Chapter 27
27
Freed from my infatuation with Val, I decide to focus less on the scavenger hunt. I do still want to win, of course, only because it would be a fun part of the Experience. But I’ve decided I don’t need to make it my preoccupation at the expense of everything else here. If I don’t win, I’ll survive. I hope whoever does—not Scott or Erik, please—has the perfect dinner date with our fae lord in residence.
For my part, I devote myself to enjoying the Experience’s offerings. It’s not hard, with the wonderful work Amelia and the other organizers have done. I stock up on Elytheum notebooks purchased in the craft store and fill my schedule with lectures, readings, and more, each held in gorgeous Gothic lecture halls.
Over the next morning’s breakfast, everyone is eager for one event in particular. A women-owned sex toy maker has partnered with the Experience in a stroke—so to speak—of marketing genius and is offering a women’s pleasure seminar. Of course, it’s scheduled in the largest room on campus.
When I arrive, the lecture hall is packed . The only space I find is on the upper level, above the grand room. The hall must seat close to three hundred people, with blackboards running the length of one massive wall beneath high Gothic windows overlooking trees decked in green.
Everyone is noisily finding seats wherever they can. I suspect grad students have found out about this particular lecture and have snuck in. Good for them.
I wind up in the back, where the only open seats remain. On the worn wood of my chair, I find a small bag waiting for me. A quick glance around the room confirms there is one in every seat.
Inside, I find a vibrator. I pull the device out to examine it closer. It’s what we’re here for, right? No reason for shyness now.
“Interesting,” I hear next to me.
None other than Scott stands beside the closest chair. Given the compactness of collegiate seating, the arrangement puts him inches from me—and my new vibrator, which, with heat flushing fast into my cheeks, I promptly fumble.
My party favor has almost fallen to the ground when Scott’s arm shoots out. His precise grip stops it just short of hitting the lecture hall floor, near my ankles.
Scott does not waste the opportunity. Straightening slowly, he proffers me the pink vibrator like he’s offering a Victorian lady her handkerchief.
“Thank you,” I say, dying inside.
Holding my gaze, he grins. The mirth in his gray eyes crackles like lightning in storm clouds.
I clutch my vibrator awkwardly. “What are you doing here?” I ask, out of the vain hope he’s gotten lost. Perhaps the neighboring lecture hall is screening Star Trek and he’s in the wrong room. Perhaps I could convince the neighboring lecture hall to screen Star Trek in hopes of inducing him to—
“I’m here for the lecture on women’s pleasure,” he announces. “What about you?”
I feel my expression flatten. Scott notices my reaction.
“Oh, you think I don’t need to attend? I know everything there is to know? You flatter me,” he continues, raising his voice in comic self-aggrandizement.
Matters worsen when people around us chuckle. Ladies of Elytheum, I implore you , I consider saying. Instead of forsaking me like the Western Court forsook our queen, come to my aid. Encourage this man no further. He does not need it. I promise.
If I’m honest with myself, part of the reason I don’t is how charmed I am. Oh, I wish I wasn’t. I don’t want Scott to charm me. Not when I know his kisses conceal deception. Not when every reminder of his damningly charming qualities is a reminder of how he’s only here to practice them to perfection.
Not when, I realize, he’ll probably use whatever skills this class offers—maybe even the vibrator on his seat—on someone else.
My face falls. Scott notices. His humorous swagger disappears. The mirthful storms in his eyes part just like the clouds on the morning we kissed in the rain, leaving only the innocent day. He studies me sincerely.
“Can I sit here? If you’d prefer I go elsewhere, I will,” he assures me. He’s speaking in earnest now, without swagger or presumption. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he continues.
I look out over the filling lecture hall, feeling split down the middle. I want him to sit next to me. I want to sit next to him. It’s impossible to ignore how the past days have made me feel. The Scott they’ve shown me is different in unimaginable ways from the man who once raised his hand on five separate occasions in one six-minute PowerPoint I was presenting, who rides elevators with me in complete silence when we have the misfortune of sharing one—who I could never, ever imagine kissing me like he did days ago. Increasingly, I find myself wanting to be near him always. Even now.
Which is why I’m afraid.
With Scott’s eyes on me, I remember Val’s words. Be brave, Lady Jennifer .
Resolute, I straighten up. If I’m not enough for Scott, it’ll hurt, but I won’t refuse to try. I won’t be less than the best Lady Jennifer. “What would be uncomfortable about attending a sex lecture with your colleague who you made out with recently?” I reply, echoing Scott’s own droll bravado.
