9. “Do I Wanna Know?” - Arctic Monkeys #2
Play commences, and I end up with a decent hand. It suddenly occurs to me to hope I don’t get stuck with the winning one, because the only thing worse than not gaining access to an Archives membership would be getting roped into a revenge plot with these five.
I can’t fold yet or Maeve will wig out. By the time we’re placing our first bets, I have a game plan. “The lady who stole the candles from my basket.” I toss a chip into the pile.
Five sets of eyes fix on me.
“I’m going to need this story,” Rhett says.
The key is to keep it boring. I don’t want anyone thinking the woman would make an interesting target, regardless of how much I’d like to bring her down myself. “She took them when I was in the restroom.”
“What the hell?” Lux says.
I shrug as if to say People are idiots, what are you going to do.
Beside me, Heath leans back in his chair, his legs out to the sides, bouncing up and down. His right knee is just inches from mine. I force my eyes to stay above the table. Do not look over. Do not look over.
“All right then.” Maeve turns over the flop.
Within thirty minutes, the game is over, Pierce has won (big shock there), and my cocktail is gone. “I’ve got some gin in the kitchen if you want a G and T,” Pierce says, looking at me.
I smile at him and pick up my glass. It is sweet that he remembers what I like, even if he forgot when he chose his cocktail recipe for tonight. “Thanks.” I move to the door. By the time I come back with my new drink in hand, they look like they’ve been deep in a discussion about something.
I ignore the way my skin prickles as I squeeze past Heath’s chair.
“Pierce picked the winner,” Lux announces as I sit back down. Everyone looks at me.
I raise my brows and let my eyes dart between Rhett and Pierce across the table from me. “What?”
“Candle Lady!” Lux sings out.
It takes me two seconds to realize that’s my grievance, and another two to realize this means I’m fucked.
They’re all waiting for my reaction. I flutter my fingers above the table in a terrible attempt at jazz hands. “Yay.” It comes out as weak as I feel.
Now what? I’m going to get roped into this revenge plot and god only knows what else.
“We should start planning immediately.” Maeve is already firing up her iPad. “Walker, you’re on research.”
That was fast. “What did you do before I came back?” I mutter quietly.
“Drew straws,” Heath says beside me, just as quietly.
My instinct is to swivel my head to look at him, but I refrain. He’s hardly said anything all night, aside from submitting his own grievances. I pretend not to hear him.
“What am I researching exactly?”
“Weaknesses,” Maeve says without looking up from her screen.
“That’s obvious,” Pierce says. “She must be obsessed with candles if she’s going to steal them from someone else’s basket.”
“Let’s stink up her entire house!” Lux bounces in her seat.
A wily grin spreads across Rhett’s face. “Back up the sewage.”
“Better yet,” Pierce says, “go through her AC unit. It’s going to be blasting in this heat.”
“Ooohh.” Lux’s eyes light up. Nothing like a little revenge to turn a girl on. “Bitch won’t know what hit her.”
“What do we put into the unit?” Maeve asks. “Dog feces?”
“Just say ‘shit,’ Maeve. S-H-I-T,” Rhett says.
She smacks him on the back of his head.
“Dead prawns.” Heath leans forward in his chair as he says it. “They smell godawful when they start to rot.”
“Genius.” Maeve looks like she’s about to kiss him. There’s an uncomfortable twinge in my belly.
I grab our discarded cards from the center of the table and stand a few on end while they discuss best methods for tracking the woman down. The only thing I can supply is a vague description.
They eventually come up with some plan for getting the info they need.
I don’t find out what it is because I’m too busy trying not to notice the way Heath’s hands and legs are twitching.
He’s leaning into the table, putting both his elbows and his knees into the physical space I’ve mentally claimed as mine.
Every time I chance a subtle glance at him, he’s focused on the card tower I’m constructing. His gaze is a physical weight. My hands tremble at the knowledge that his eyes are focused on them.
All three levels crumble to the table.
