44. Fall
44
Fall
Sophie
Cambridge is shrouded in dusky gloom, the first chill of autumn creeping into the stone.
The rain never came today, but the air still smells like it should have, a wet heaviness hanging in the dark.
Night has already fallen by the time I step out of Blackstone Hall, wrapping my scarf around my neck.
A tiny smile flickers to life on my lips.
Evan’s waiting at the bottom of the steps.
He’s in jeans and a plain jumper, golden hair windswept, a massive bouquet of white tulips in his arms.
I stop short, watching him.
He looks as athletic and confident and carefree as I’ve ever known him, but he’s different, too.
The way he stands, so comfortable in himself, sleeves pushed up just slightly to reveal a simple watch, a gold bracelet, the black hair tie he never gave me back.
Warmth shines inside my chest like sunlight .
Something bumps into my elbow, breaking the spell of the moment.
I smell a rich jasmine perfume and the artificial sweetness of vape smoke.
A haughty voice sneers in my ear.
“Ugh, your boyfriend’s so embarrassing.”
“Careful, Dahlia,” I tell her, turning to look at her.
“If I didn’t know you love misery, I’d think you were jealous.”
“Hardly,” she says.
“I prefer something a little more complicated than having a lovesick puppy chase me around.”
“You’re missing out.” I pull out a folder from my bag and hand it to her.
“My United States v. Nixon notes, as promised.”
She takes the folder and flips through the dense sheaf of paper.
She’s in a wine-red jumper and dark jeans, her dark gold hair loose, her eyelashes cartoon-long, her mouth a perfect pout.
She looks good since she came back from the summer; I hear she ended up securing a new internship, shadowing Olivia Langley.
She’s not mentioned it herself, but then we’re hardly bosom friends, and Dahlia, I’m learning, is even meaner to the people she likes than those she hates.
“Those are very thorough,” she says with obvious reluctance.
She looks up at me. “Really pays off having no social life.”
I roll my eyes.
“Enjoy your weekend at Martha’s Vineyard, Dahlia. I’ll spare you a thought when my lovesick puppy is giving me my third or fourth orgasm.” I turn to walk away, and wave to her, calling from the steps, “Oh, and tell Anthony and Max I say hi.”
I don’t hear her reply: I’ve barely reached the bottom of the steps before Evan is sweeping me up against his chest with one arm, catching my lips in a hungry kiss.
I throw my arms around his neck and laugh against his mouth.
“This isn’t correct first date protocol, Knight. ”
“Oh, yeah.” He gives my bottom lip a tiny bite but releases me, setting me carefully down.
He hands me the tulips, which I take, admiring the milky petals, the thick green leaves.
The white tissue paper is bound with a thick ribbon, which I caress with the tip of my fingers.
“Are the flowers too much?” Evan asks, suddenly frowning.
“Not at all. I like that you didn’t get me roses.”
Evan’s face sinks.
“ Should I have gotten you roses?”
“No, you idiot, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I think roses are cliché—and I hate the thorns.” I hug the bouquet to my chest and brush my lips against the soft white petals.
“These are perfect .”
“Truly a terrible day to have eyes and ears,” Dahlia comments loudly as she walks past. There’s a biting edge of amusement in her voice, and she leaves a long billow of minty smoke behind her as she sweeps her hand in a haughty wave.
“Hi, Dahlia,” Evan says cheerily as he lifts me up and away from the smoke.
“Bye, Dahlia.”
His hand still around my waist, we walk down to his car.
Evan, like a true gentleman, opens the door for me, and when I climb in I’m surprised to find books strewn on the back seat, two paperbacks tucked in the console behind a coffee flask.
I grab the two paperbacks, The Sceptic’s Paradox and Ethics of Ruin , and frown up at him as he climbs into the car and buckles his seatbelt.
“You’re not actually reading these, are you?”
“I am.” He laughs.
“They’re for work.”
“They sound very advanced,” I tell him, flipping through the dense pages.
“Are you saying I’m too stupid for them?”
I smirk at him.
“Not at all. I think you’re a very clever young man.”
“The nicest thing you’ve said that’s somehow still more insulting than calling me stupid.”
“I could always help you, if you need,” I tell him with a sly smile.
He laughs, a deep low hum that vibrates through the car.
“You offering me some tutoring sessions, Sutton?”
“I’m a professional now. You’ll have to call me Miss Sutton.”
“If I call you that, it’s not a book I’ll be spreading open across my desk.”
Liquid heat flares in my belly, but I let out a scandalised laugh and slap his arm.
