Chapter 8
Rob met her at the bus stop holding a single white rose.
“For you,” he said, handing it to her and then pulling her into his arms for a hug. It felt like a moment she might have seen in a black-and-white film.
“Aw, thank you. I’m sorry I missed the bus,” she said, feeling herself grin from ear to ear. It was these small gestures that she appreciated in Rob. How many men would think to meet you off the bus, with a rose? “How was your journey?” she asked him.
“Good, I got to talking to some of your friends,” he said, then nodded toward Harriet Townsend and Amara Ali, who were standing on the pavement opposite, mid-gossip.
Harriet looked just the same as she did on her Instagram feed, tall and slim with a chic black bob and huge feline eyes.
Amara, on the other hand, looked very different from how Chloe remembered her.
At college, she’d rocked a monobrow and wild frizzy hair; now her tresses were a glossy chestnut sheet, and two distinct eyebrows were shaped to within an inch of their lives.
When they saw Chloe, they waved, then giggled and whispered behind their hands. Then Harriet called, “Hey, Chloe. See you later, Rob!” Amara shot her a look. Was that jealousy or respect? She wasn’t sure.
John and Richard were stepping off the bus now, so Chloe felt obliged to introduce them. “Rob, this is an old friend of mine, John. John, this is Rob.”
“Old friends, are we?” John said with a careless smile. But she couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was teasing her again or genuinely disputing this characterization of their relationship.
“Yes, we are,” she said, giving him a confused smile.
He met her gaze with a challenging look, one eyebrow raised in a gesture that could have been skepticism or amusement. Then he turned and extended a hand to Rob. “Nice to meet you, Rob.”
What did he mean? Of course they had been friends. They might have drifted in third year, after she and Sean stopped hanging out, but they had been friends.
“What a fine animal,” Rob said, looking down at Richard.
“Do you hear that, Richard? He thinks you’re a fine animal,” John told his dog. Rob bent down to pat Richard, but Richard cowered, moving to hide behind John’s leg. The dog then turned around and cocked his head at Chloe, a questioning expression on his sweet, pointy face.
“I’m more of a cat person,” Rob said, awkwardly standing up, then taking a step back.
“That will be it. Richard’s got a strong instinct for these things,” said John.
Chloe slid her arm through Rob’s, keen to extract him from this conversation. Something about the way Richard was looking at him unnerved her.
“We’re going to take the scenic route to college. I want to show Rob the Bodleian,” she told John, giving Rob’s arm a gentle tug. “We’ll see you later.”
“It was a pleasure to meet you, John,” Rob said, and Chloe saw some emotion flicker across John’s face as he said, “Likewise.” Was that impatience? Annoyance? She’d been nothing but friendly on the bus, what did he have to be annoyed about?
As they walked away, Chloe’s arm linked through Rob’s, she settled into the familiar ease of his company and shook off John’s awkward prickliness.
She loved Rob’s clean smell, his ever-cheerful expression, untouched by cynicism.
He was also the perfect height to walk beside, as though his shoulder had been calibrated at the exact place she might want to rest her head.
Rob looked around at the ancient honey-colored spires and cobblestone streets, eyes full of wonder. “Oxford is just as the books describe it,” he said.
“It is, isn’t it? It’s still my favorite city.”
Chloe had always been proud of her university town, the quiet grandeur of Oxford’s golden stone buildings, all those centuries of history, the reverence for learning visible from every street corner.
Rob was full of questions as they walked down George Street and she pointed out the theater, Balliol, everything she could think of.
His curiosity felt genuine, and seeing the city through his eyes only made her appreciate it anew.
“I wonder if anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember,” he said.
She hugged her arm in his. “I love that.” Rob could be so poetic.
He shifted his body toward hers. “Now, will you let me know if there’s anything particular you want me to say or do this weekend?” he asked, his eyebrows knitting into a serious expression. “On the bus, people were asking after you. I wasn’t sure how much you wanted me to tell them.”
“Oh right,” she said. “Well, I wasn’t planning on going full Romy and Michele, if that’s what you mean.
” Rob looked confused. “Sorry, film reference. I just mean, I wasn’t going to make up a whole fake life for myself, like pretending I invented Post-it notes or something.
You being here to hold my hand is enough.