He lets out a breath and leans back in his chair. Then, as if he can’t handle another second in my presence, he stands and announces his intention to get another drink.
The others all ignore him, but I suddenly feel as empty as the spot on my left. Strings from my heart attempt to follow him, but I snatch them back into place.
“So what are you back in town for?” Maeve asks, like making small talk is something we do.
“Working on my dissertation, actually,” I say. Is now the time to bring up the Archives membership? I can’t focus.
“Remind me what a dissertation is?” Rhett leans back and balances his chair on two legs.
“A long research paper.” Pierce knocks Rhett’s chair forward with his foot. “Didn’t you have to write one?”
Rhett laughs. “Dude, I never wrote a single paper myself.” He turns to me. “You should get AI to write it for you.”
I cringe. “St. Anne’s has a strict no-AI policy. As do I.”
“So what, they’d throw you out?” he persists.
“Uh, yeah.” As would pretty much any university in the world.
“What are you writing about?” Lux is the last person to be interested in academics, so she must be trying to make conversation.
“Um, G.R. Huntington?” I don’t know why it comes out as a question. “The author?” I squirm in my chair, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. It feels like I’ve had three shots of espresso.
“Hmm, don’t know him,” Lux muses. “You couldn’t do it in Oxford?”
I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. This is your chance, Walker. Take it. Tell them about the Archives and how you need to get in. Ask if anyone has a membership they’d be willing to let you use.
“I need to use the restroom.” I bolt out of my chair and leave the room with the grace of a sloppy drunk. I can’t sit there anymore, unmoored and adrift.
I find my way to the bathroom down the corridor. I close the door behind me and lean against it, trying to catch my breath. After using the toilet, I give myself a pep talk in the mirror.
“You are going to go back in there and tell them exactly what’s wrong.
You’re going to ask if anyone happens to have a card you can use.
No one will, because none of them have any use for an academic institution of any kind.
But at least when you lie down to sleep tonight, you can do so knowing that you have done everything within your power to get back to Oxford as soon as possible.
You will go to sleep, and when you wake up, you will find a way to get through the next several weeks without losing your bloody mind. ”
I open the door and almost stumble into a body in the corridor. The oceanic scent of him is so strong, so intoxicating, it nearly knocks me backward. I grab onto the doorjamb.
“Hey,” he says.
I forgot how magical Heath’s heys are. A million different meanings folded into those three letters, all depending on the context and the inflection in his voice.
You okay? or I’m sorry or It’s good to see you or You’re so sexy, I want to kiss you.
This one seems to be less along those lines and more What the fuck are you doing here?
“Hey,” I squeak out, like an idiot .
He watches me for a few beats. “Were you talking to yourself in there?” His voice is a slow drag over pebbles.
I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “In there? Definitely not.” I shake my head and beg the floor to swallow me up. I wouldn’t even mind landing in the flat below me if it meant I could get out of this situation.
He nods. I can’t be positive with the dim lights, but I’m pretty sure there’s a tiny smile in the creases of his eyes. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” I say back.
Next comes the awkward “you go that way and I’ll go this way” shuffle . By the time we manage to scoot around each other and go our respective ways, him to the restroom and me back to the game room, suicide by shotgun has begun to sound appealing. I’m confident my face rivals Maeve’s lips in shade.
They’re in the middle of a discussion when I get back to the room.
It could be about the candle lady, Pierce’s latest girlfriend, or a communist takeover for all I can concentrate.
I slink into my chair and give myself a mental shake.
I have to shake out of this funk. My future at Oxford depends on it. Hell, my future sanity depends on it.
If I can’t get access to the Archives soon, I’m going to get roped into the myriad of plans Maeve is bound to make. Extracting myself will be as easy as separating two flat Lego pieces.
“Does anyone have a current membership to the Archives?” I blurt out.
The conversation halts, and everyone turns their attention to me.
