Don’t Be in Love

7

Don’t Stare At Him for Too Long — Adelaide

Walking into class, James and I diverged. I took the stairs to where Mia sat at the back of the auditorium-style classroom picking at a thread in her sweater. The rows of desks hugged the curve of the wall, holding about eighty students. Or at least it felt like eighty students because they all had their eyes on me as James and I snuck in at the last minute.

“Hello, hello,” I whispered as the professor stood from her desk. I shrugged my bag off my shoulder and took a seat.

“Don’t you hello, hello me, who was that?” Mia whispered in a volume loud enough that I hopped in my seat.

I smacked my hand over her mouth. Who knows what else she was going to say if I didn’t.

“First off, you’re not allowed to whisper anymore because that was not whispering. Second, that was James,” I explained, removing my hand from her face, and wiping her lip gloss off my palm.

I twisted forward to write down the lecture topics—

“Why are you smiling like that?” I grumbled.

There was a mischievous grin on her face. She looked like an impersonator for the cat from Alice in Wonderland . “You know his name …”

I continued writing down the bullet points displayed on the projector, trying to get them on paper quicker than the professor could read them off.

“And what do we know about James?” she asked.

“He’s a friend of Dorian’s and that’s all we need to know.”

Her mouth fell open. She took up the entirety of my left peripheral with her gaping mouth. It was like there was a galaxy in there. Unfiltered words just swimming around. “You’re telling me that we’re going to pretend that man doesn’t exist?” She peered down at him.

Even with a packed lecture hall, I had no problem spotting James’s head in the front row. But I was surprised to find him glancing back in my direction. He brought his hand up … and waved. A delicate, shy smile inched its way into his cheeks. I casually waved back before he faced the projector again.

Mia’s galaxy widened.

I pressed the pen back down. “Dorian can’t be trusted, so neither can his friend,” I explained.

“Guilty by association?” she questioned.

“Exactly.”

“But he’s really cute,” she stressed.

“Good thing we’re in a country filled with them.”

“So, we can’t invite him over for dinner?”

“Mia.” I glared at her. She would be the one to let her pen “slip” on a piece of paper that just so happened to write our address and find its way into his pocket. “I will never tweeze your eyebrows again.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“ Would .”

“Fine. I’ll let you think about it.”

There was no way in hell I was letting a co-conspirator of Dorian’s into my apartment. I was already getting more involved with men in the past ten days attending this university than I had in the past three months I’d been here.

Not over my dead, rotting, decaying body.

“Where’s your flat?” Dorian asked.

“Excuse me?” I flipped my head up from where I was hunched over pulling a stack of books from a box as I had Dorian start on research for his target market. He picked a company that sells anonymous antique paintings. As odd as it was, I didn’t feel like having a conversation about it, so I didn’t ask.

My nails scratched the bottom of the cardboard box as I tried to get a grip on the books. Our latest shipment was a set of clothbound classics, so they were twice as beautiful, and also twice as heavy. My back ached from carrying books. Carrying books around campus. Carrying books to and from the bookstore. Carrying them from campus back to the apartment.

I wasn’t expecting to frolic around England while studying here. I knew academics came first. But gosh, I didn’t realize I was signing up for early-on back problems on top of everything else that came with attending a university that enjoyed its low acceptance rate and seeing students drop out the first week in.

A shadow bled over the stack in my arms. Before I could look up, Dorian was lifting half of the books out of my hands.

“I was just wondering how far you have to walk from here every night,” he clarified, standing up.

I stood with him, turning out of the backroom. He followed me towards the Classics aisle. Hoisting my books up, I slid them one-by-one into the correct spots on the shelf. Dorian stood on the opposite side of the bookcase, pushing books beside mine.

“Plan on leaving a series of mouse traps in my bedroom?” I asked, sliding a book in front of his face.

“Bear traps, actually. Mouse traps aren’t nearly as effective.”

“Get the idea from the gift I left on your stoop?”

“Is that what the trickle of blood running down my leg is from? I thought I tripped on one of the steak knives you carry around in your pockets.”

“That’d be my set of fountain pens. Very sharp. Easy to mix up. Happens all the time.”

A quick laugh came through the books. It sounded like a spoon tapping a teacup with one swift ring . Then he steered the conversation in the other direction. “You really shouldn’t be walking home by yourself.”

“Ah, a protector all of a sudden,” I replied.

“Funny.” I jumped back as his head popped up across from me. He slid a book beside the one I added. “I just can’t stand to fail this class. Losing my tutor probably wouldn’t do me any good.”

“My walk home is perfectly safe.”

“How far is the walk?”

“Not far.”

“Do you get some high from arguing with people?”

“I do not argue with people,” I argued— stated . I shoved a book through the shelf. An inch closer and I’d perfectly collide with his face.

“You know where I live. It’s not like I’m going to do anything with this information.”

I pursed my lips. “Twenty minute walk from here. Why?”

“It’s already dark. I can walk you home.”

I shoved a book in front of his face. “It’s fine, I’m here past when we finish anyways.”

“I can wait. I don’t have anywhere to be.” He slid the books out of his way. Now he was staring back at me. He wanted me to argue. Joke’s on him. I was determined enough to keep my mouth shut.

Two hours later, with a scowl on my face, I was locking up the shop with Dorian at my back waiting for me.

The quaint bookstore was tucked away in an alleyway, hidden from the city-goers of London, making it difficult to find if you weren’t a local, so I wasn’t too worried about anyone seeing us. Even the tailor across the street went home already.