When he grins, I add one more hope and fear to the list.
“My thoughts exactly,” he says.
He sits next to me. Stowing his sex goody bag under his seat, he takes out his Moleskine. The Val notebook.
It makes perfect sense, and yet I have to ask. “You…plan on taking notes?”
“Diligently,” he replies with a curve of his lips.
My stomach swoops, visions of tongues and fingers and rain crashing in my head. What else has he written about in there? Was the rain kiss in there somehow? Wait for inclement weather to put the moves on the impressionable Jennifer ?
What other devious, delicious plans does Scott have? I covertly stretch my neck, trying to make out the small writing on the open page.
He’s on to me immediately, damn him. He covers the page with his elbow.
“Snooping for clues? Nice try,” he says.
Clues. Yes. I grasp onto the excuse. “You know, it’s not too late. You could ditch Erik and join my alliance,” I offer.
Amused, he spins his pen with his fingers. His limber, deliberate fingers… “I must decline,” he replies. “There’s no way I’m letting you go on a date with someone else, fictional or real, if I can help it. I must remain your adversary.”
My stomach swoops again.
What does he even mean? Why keep me from dating anyone else, fantastical or nonfictional? Is this part of the Elytheum Experience—or the Scott Daniels Book Boyfriend Experience—or is it…real?
I have to ask him, I know I do. I just don’t want to. It would interfere with whatever’s going on here. I don’t want to ruin this, don’t want to open myself up to more hurt. Not when whatever we’re doing is decidedly fun.
Like the rest of the week, it’s an escape from reality.
I don’t ask. I just enjoy myself. Is it following Val’s words of wisdom? What’s more courageous, venturing into disappointment or flirting with your rival? Who even knows.
“Are you jealous?” I pry, loading playful accusation into my voice.
The question doesn’t put him on the defensive. He only gives me a long look—and then grins, pleased. Deliberately, he lifts his elbow from his notebook and flips a few pages, until he finds the one he wants. His pen moves to a line in the middle.
In one bold stroke, right in front of my eyes, he underlines what’s written there.
Territorial jealousy.
I laugh. Out loud, in the lecture hall, where I’m relieved the lecture has not yet started. Scott’s eyes crinkle with earnest joy, and I feel like making me laugh was his fantasy.
“What have you been up to today?” he asks me.
The question quietly startles me. No more fantasy flirting, no more goading insinuations. He closes his notebook in front of him, like he’s found a pursuit preferable to imitating literature’s finest master of swoon.
Just…him, and me.
“I went to some classes. Honestly, I’m afraid being here is inspiring me to go back to school,” I admit. His gentle, unhurried curiosity encourages me to say more. “Maybe I want to get an MFA or something. I don’t know.”
“You should.” Scott’s reply is unhesitating. Not urgent, just…confident. In me, I realize. “I mean, if you’ve been enjoying this”—he gestures into the grand hall—“you absolutely should.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
He nods like the equation I’ve laid out for him is rudimentary. “You love books. It makes sense you want to explore more sides of them,” he explains. “Have you ever written before?”
Under other circumstances I would withdraw into shyness right about now. Scott’s kindness is making me reckless with happiness. “Just terrible fan fiction that will never see the light of day,” I share.
He leans in. “Any chance you saved any of it?”
“Not for you, Scott Daniels,” I say, even though with the way the week has gone, he’s no stranger to my fandom or my fantasies. It’s only drawn us closer, somehow.
Grinning, he raises his hands in capitulation. “Fine, fine,” he says.
“I still like my job, though. It’s not like I want to give it up,” I continue. “Maybe writing is just a dream I don’t need.”
The comment doesn’t quite come out casual. I hear how deep the undercurrent of self-doubt runs in my voice.
Seriousness softens Scott’s expression. “First, the Jennifer I know never gives up on her dreams,” he says. We’re living in one for the week , the knowing flicker in his eyes reminds me. “And second,” he goes on, “it’s not like you have to give up your job. You don’t have to choose. Not right now anyway. If you want to go back to school, go back to school. Maybe it’ll just be that—more education. Education doesn’t have to lead to anything more to be worthwhile. I mean, for a long time I thought I would get a PhD. I thought I would go to conferences and present papers in lecture halls like this one.”
I glance over, not having expected the revelation. Scott’s expression is deliberately unreadable, the gaze of someone who’s practiced forgetting his own feelings on what he’s saying.
