7. House of Books and Friends #2
Cutting through the last of the campus crowds, Dylan stepped out into the damp early evening and headed toward home.
It had rained heavily all day, the weather very much matching Dylan’s mood.
The Oxford Road pavement had been soaked into a dark mirror, catching the amber glare of the bus headlights, billboards and the neon lights in shop windows and takeaways.
It wasn't proper rain now, just that fine, cold Manchester drizzle that hangs in the spring air and manages to soak you through to the skin without you noticing.
A few moments, that’s all the encounter had been.
When Dylan had seen Greta would be lecturing she knew there was no way she would simply leave without approaching her but the outcome had been exactly what she’d hoped it wouldn’t; the rules had swallowed them up again.
She had spent weeks looking up and down every corridor, hoping and praying to run into Greta by chance, instead of seeking her out and making the whole thing worse—if that were possible.
Then, it happened and it was as much of a blur as it was a head fuck.
Wiping a stray bead of moisture from her eyebrow, Dylan raised her chin and tried to take in a full chest of air.
Her ribs were tight, the movement stunted by the heavy pressure of her feelings for Greta that had nowhere to go.
Greta had been everything she wanted, and needed, to see.
She wanted to go to her, hold her, move her mouth over every inch of her but they simply stood, both of them, chests heaving like caged animals.
Keeping her head down against the cool wind, Dylan’s mind looped the image of Greta over and over like a broken tape.
She zipped up her jacket and stepped off the curb, her damp Converse slipping on a discarded Metro newspaper.
As she stumbled, her phone vibrated violently in her pocket.
‘Fuck!’ she hissed under her breath. Taking a step back onto the busy pavement, she pulled out her phone and thumbed open WhatsApp, her stomach roiling at the sender's name.
Greta:
‘I can’t stand what you are doing, Dylan. Please stop.’
Dylan’s heart detached from its place and landed in her gut. Desperation drove the speed of her reply.
Dylan:
‘Greta, please. One hour. A coffee shop. Somewhere public. One hour and I will never contact you again. I swear.’
The last part of the text was potentially a lie—no, it was a definite lie—but her need to see Greta was now a simmering desperation on the cusp of boiling over.
Greta:
‘One hour. I will come to your house.’
Dylan:
‘Not my house. Somewhere else. Your place?’
Greta:
‘Absolutely not.’
Dylan:
‘I’ll meet you at the House of Books and Friends. I’ll head there now. Is that good for you?’
Greta:
‘Yes.’
***
After sliding into a chair at the last empty table in the busy book shop-come-coffee shop, Greta moved aside a forgotten Americano and the remnants of a Danish pastry on a small white plate to make space for her glass of water, and the anxiety oozing from her chest. The place was busy and loud with the wet hiss of the coffee machine and the steady ambient drone of people talking over one another.
She glanced around furtively, scanning every face for familiar features but everyone was a stranger.
To her left, a student was hammering away at a laptop keyboard, completely engrossed.
At the table opposite, two young people argued over an open textbook, tapping the pages with cheap biros and laughing at the other’s point of view.
An irrational fear that they may be students or patients made her pay particular attention to their faces but she didn’t recognise them.
It was cramped, noisy, and the air was thickly perfumed with coffee and damp coats.
Being sealed off from the miserable weather outside was a relief, though the heat and noise was dangerously close to becoming claustrophobic.
Placing her laptop bag and coat on the chair beside her, she created a blockade—subconscious, or very deliberate, she wasn’t sure.
Most likely the latter. She was grateful there had been a free table, a physical barrier to stop Dylan from reaching out, and to stop herself from doing the same.
Dylan arrived, and Greta watched her unravel her green scarf, unzipping her brown bomber jacket to reveal another faded grey band T-shirt, Radiohead this time.
Her blue cargo pants, beige aran knit cardigan and battered Converse completed the effortlessly cool look, making Greta sigh at both how ridiculously good… and young she looked.
‘Fuck fuck fuck,’ Greta muttered sharply under her breath, her head dropping for a brief moment.
After needlessly moving her glass, she looked up.
Dylan was still there, greeting one of the bookshop employees with a wide smile.
‘That fucking mouth,’ Greta mumbled under her breath, her weight shifting in her seat.
Dylan pushed a hand roughly through her hair, brushing off a fine layer of drizzle.