“This is a first date, remember?”
He catches my hand and lifts it to his lips to kiss my knuckles.
“I remember.”
Evan chose well: the restaurant we end up in is small but bustling, elegant without being pretentious, even a little rustic.
Perfect for a casual Friday night date after we’ve both been working all week.
Evan and I sit tucked in a back booth beneath deep green panelling and shelves stacked with olive oil bottles and aged balsamic.
My coat hangs on a hook near an old wine rack, where Evan ever so gallantly placed it after slipping it off my shoulders.
Now he’s sitting next to me, one arm thrown over the corner of the booth, the tip of my boot hooked behind his calf, absentmindedly tucked there as we eat creamy pasta and sip wine from an expensive bottle.
It’s not the kind of thing I’d ever have picked on my own, but Evan just grinned at me when the waiter arrived and ordered something he said I’d like.
And I do. Of course I do.
Evan Knight, for all the years I’ve known him, has never dated me.
He’s fought me, broken me, kissed me, fucked me, adored me, but he’s never taken me on a date—an actual date .
And now that he’s doing it, it turns out he’s, well…
good at it.
Really good.
I mean, I should’ve known.
Evan’s only ever bad at the things he doesn’t want to be good at.
He takes his time with everything.
Touching the small of my back as he guides me to our table, ordering wine without asking, refilling my glass without waiting for me to ask.
He looks calm, at ease, relaxed, but every now and again his eyes linger on me, on my fingers when I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, my mouth when I tug at my bottom lip with my teeth while I’m thinking.
And the way he looks at me sends a disconcerting thrill deep in my chest, a thrum of excitement beneath my skin.
For the first time, I feel nervous being around him, almost flustered.
“What?” Evan says when he finishes ordering dessert and drinks—hazelnut and chocolate mousse and a godfather for him, crème br?lée and an espresso martini for me.
“Nothing,” I answer.
“You ordered those things very confidently.”
He leans forward, taps my chin with a fingertip.
“Have I gotten anything wrong?”
I laugh a little breathlessly.
“You know you haven’t.”
“What can I say?” He leans closer as he slides his finger lightly along my jaw, my neck, brushing my hair over my shoulder, the low bronze light highlighting the angles of his face, those cheekbones, that cocky, devastating mouth.
“I know what you like.”
And doesn’t he just.
Heat pools low in my stomach.
I reach for my water, take a hasty sip to settle the flutter in my chest, almost embarrassed by how red I can feel my cheeks growing.
Dessert comes, a welcome distraction, and Evan pushes his plate casually closer to me, letting me dip my spoon in his dessert as he fills me in on what he’s been doing at Inkspill.
“We finally signed that deal with NYU Press,” he says, eyes glinting with pride and satisfaction.
“Matt and Patch had a pool going that we’d never pull it off, but ever since we got that feature in The New York Times , we’ve been basically doing the impossible. We’re probably going to have to hire a team for Matt—the poor bastard’s swamped—he hasn’t left the office in a week straight.”
I’m trying hard to listen, but his arm is draped around me, and his thumb, while he speaks, is stroking the sliver of skin between my black turtleneck top and the waistband of my skirt, and shivers are running all along my body.
“Never thought I’d see the day Evan Knight’s job was getting books out into the world.”
“Don’t worry, I’m still a cool kid,” Evan says, grinning.
“I’m still a swimming champ and I’ve traded rugby for tennis, which is arguably cooler.”
“Less risk of brain damage,” I nod wisely.
I know he’s been playing tennis because he’s looking leaner and he’s gold all over from spending time catching the sun in tennis courts, hair bleached almost silver.
“So does landing NYU Press mean you’re staying at Inkspill, then?”
He hesitates, his grin wavering.
“Well, it means we’re on solid ground, finally, not just buying ourselves more time before disaster. Technically, I’ve done what I was supposed to do—what Dad sent me there to do. Inkspill is profitable, and it’s only going to get better, which means…”
His voice trails off for a second.
“Which means, yeah, I don’t have to stay there. My dad’s offered me a position at KMG. Any department of my choice, and his mentorship towards a leadership role.” He smiles slightly, though not with his usual boyish enthusiasm.
“It was the reward he promised me if I saved Inkspill.”
“And? Isn’t this what you wanted, though?”
He pauses.
Drags a hand through his hair in that distracted way of his.
“Yeah, I should take the KMG offer,” he says, the conviction in his voice about as fragile as the caramelised sugar of my c rème br?lée .
