Chapter 4 #3
I scan the room as I sip my soda. The air is full of possibility, every kind of social interaction happening all at once under the low lights.
Awkward pleased-to-meet-you handshakes, I-haven’t-seen-you-all-summer bear hugs, intense make-out sessions in dark corners.
Every sense is stimulated, I’m drowning in the scent of a dozen different perfumes, tuning into our conversation and out of the music, hot and sweaty, bangs stuck to my forehead.
‘I love it,’ I tell her and it’s the truth. In this cramped corner of an old bar, I feel like I’m in the middle of something instead of watching from the outside. ‘It’s so nice of y’all to invite me along.’
‘Well, we Brits are famously very polite.’ She reaches across the table to move Jenna’s sleeve away from a pool of spilled squadka on the table. ‘Also, every time you say y’all, I die. In a good way.’
‘Better get used to being deceased, I say it all the time.’
‘Death by Southern charm.’ Alice laughs. ‘You’re going to be a menace, I can tell.’
‘Anyone sitting here?’
A tallish girl with black-framed glasses rests a hand on the back of the one empty chair at our table and everyone looks up.
‘No, you can have it.’ Michael rises out of his seat to help move the chair and I can’t help but notice when Jenna’s eyes narrow at the girl, who is absolutely checking out his goalkeeper’s ass as she follows.
‘Shouldn’t we save that seat for your friend?’ I ask Alice, watching the chair travel across the room, held high over Michael’s head.
‘For who?’
‘Um, wasn’t there someone else with y’all before? Another guy?’
‘Hmm?’ She looks confused, checking who is sitting at the table. ‘Oh, you mean Oliver. Right, yes, he went back to halls when I did. Had to put his precious guitar away. He’ll be down soon if he’s not lurking somewhere here already.’
Of course he went to put his guitar away. It would not have done well in this packed, sweaty room, and I definitely don’t immediately picture him lying on a narrow twin bed, practised fingers working the strings and coaxing sweet music from each carefully tuned vibration …
‘Is he in Carpenter too?’
‘Nope, Devonshire. Right next door.’
‘He’s on my course, right? Michael said he’s reading English?’
‘Yep.’
Pursing my lips, I twist in my seat to check the bar for him one more time.
‘If he’s coming to meet y’all, shouldn’t we save him a seat?’
From the sly smile that slowly spreads across Alice’s face, my super casual questions didn’t come off nearly as casual as I’d hoped.
‘Maybe you can sit on his knee.’
And before I can defend myself, Jenna grabs my chair, turns it towards her and stares at me with a laser-focused intensity.
‘Okay, time for your interview,’ she says as Alice settles back in her seat. ‘I want to know everything there is to know about Mia Meyers and if you’re not going to offer the information freely, I’m going to have to grill you.’
‘There – there’s really nothing to know,’ I stammer, panic rising. ‘I’m way more interested in y’all.’
‘It’ll be easier if you go along with it.’ Bryn pours himself another glass of squadka, shaking his head. ‘This one is like a dog with a bone.’
‘Thank you.’ Jenna beams at him like it was a compliment and holds an invisible microphone under my nose. ‘America is a big place. Where are you from exactly?’
Alice only grins and so, I lean forward, pushing my hair away over my shoulder as I speak into her imaginary mic.
‘Valley Springs, South Carolina. Tiny little town near Spartanburg, an hour and change outside of Asheville.’
‘So exotic.’ She exhales even though it really isn’t. Pretty, maybe, once you get closer to the mountains, past the car manufacturing plant and the criss-cross of highways and freeways, but definitely not exotic.
‘And what made you want to come to Hemden?’
That’s an easy one.
‘Everything,’ I reply right away. ‘The classes, the history, the architecture. And I’ve always wanted to travel, visit the UK.’
And start over, I add silently. Become someone new, get away from my parents, make real friends, meet someone who wants me for me. ‘Even my folks had heard of Hemden, it’s one of the most famous schools in the world,’ I say out loud. ‘Who wouldn’t want to come here?’
‘I don’t know, but I do know I’m very glad to be here right now,’ Alice breathes, grabbing holding of my hand. ‘The most insanely hot guy just walked in, and oh my God Mia, do not look but he’s totally staring at you.’
‘Insanely hot guy where?’
I jolt upright like an electrocuted meerkat, staring at everyone in the room on high alert.
‘Tall, dark and gorgeous stud at twelve o’clock and I said don’t look!’
But I look, obviously, both curious and a little concerned.
Is there something wrong? Has my dress come open and put my bra on display, and the others are too polite to mention it?
I can’t think of a better reason unless …
Directly across the room, standing in the middle of a smush of bodies, I see him. Not Oliver.
Ethan fricking Taylor.
When our eyes meet, he lifts his chin in my direction, a minor acknowledgement, but one that would’ve fed the gossip network at Marshall for months.
Nope. No way, no thank you.
I turn away without reacting and pray to all known deities that he won’t come over here and introduce himself – or the librarian – to my new friends.
‘Do you know him?’ Alice’s hand slips into her pocket to grab a lip gloss which Jenna steals away before she can even apply it. ‘I’ve never seen him before. Too old to be a fresher. And he’s definitely looking at you.’
‘Can’t be.’ I turn away as his gaze burns into my back. ‘Or he has me confused with someone else.’
Alice rests her elbows on the table and gives a starry-eyed sigh, face propped up in her hands. ‘He can confuse me with whoever he likes. Are you sure you don’t know him? Because he certainly looks as though he knows you.’
‘Sure I’m sure,’ I reply definitively. ‘No one at Hemden knows who I am.’
And once again, it’s the truth.