“Sure.” Rhett digs his wallet out of his back pocket, then pulls something out and looks at it. “Oh, never mind. It’s for the strip club, sorry.” He laughs as Maeve swats his arm.
“I think I do,” she says. “Let me check.” She grabs her purse off the floor, and my heart soars. Could it be this easy?
She locates the card and pulls it out. My heart is racing so fast, it’s nearly moving my turtleneck.
Lux must notice my anticipation because she says, “Geez, Walker. Chill.”
I let out a breath. “Sorry. I just really need to get in for my research.”
Maeve looks up. “Here it is.” She studies it for a few beats. “Oh, wait. It expired six months ago.”
Disappointment as real as the baize on the table in front of me coats my skin. It wraps around my throat and squeezes. This cannot be happening.
I nod over and over, like a fucking maniac.
No Archives, no research, no going back to England where I belong.
“Okay. It’s okay,” I say. “My new card will be done in a few weeks. I’ll just, you know, find something to do until then.
” I grab my gin and tonic and down the rest of the glass. A warm hum steals over my muscles.
Heath walks back into the room as I’m setting my glass down. Our eyes meet. The buzz that started with the alcohol ends with the look he gives me, which goes right through the center of my core. I swallow loudly and avert my eyes.
“Heath,” Maeve says. “Doesn’t your mum use the Wesbourne Archives sometimes?”
A small frown puckers his brow as he pulls out his chair and sits. “Yeah, she goes there for research for her books.” Virginia Lawrence is a semifamous historical fiction author.
“So she has a membership.”
I don’t like where Maeve is going with this, even if my heart does a tiny skip through my chest.
Heath does that casual lift and drop of his shoulders I remember so well. “I would imagine.”
“I don’t think you can use someone else’s card,” I say. That was going to be the second part of my favor of desperation. “They would have to be present too.” Short of impersonating Heath’s mum, this idea doesn’t get me any closer to my goal .
“Isn’t it a family-wide membership, though?” Pierce asks.
“Yes, but—” I start, but Maeve interrupts me.
“So Heath can go with you. He still lives at home.”
The room stills.
I’m not sure if they’re all waiting to see what Heath and I will say to this, or if it’s in response to the edge in Maeve’s voice when she points out that he still lives with his parents. There’s an echoing thrum in my ears, as if I’m underwater and someone’s plucking a bass guitar over and over.
“Unless that would be too weird . . . ?” Maeve adds. I’m beginning to wish she would choke on her own tongue.
I want to say that of course it wouldn’t be weird, we’re both adults, we’ve both moved on, we’re both fully capable of being in the same place without destroying each other or everything around us. Instead, all I can think is Of course it’s too fucking weird .
I would rather never return to Oxford again.
I would rather walk my mum down the aisle as she remarries my dad.
I would rather peel off each of my finger- and toenails.
I would rather do anything in this world than sit in a room with Heath Lawrence for days on end.
But of course I can’t say any of that. So I do the only thing I possibly can in this situation. I smile at Maeve through teeth so gritted they’re wearing each other down, and I say in a voice that belongs to a Chic-fil-A worker, “That wouldn’t be weird at all.”
Then, to prove my point to everyone around this table, including myself, I turn my smile upon the man sitting next to me.
If he notices the falsetto in my voice or the constipated look I’m sure I’m wearing, he doesn’t let on. His eyes flick back and forth over my face, reading every single thought in my head.
I don’t replenish my lungs with air during the ten seconds that follow my declaration. The room empties of everything but the two of us. The echo in my ears grows louder, until it’s practically a scream, while I wait for Heath’s verdict.
“Sure,” he says when I’m about to expire. “I’m down.”
The breath I’ve been holding leaves my chest in a whoosh, as if someone has punched me in the gut.
There’s a buzz of conversation around us as everyone starts talking again.
I couldn’t focus on what they’re saying if someone held a gun to my head and demanded it.
There’s only one thought running through my head.
I think I just agreed to spend the next few weeks locked in a library with my ex-boyfriend.