He shrugs, as if comfortable in resignation. “Halfway through my PhD program, I realized how hard my dream was going to be. Impossible, even. I saw my cohort, the cohorts above me. Humanities academia was a miserable job market. My advisor sat me down and…said I would struggle to get the kind of job I wanted. I appreciated the honesty. The reality check,” he explains, and I know he’s in earnest. “So I changed course. I left with my Master’s. I don’t regret any of the time I put into it, even though it didn’t lead me to my original goal.”
Although I appreciate Scott’s encouragement—honestly—I’m even more touched by the depth of what he’s just shared. “I didn’t know you wanted to be a professor,” I say.
Scott looks down, like he’s wrestling with a self-conscious shadow. I don’t know who’s winning.
“I don’t dwell on rejection,” he finally offers.
I study him. The explanation has me rewriting scenes in my head I only ever read one way, pieces I never understood of the dismissive, even cynical Scott I’ve known for the past year. Finding new meaning in comments he’s made, observations and judgments. His comments on the riverbank—how I was cursed with idealism, damned to either cling to the wrong guy or push away the right one who wasn’t my perfect fantasy.
I assumed they were just accusations. More easily flung criticism from my reliable rival.
Instead, I realize now that Scott is someone who’s had reality shatter his dreams. His dismissiveness and cynicism hide a wary, wounded heart. Of course he would admonish me for pinning my future on fantastical hope, repeating the advice he received in the guise of grumpy criticism. Of course he doesn’t daydream , the way he put it. Daydreams hurt, he knows.
I wish Scott still felt like he could find room in his heart for fantasies. I finally understand why he doesn’t, though.
“Thanks,” I say. “Really.”
I don’t only mean his kindness about my MFA idea. When Scott meets my gaze, I know he hears how much I mean it. I’m grateful for this conversation. For the gift of this piece of himself I never knew existed. It’s what I asked for when we were horseback riding—the chance to talk to the real Scott. Not a performance.
“Of course,” he says.
It makes me feel inexplicably excited. Like it’s the start of something. While the final Experience attendees or venturesome graduate students fill the empty seats around us, I cross my arms playfully. “So,” I say, “will you share your notes after class?”
His lips twist in a smirk. With one elbow on the closed leather cover of his Moleskine, he leans in once more. “In what medium, exactly?”
I reach out and shove his shoulder, rolling my eyes. It distracts neither of us from the heat pinking my cheeks. “So confident,” I proclaim. “You know, I could give you constructive feedback on that kiss for your notebook. Since your project is all about self-improvement.”
Perhaps I am cut out for my MFA. I am restarting my work in fiction right now. Constructive feedback . Ha.
Scott enjoys my foray into fabulism, although not the way I hoped. He tips his head back and guffaws.
“You do not have constructive feedback on that kiss,” he declares.
I nod, absolutely bluffing. “I can think of a few things,” I promise him.
He looks me right in the eyes. Half interrogation, half promise. Entirely Scott.
“There’s nothing to improve. You would have nothing to write,” he challenges me. “Unless you would like to write, Perfect, no notes. I’ll never stop thinking about this kiss , in my notebook. Which…”
He slides his notebook out to the edge of his writing desk, closest to me.
“Be my guest,” he invites me.
I return his smirk. Who says only handsome love-interest lords smirk and not heroines? “Only,” I say nonchalantly, “in exchange for the clue.”
Scott is unperturbed. “Nice try,” he replies. “Anyway”—he retracts his notebook—“you’ve all but already confirmed your feelings on the kiss for me anyway.”
One of the presenters has come onstage, holding—hey, a vibrator like mine. With her appearance, the lecture hall has started to hush.
The dutiful student in me wants to prepare for attentiveness. Unfortunately, Scott’s comment won’t let me. “Have I?” I ask, low and insistent. The effort makes my voice end up inviting and desirous. It’s definitely due to scholastic politeness, of course. Only good manners.
Scott nods slowly, assured. “You’re here. You’re not hunting for clues,” he explains simply. His sidelong gaze pins me in my chair. “I’m pretty sure you don’t even want the date with Val anymore.”
I swallow, his startlingly savvy deduction shattering my composure. At the front of the room, other women have taken the stage. The hush descends more fully over the lecture hall. “Oh look,” I whisper, grasping onto the merciful diversion. “Class is starting. Hope you take copious notes,” I add, unable to help myself.
Scott looks pleased. A little victorious, a little eager.
“For you, Jen,” he says, “I will.”
I face front, biting my lip to hide my smile.