You make me feel less…” She trailed off, dipping her head onto his shoulder.
“Alone?” he suggested. She was going to say “of a loser,” but she liked his suggestion better. “Post-its?” he queried.
“It’s a Romy and Michele reference. We’ll watch the film, it’s a classic,” she said, giving his hand a light, reassuring pat.
Turning onto Broad Street, they walked into the Old Bodleian courtyard. With its distinct, tall Gothic architecture, intricate stonework, and leaden windows, it loomed upward like something out of a fantasy novel. As they stood hand in hand, she watched his expression shift from curiosity to awe.
“This is one of my favorite buildings,” she told him. “I love thinking about the centuries of human thought that must have happened here, layered on top of each other like a giant thought lasagna,” she said, then let out a happy sigh.
He laughed. “On the shoulders of giants.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Though I think if Newton had known about lasagnas, he would have gone with my analogy.”
He laughed, a warm, genuine-sounding laugh, and they wandered back down Catte Street toward the domed, temple-like building of the Rad Cam. The university students were on summer break, but it was already bustling with tourists taking photos.
“It must have been an incredible experience, to study here,” Rob observed.
“It was,” she said, delighted that he understood.
Bringing Rob here was such a contrast to the time she’d brought Peter.
He’d spent the whole weekend telling her what snobs Oxford students were, repeating his favorite joke more than once: “How do you know if someone went to Oxford? Because they’ll tell you the minute you meet them.
” She had spent the weekend feeling defensive, embarrassed, and quietly miserable.
Now, standing beside the Radcliffe Camera in the golden evening light, she felt something entirely different. Rob turned to face her, then took both her hands in his. The quiet respect in his expression was now tinged with something else. His pupils flared.
“May I kiss you, Chloe?” he asked, voice low as he stepped an inch closer.
She blinked, the question catching her off guard.
On previous dates he hadn’t made a move, so why here, why now?
Could he sense a shift in her? Because now, as she looked up into his warm hazel eyes, she couldn’t help but feel curious.
More than that, she realized she wanted him to kiss her.
She was Alice, peeking down the rabbit hole.
So, after only the briefest pause, she nodded.
Rob leaned in, put his arms around her waist, and pressed his lips to hers.
The kiss was warm, gentle, deliberate. The smell of his cologne, the quiet weight of his hands, the faint taste of mint—it all felt disarmingly real.
More than that, it felt nice. She enjoyed the feeling of being held tight in his arms. If she hadn’t known, she didn’t think she would have been able to tell.
Then logic seized the reins from curiosity.
She pulled away. What was she doing? This wasn’t part of the plan.
Rob was supposed to be a handsome companion to hold her hand and deflect attention.
He was not supposed to be a genuine romantic proposition.
She kept on forgetting what he was, and if she wasn’t careful, she would be pulled right down the rabbit hole into a dangerous fantasy land.
“We should go,” she said, turning toward Turl Street. She felt her watch vibrate slightly and looked down to see it pulse purple.
“Are you okay? Was that okay?” he asked, eager to please, perhaps confused by her reaction. She nodded.
“It was lovely.” Too lovely.
They turned onto the narrow cobbles of Turl Street and Chloe’s disquiet was replaced by a fresh wave of nostalgia.
Lincoln College didn’t announce itself grandly like some other colleges; the stone arch entrance was unassuming, tucked to the side of this narrow street.
But when they reached the porter’s lodge and stood in the flagstoned entrance, looking through at the ivy-clad walls of the first quad, it still felt like coming home.
She signed them in, got keys to their room, then took Rob by the hand and led him beneath the archway.
The college was laid out around three distinct quads, squares of neatly trimmed grass, flanked on all sides by medieval architecture—a mixture of Gothic and Tudor—with pitched roofs and walls draped in ivy.
The chapel lay to their right, overlooked by the formidable seventeenth-century library, while Grove Quad lay ahead, greener and more open.
“Wow,” Rob said, pausing to admire the elegant symmetry of the buildings. Chloe smiled. No one could fail to appreciate the beauty of this place, the pocket of stillness amidst the bustle of the city just beyond the wall.
“Lincoln was founded in 1427,” Rob said, and she laughed, because it was a strange thing to say.
“Yes, it was.”