As Dylan’s curls bounced back to life and restyled, Greta blew out a long breath; an attempt to both steady herself and get a grip.
Swallowing dryly, her hands returned to the glass of water, she watched as her clammy hands betrayed her with a slight tremor.
‘Fuck!’ she whispered again under her breath.
That particular expletive seemingly being the only one available to her.
She put the glass back down without drinking from it.
‘Hiya,’ Dylan’s voice was soft, tentative, as she stood smiling at Greta from the other side of the table.
Greta didn’t stand. She kept her eyes locked on Dylan’s, refusing to look down. ‘Hi,’ she replied, her quiet voice already loaded with want at the mere sight of her.
After hanging her jacket on the back of her chair, Dylan put the rest of her things on the neighbouring seat. ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ she said softly, lowering herself into the chair.
‘What do you want, Dylan?’
‘Well, a flat white might be nice. Maybe with a Patricia Highsmith…or is Sarah Waters more your vibe? My treat.’ Dylan gave a wry smile, looking around for an imaginary server before her eyes narrowed with a smirk.
‘Or are you the spicy JJ Arias kind?’ She canted her head as though hoping to coax a smile from Greta.
Greta just stared at her, letting the silence stretch for an uncomfortable beat. ‘Do you think I have time to be running around Manchester at your behest?’
‘Running around Manches— What?’ Dylan replied. Leaning forward, she pressed her forearms into the worn wooden table. ‘Look, Greta. You and me both know you would not be sitting here if the chemistry between us hadn’t burned us both.’
Greta forced a burst of air through her nose in sharp—albeit feigned—disagreement.
‘Chemistry? I paid—’ Greta started, a little too loudly for the busy room.
She scanned the space around them. No one had noticed.
She leaned closer and lowered her voice to an annoyed whisper.
‘I paid for a service, Remi.’ The name Remi appeared to hit Dylan as hard as Greta thought it might, as Dylan tongued the inside of her cheek.
Instant regret swelled in her chest, but she couldn’t stop.
She had to push this woman—this student—away.
‘I don’t know what your vivid imagination has created here, but this’—she wagged a finger back and forth in the space between them—‘is not happening.’
Greta forced her back into the chair, arms crossed over her full and confident chest, as Dylan started to move her things.
‘Come and sit next to me then.’
‘What?!’
‘If you are so confident that this’—she mimicked Greta’s finger wag—‘isn’t happening and there’s nothing between us, nothing to talk about, no chemistry, come here.’
Dylan pulled out the now empty chair and patted it with her hand. Greta stared longingly at her fingers for a second too long. She dragged her gaze back to Dylan’s face.
‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ Greta hissed.
‘Have you?’ Dylan replied without missing a beat. ‘Well, have you? Because yes, Doctor Vincent,’ she leaned toward Greta, fingers interlaced into one fist. ‘I think I have.’
At their close distance Greta’s gulp was almost deafening and Dylan’s scent unavoidable.
The masculine fragrance sent a familiar, yearning through Greta's chest, making her dizzy.
A salty tang filled her mouth as it mixed with the smell of coffee, old and new books, and invaded every space in her head.
With her hands curled over the edge of the table to steady herself, Greta watched as Dylan shrugged off her cardigan and carefully laid it across the chair next to her.
‘Dylan, what did I tell you about games? I don’t have time for this.’
‘And I don’t have time to keep lying awake at night thinking about you.’ Dylan leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘I’m exhausted, Greta. So talk to me. Please.’
The thought that Dylan was losing sleep over her, just as she was, made Greta’s heart batter against her ribs. It was too much. Too real. There was no way to deny it anymore; she had actual feelings for Dylan. Real feelings that time and distance had not changed.
Needing air and more space between them, Greta stood abruptly. ‘Will you excuse me?’
As Greta passed, Dylan reached out and caught her hand.
Greta didn’t recoil from the unbidden gesture, she remained still as Dylan held her fingers in a soft grip, tracing her thumb back and forth over Greta’s skin.
Unable to stand her pleading bright green eyes, Greta looked down at Dylan's tattooed fingers instead.
A tiny anchor at the base of her index finger and an ‘M’ on her thumb.
Slowly pulling her hand away, Greta pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen loose onto her face, immediately wishing that she had left it where it was, as the movement made her look nervous.
‘Excuse me a minute,’ Greta repeated on a shaky breath.