Chapter 14 #2
“Camille and Doug,” I murmur. “Who’d have thought?”
“It was cute,” Lin says, buzzing into the group meeting room. “Got your key back yet?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. I was meant to go and see Lexie this morning, but I couldn’t quite psych myself up to it.”
“Want me to come with you?” Lin asks after a moment’s hesitation, as we walk in and put our stuff down at the front.
“Would you really?”
“Sure. I’d be a bit scared of facing him after a thing like that too.”
“I’d prefer never to set eyes on him again, to be honest.” I remember how disappointed I felt when he kicked me out of school without a flicker of emotion or even listening to my side of the story.
“The main thing is that you’re back,” says Lin. “I’m happy to come if you want me to.”
I push down the anger that’s welling up at the thought of last week and smile gratefully at Lin. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
Gradually, the others stroll into the room—everyone but James, who has to go to a lacrosse team crisis meeting called by the coach. He told me not to worry, but I feel a bit uneasy all the same.
“Shall we start?” Lin asks, looking around the room. “I had a conversation with Lexington last week. He gave us a whole heap of rules and regulations for the bonfire. Apparently tons of stuff went wrong last year.”
“Yeah.” Camille screws up her nose. “Loads of people were drunk.”
“I heard that Lexie stepped in a puddle of puke,” Doug adds. “I bet that’s why he’s not so keen this year.”
“This year, we should really aim to have nobody throwing up at all,” I say. “We’ll need twice as many teachers to keep an eye on things.”
A murmur of agreement fills the room.
“Ruby and I were wondering about asking the dance team to perform. That might get people up and dancing earlier. What do you think?”
“Only if we agree on the routine in advance. Some of their choreography is seriously weird,” says Jessalyn.
She takes the pencil from behind her ear and twists it in her hands.
“Remember the spring show? They were aiming for Maddie Ziegler but didn’t really pull it off. Especially not with so many of them.”
“Who’s Maddie Ziegler?” asks Doug.
“The dancer in Sia’s videos,” Jessalyn replies.
“Jessa’s right,” Lin muses. “That performance was genuinely terrifying. So we definitely have to make it very clear what we want them to do.”
“I can do that,” says Jessalyn, and everyone nods.
“Great, thanks. Kieran, have you got the sound system sorted?”
“Yep,” he says. “All arranged with Jonesy.”
“You’ve got so much done.” I smile. I look at the to-do list on the desk in front of me and Lin. “I’ll deal with the wood delivery on Friday. Then I can make sure everything is dropped off in the right place and not just dumped outside the school like last year. Remember?”
“Oh, God yes,” Camille groans. “And then we had to move it all ourselves. I got a splinter.”
“I got about ten,” says Lin.
“So, who’s meeting the fire brigade?” Jessalyn asks suddenly, straightening up a bit.
“Ruby and me, obviously,” Lin says with a waggle of her eyebrows.
“No fair!” Jessa exclaims, but she looks like she’s about to laugh, really.
“That’s the advantage of being in charge,” Kieran says. “You can take all the coolest jobs for yourselves. Not that I see the attraction of a meeting with the emergency services, personally.”
“Never seen Chicago Fire? Seriously, Kieran, ‘emergency services’ has nothing to it. Those guys are hot!” Jessalyn replies.
Everyone laughs.
At this moment, I’m so happy to be back, I feel like I’m dreaming.
When James and I get home, there’s not a single coat on the hooks.
“Ember?” I call out.
No reply.
“I think we’re alone,” I say to James with a frown as we slip off our shoes and head into the kitchen.
“It’s almost like you have a problem with being alone with me. I don’t know if I should be concerned.”
I dart a thin smile at him, then head over to the sink to wash my hands. “It’s not that. I’m worried about Ember. She’s been out so much lately, and she’s making a massive secret of where she goes. When she normally tells us everything.”
James comes over to me and runs his hands under the warm water. There’s a thoughtful crease between his brows. “She seems really happy to me.”
I pause and try to find the words to express my thoughts and feelings. “I can’t really describe it, but my gut tells me there’s something up with her. And I can generally trust my gut instincts.”
“Have you tried talking to her about it?”
I shrug awkwardly. “We’ve had so many fights about Maxton Hall in the last few months, and I realized that she thinks I’m treating her like a child. But I didn’t mean to. I want us to be friends who can tell each other everything. Especially seeing as I’ll be moving out soon.”
“Just try it. Maybe she’s waiting for you to ask her first.”
“Mm,” I say. I open the fridge and glance inside. “You’re probably right.”
James pats my shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
“There’s a bit of risotto left. Is that OK for you?” I ask him, and feel him nod as he moves closer. His hair tickles my cheek. He’s so close that I can feel his chest against my back.
“Even I can do that,” says James, taking the pot from me. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world, he walks over to a cupboard and pulls out a pan. Then he opens a drawer and digs around for a spatula. Then he empties the tub of leftover risotto into the saucepan and puts it on the stovetop.
I watch him for a while as he stirs, and I can’t keep the smile off my face. It’s so cute that he feels this at home in our kitchen.
I turn to the wall cupboard to get out a plate for each of us, but fast as lightning, James is blocking my way, spatula in hand. He’s brandishing it like a weapon. “I’ll do that.”
I raise my hands in surrender and step aside so that he can get them. Then I lean my back against the countertop and watch him set the plates down next to the cooker and, a few minutes later, fill them with food.
Armed with plates and cutlery, we head up to my room.
I put my laptop on the bedside table and turn it so that James and I can both see the screen.
On the bus ride home, we decided to keep watching The Alienist, so I click on the episode we were in the middle of last night and press play.