“Good to go?” he asked as the lock clicked.

“Is this really necessary?” The streetlamp flickered with impatience ahead. Only a week and a half into September and the temperatures from August were already cooling at night. The wind pushed at my hair as I took a step forward, retracing the route I’d been taking since July.

“Told you. I can’t lose my tutor,” he replied.

“Shouldn’t tutors be disposable to you? Can’t you just fetch another one?” I waved my hand.

His brow furrowed with amusement. “What makes you think that? Do I look like I have an inexhaustible amount of tutors locked up in my home?” Now it was my turn to raise my brow. “You googled me, didn’t you?”

“I had to make sure you didn’t have some type of criminal record.”

“Oh sure. Did that search come before or after you looked up if I was lying about my name?”

“Before,” I mumbled.

He laughed. “At least you’re honest. What else did you find? Handsome, young fellow that—”

“—has rich parents, lives in the most expensive flat in the Kensington and enjoys his reputation of getting drunk and collecting women like they’re coins,” I finished for him. When he didn’t respond, I continued as we passed a bakery whose lights were turning off. “I’m honestly surprised you aren’t driving around in some rare car.”

“I don’t drive,” he replied.

“What do you mean you don’t drive?”

“I don’t have a license,” he explained. “Many raised in London don’t.”

“Wait, you can’t drive?”

“Oh, I can drive,” he corrected me.

“But you don’t have a license,” I pointed out. I held onto the strap of my bag and hopped over a puddle from last night’s rain, landing on the ball of my foot with a tap . I wobbled and he grabbed my elbow to steady me, the same way he did when we rode around on the train the night we met. My heart hiccupped unexpectedly.

It looked like the same thought passed him as he withdrew his hand.

“If I had to drive, I could.” He narrowed his eyes.

“What if you were in a car with a murderer, forced to act on instinct?” I tested him as we passed our third telephone booth. I resisted the urge to stare at them every time. As dirty as they were, they still looked like cute trinkets in life size form.

“I’d open the driver’s door, shove him out, and take over the wheel,” he responded with a look that said obviously .

“That’d never work,” I snorted.

There was a shimmer to his smile that I couldn’t determine if it was from delight or the moonlight. “What would you do then?” he asked.

“I’d push you toward the murderer and hop out of the car.”

“I’m so happy I decided to walk a woman home who’s willing to sacrifice me,” he commented as we took a turn. Marylebone’s row of brick buildings sat quietly without the morning chaos I usually left it in. Cabs were still whizzing by, and apartment windows were still illuminated. But the bike racks were empty, and the shop windows read Closed . “Write something nice in my obituary while you’re at, will you?”

“He had a lovely accent, terrible manners, and was always full of himself,” I recited.

“You think I have a lovely accent?” he asked, only a small curve to the corner of his lips.

“Don’t be fooled, everyone around here has a nice accent.”

“Well, I think you have a lovely accent too,” he commented, his eyes bright. Whimsical and boyish. A second later, he cleared his throat. “Have we not converted you?” He lifted my blue Boston Red Sox hat keychain from the strap of my bag. “Shouldn’t you have some ridiculous phone box keychain on here?”

I smacked his hand away. “Those keychains aren’t ridiculous,” I huffed. There was a tiny red telephone booth hanging from my bedpost in my room as we spoke. The epitome of adorable. “They just don’t match my … collection,” I pointed out. The blue and gray of the silk scarf, white pearls, and gold rings looped through the strap of my leather bag would clash with red.

His brows rose. “If you could even see it,” he criticized, shooing the pile of charms around.

“Good thing they’re mine and not yours.” I smacked his hand away. “We’re here.”

I stopped in front of the black door of the apartment building. The tree that greeted me from below my balcony each morning curved above us. A branch was close to poking Dorian in the head. He looked up at building’s dark red bricks and wrought iron railings.

“Is that your flatmate?” he asked.

My head snapped up, where Brina stood in front of the window—

“What are you—” I shoved him off the sidewalk and pulled him behind the tree, rustling the branches as we hid. Slowly, I peeked out from behind the trunk to look back up at the window. Phew . She was just brushing her hair.

If she had seen us, I … What would I have done? Act like Dorian and I happened to run into each other? Ignore him? Explain that he lost a contact and needed help home? (Convenient because we apparently had the same exact route home!)

Ahem .

I twisted, but my face came within inches of his. His eyes were lowered toward my mouth. A fast breath came from his lips. The same espresso scent on his clothes that peppered his room surrounded me. I could count his eyelashes from this vicinity. Long blots of ink that drained into dark eyes.

“Is there a reason we’re hiding behind a tree or do my eyes just look better in this light?”

I immediately pulled my hands off his chest as if it was covered in cyanide, seeping into my skin.

A glare riddled my brow. “I’ll see you Wednesday,” I said, walking away.

“Wait.” He grabbed my wrist, humor gone. “You’re not going to tell me what that was about?”

Maybe I could trust him. Maybe it was possible that he’d keep the caveat to my secret about Sabrina. But the articles I read about him— Dorian Blackwood Runs Through Women like They’re Shoes— the privileged lifestyle and gawking from all the girls in class were already glaring red flags smacking me in the head. And the fact that he was holding our night together over my head so that I’d tutor him was gnawing my skin down to the bone .

I was better off not trusting anyone.

“Goodnight, Dorian.”