“It’s what I worked for, right?”
A strange emotion blooms in my chest. It’s surreal, realising how much he’s changed.
That the boy who used to care about nothing but winning and breaking rules is now this man, sitting across from me, questioning his future, weighing his choices.
A man with paperbacks littering his car and long nights spent working overtime to help his production manager sort out late shipments.
But more than that, it’s surreal knowing I’m the only one who’s ever seen both versions of him.
That I’ve watched him grow into this.
And, God, I’ve never loved him more.
I shrug, cracking my dessert with the tip of my spoon.
“Or you could just stay at Inkspill.”
He looks back at me.
His thumb presses into my back, tracing the ridge of my spine.
“You think?”
“Why not?”
“Because—wouldn’t it be a bit fucking crazy?” he asks, grinning crookedly.
“Choosing my dusty desk at some nerdy little imprint when I could have my own office in New York?”
“Definitely crazy.” I laugh and feed him a spoon of crème br?lée.
“We can be crazy together, since I’m also thinking I might not take the job at KMG after I graduate.”
“You’re not? ”
Despite the question, he doesn’t actually sound surprised.
I shake my head. “My friend Alice thinks I’ve lost my mind,” I tell him.
“For considering something other than Big Law, for not taking advantage of HLR, for turning my nose up at an opportunity some people would kill for, and so on and so on.”
Evan smirks.
“Ah, but you’re not some people. You’re Sophie fucking Sutton. And something tells me it wouldn’t make you happy to build your career protecting the rich and powerful.”
I swirl my spoon through my dessert, returning his smirk.
“Not when I could be fighting them instead.”
His eyes glint with interest. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” I shrug, but my pulse quickens.
“I mean, I don’t know. There’s this litigation firm in Manhattan, they’re very new, very controversial. It’s run by two women who are only taking the hardest cases.” I wave a hand.
“You know, wrongful terminations, whistleblowers, NDA battles, defending the kinds of women the system’s designed to keep silent.” I glance at him.
“Everyone in my class thinks I’d be committing career suicide.”
Evan tilts his head.
“Those women sound like they’re ready to fight the whole world.”
I let out a light laugh.
“And everyone in it.”
He studies me, expression unreadable.
But when he finally speaks, his voice is a curious mix of awe and amusement.
“The perfect choice for you, then.”
For a moment, I stare at him in complete silence, unexpectedly moved—not because he thinks I’m special, but because he understands why I’d choose something like this.
Because Evan sees the exact nature of the war I want to fight and still doesn’t try to talk me out of it.
Setting my glass down, I catch his face in both hands, pulling him down to me, the glossy black of my nail polish perfectly complementing his tanned skin .
“Evan Knight,” I tell him.
“You’re a very good date, you know.”
“I know. You should’ve dated me earlier.”
I tut, frowning up.
“Don’t make me regret giving you a compliment, now.”
“Need you a bit riled up, don’t I?” he says.
His hands wrap around my waist, the skin of his palms burning into me as he slides his fingers under the hem of my top—and no further.
“How else will I get you to come back to my hotel with me?”
“You could try being nice .”
“I can be nice,” he murmurs, pulling me closer, and I can almost taste the hazelnut and amaretto and whisky on his breath.
“I could be a very good boy for you, Miss Sutton, if that’s what you’d like.” Evan and I are kissing without me even realising who started the kiss.
His mouth moves warmly against mine, only the lightest teasing touch of tongue before he pulls away.
“But I don’t think you’d like that at all, actually.”
“I think maybe I would.”
He laughs, pulling away to raise a hand, wordlessly calling for the check.
“ Maybe? ” he says.
“Mm.” I pull open my purse and pull out my lip gloss to apply a fresh coat.
“You’ll have to convince me.”
“Consider yourself convinced.”
“You’re that confident?”
“Trust me, Sutton, with the things I’m going to do to you tonight, I’m confident.”
“So arrogant, for a first date.”
He shrugs.
“I’ll be more humble on the next one.”
“The next one?”
“Next Friday, New York. I’ll fly you in, and you can stay the night at my apartment.” He leans forward to kiss my cheek.
“If you’re a good girl for me , I’ll get you fresh coffee and pastries in the morning.”
I roll my eyes.
“You’d get me those even if I was a naughty girl.”
“Let’s be honest.” Evan’s voice is heavy with dark amusement.
“If you’re a naughty girl, we’re not leaving my bed all weekend.”
Turns out, that’s not a lie.
I test the theory in person the following week.