because there’s so much shit music out there but it’s true.’
‘Well, you would know, you’re the songwriter.’
The sides of our hands brush together as we walk, and I have to bite back a smile.
‘You liked my song?’ he asks and it’s definitely not a lie when I nod because I did like the song. I liked that he took the time and effort to write and record something, just for me, even if it isn’t exactly the first thing I would choose to listen to on an average day. Or any day. Ever.
‘I’m so glad,’ he says quietly. ‘It was stuck in my brain for weeks. You know when you’re trying to think of a word but it’s just out of reach? Writing a song can be like that. It pops into your consciousness, completely perfect, and my job as a writer is to get it out in one piece. But it’s fragile. Sometimes it breaks and I have to put it back together.’
‘That’s really beautiful.’