Then I sit down on the floor next to James and we lean against the bed.
James hands me a plate, and I dig into the risotto.
“First day back was a total success, huh?” he asks as the spine-tingling titles and theme song play.
“I’m so happy. You just can’t imagine,” I say through a mouthful.
“Anyone could see how happy you were. All day long. Your smile lit up the whole school.”
I turn toward him and grin. “Lit up the whole school? You charmer!”
James just smiles over the rim of his water glass, his eyes fixed on the laptop. We eat while watching Daniel Brühl, Dakota Fanning, and Luke Evans hunt a bloodthirsty murderer through Victorian New York, and I can’t believe how right and normal it feels to be sitting here with James.
After we’ve eaten, I lean my head against his shoulder and cuddle up to him.
He puts a hand on my thigh and strokes it lazily.
It’s good to be so close to him. For the first time in ages, I’m really relaxed—and James seems to feel the same way.
At the end of the episode, I’d love to just close my eyes and nod off beside him.
But there’s a whole heap of to-dos waiting for me in my bullet journal after the day at school, and it’s never been so hard to get down to work.
I eventually drag myself up. James sighs and stretches, and as I pull my notes out of my bag and spread them out on my desk, I hear him stifling a laugh. I glance at him and he grins back.
“Lin and I can’t keep up with your color coding,” he says, nodding at all the sheets of paper that I marked up with highlighters and Post-its at school.
“No, you did great.” I pull my pencil case and bullet journal from my backpack too and try to get my head around where to start.
“Want me to give you a bit of space?” James asks after a while. “I can work down in the sitting room.”
“No, it’s fine. I like you being here with me.”
“Do you mind if I use your laptop?”
“Knock yourself out,” I reply.
“Thanks,” says James, pulling it onto his lap. He sits there cross-legged on my bed, and I start on my homework.
I don’t know how long it’s been, but by the time I tick the last thing off in my journal, it’s dark outside and my head feels completely incapable of absorbing a single new piece of information without exploding.
I love that feeling. There were even times when I forgot that James was in the room with me, but then the gentle tapping of the laptop keys would remind me, making me smile.
Now I turn and watch James as he focuses on the screen.
“I’m done,” I announce.
James jumps as if he’d been deep in thought. “Oh, already?”
I glance at the clock on my bedside table. “It’s been over an hour and a half.”
James looks at it too, in disbelief. “Wow, I really lost track of time.”
I stand up and come to sit next to him again. I glance at the laptop, but James minimizes the browser before I can get a glimpse of what he was looking at.
I nudge his leg with mine. “I only wanted to know what was so enthralling to you.”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Pretty interesting nothing, apparently,” I say.
James looks thoughtfully at me. After a brief hesitation, he opens the browser again. I lean forward for a better view of the pages he’d had up.
Loads of blogs. All related to travel.
“Wow,” I murmur, clicking through a Bali bucket list, top travel tips, the best beaches in Lombok, seven amazing Airbnbs, travel with hand luggage only, the best onboard snacks, and some guides to WordPress. “So many posts.”
“I follow so many people.”
I look up. His face looks weirdly guilty. “Why are you acting like I’ve found something dodgy in your search history?”
He shrugs one shoulder uncertainly. “I don’t even know. This has never been anything I’ve been able to follow through on. I just used to look at this stuff to chill.”
“Like my ASMR videos.”
“Exactly,” he says with a quiet laugh. “I liked being able to escape into a different world like this, even if I couldn’t travel in real life.” He hesitates. “But now…”
I wait, but he doesn’t continue.
“Now?” I ask cautiously.
It takes him a moment to get his thoughts together. “Now I get the feeling it might be possible to…make something of it.” He pulls a face. “I know it’s daft. Who in their right mind would turn down a place at Oxford to go traveling and then write about it on the internet?”
At that moment, something clicks. James doesn’t just want to travel—he wants to blog about it. Warmth floods through me.
I remember the list we made together at St. Hilda’s. Back then, he doubted that his longing to see the world was really something he could consider a dream. But back then, he hadn’t faced up to his dad. Now he could actually do this—there’s no one to stand in his way any longer.
“Of course you can do that, James,” I say gently, laying a hand on his arm.
“It was always the plan, you know? To go after uni. To be independent of Beaufort’s and my parents.”
I nod.
“Now I’m spending my whole time thinking that there’s no reason to go to Oxford.
Academically, I mean. Obviously, I want to be with you, and my friends.
But then I think about how much that place means to you, and how hard you’ve had to fight for it.
Wouldn’t it be unfair to steal the opportunity from someone who wants it way more than I do? ”
“If it’s not the way you want to begin your life,” I say slowly, “then you should turn it down.”
James lowers his gaze, but I can see in his gloomy eyes that this isn’t the first time he’s agonized over this. He looks really torn.
“Everyone deserves a world full of opportunities, remember? And if this is the thing you really want to do, then you should go for it.”
He looks up again and the furrow on his face smooths a little. “You think?”
I nod firmly.
“You could ask Ember how she got started with her blog. She’s a real pro these days, and I bet she can give you some tips.” I look at the clock and frown. “But she’d have to actually come home first.”
“Hmm,” says James, a slight smile playing around his lips. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, Ember can take her time.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’d like to show my girlfriend how glad I am that she believes in me and my dreams.”
Without looking away from me, James takes the laptop and closes it.
Then he leans forward and presses his lips against my forehead.
He traces a line over my temples, down my cheeks, and starts dotting kisses all over my face.
I shut my eyes and let my head sink into the mattress as James continues to express his thanks.