Chapter 9
While Aurelia didn’t want to doom the evening with low expectations, her expectations still weren’t particularly high.
After changing out of an oversized jumper (David did know her all too well), she tried to strike a balance between looking like she’d tried to smarten up without going overboard, though she wasn’t sure she’d actually succeeded.
It didn’t help that she looked drawn and tired after so many sleepless nights.
Aurelia walked to the hotel bar in South Kensington where David had told her to meet Oliver for drinks.
Once she was in the lobby, she spotted the bar, which was very posh and not at all the kind of place she usually liked.
Standing in the doorway, she glanced around, trying to identify a lonely-looking man who might be waiting for her.
No one seemed a likely candidate and she was just about to wander around the lobby to wait for him when she sensed someone standing behind her.
She turned and found herself uncomfortably close to a man who was a few inches taller than her.
He had dark brown hair that was creeping backward, and brown eyes to match, though they were a lighter shade of brown than his hair.
He was wearing a black jacket over an ice-blue oxford shirt, open at the neckline by only one button.
They both took a step back, which gave them more room to assess each other.
“Are you Oliver?”
“Yes. Oliver Pearce.”
She had to admit he was attractive—David hadn’t misled her there. But he had the slightly haughty, bored look of someone who was fulfilling an obligation, which instantly annoyed her. She was fulfilling the same obligation, after all.
“I’m Aurelia Lyndham. Hi,” she said, leaning in for a friendly kiss on the cheek in greeting. Her movement was halted by Oliver’s hand, however, which shot out to shake hers.
“Oh, right,” she said, reaching out and shaking his hand.
“I should give you my card,” he said, pulling a business card from his inside breast pocket.
“Your card?” she asked, staring down at the small rectangle in his hand.
“It has my contact info,” he said offhandedly.
“Ah, okay. I don’t exactly have a business card…”
Aurelia fumbled in her bag and found a bookmark from the shop, then handed it to him.
Oliver looked as confused by her bookmark as she’d been by his business card, but he eventually took it and tucked it into his pocket. He looked away from her and into the bar, saying “Shall we go in?”
She followed him and inwardly groaned when he chose a high-top table with tall barstools. She hated those types of tables as she always felt awkward sitting with her feet dangling.
As soon as they were seated, Oliver took hold of the cocktail menu and stared down at it.
Watching him, Aurelia wondered whether he was just nervous or entirely disinterested.
She looked around the bar, which was sparsely populated, probably because it was a Monday night and most people—lucky people—were tucked up at home.
“I’m not sure why David picked this spot,” she observed, feeling like she ought to make an effort at conversation.
Oliver looked up as she wrinkled her nose.
“It’s not really my kind of place. Too sterile,” she added conspiratorially.
“David didn’t pick it. I did,” Oliver said, returning his attention to the cocktail menu.
Crap.
“Ah! Put my foot right in it, didn’t I?” she acknowledged with a laugh.
“That you did,” Oliver said, sliding the menu across to her.
His lip had quirked and Aurelia thought she caught a momentary sparkle in his eye. He had a sense of humor buried in there somewhere.
“What’s your kind of place, then?” he asked.
“I like a bar that’s a little more lived-in. Somewhere that has furniture that’s been knocked about a bit, maybe a fireplace.”
“More like a pub, then?”
“Sure, beer-stained tables and all,” she said with a warm smile.
“Mmm,” Oliver intoned, still not giving a smile of his own. He seemed to hold himself back with a reserve that gave Aurelia a quick shiver.
A server came to the table and asked for their drinks order.
“She hasn’t had a chance to look at the menu,” Oliver said, preparing to dismiss him.
“She doesn’t need to,” Aurelia cut in, sitting up taller to remind them that she was sitting right there. The server gave a chuckle, but Oliver still wouldn’t crack. “I’ll have a glass of cabernet.”
“They do a good cocktail here,” Oliver said, frowning.
“That’s alright—I’m happy with a glass of wine,” she said, smiling first at him, then at the server.
Once they’d ordered, it felt like an eternity until the drinks finally arrived. Aurelia tried not to take an obvious gulp when their server set her glass down on the table.
They talked about Oliver’s work, which led to a discussion of how she knew James, which led to a discussion about where they’d gone to university. It was all very polite and surface-level, like they were guests at a party where they only knew the host.
During the first awkward pause, Aurelia tried and failed to hide a yawn.
“What do you do for work? James didn’t say.”
“I…” I’m a writer who can’t write anymore was the first answer that came to her, but she bit her lip to keep it in. Instead, she said, “I run a bookshop. Thus the bookmark,” she added, nodding to his jacket pocket.
“Oh, right,” Oliver said, taking the bookmark out of his pocket to inspect it. “I wondered about that.”
“You thought I just hand out random bookmarks?” she teased.
“It seemed a bit odd,” he said with a laugh.
His smile spread over his features, momentarily melting his reserve. Aurelia smiled back, taken in by it. She told herself it was just because that smile had been so hard-earned, but maybe it was also because his smile made his eyes squint in a way that was almost endearing.
Looking back down at the bookmark, he read, “‘On the Square Books.’”
“The shop’s on a small square with a park in the middle,” Aurelia explained, feeling a little silly when he’d probably guessed as much.
“Well, it’s brave of you to open a bookshop with everything going digital,” he declared, tucking the bookmark back into his pocket.
“Well, I didn’t open it. My great-great aunt did in the early 1900s. We do alright, actually. There are lots of people still devoted to hard copy.”
“Are there?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“You should know—being a publishing man, and all.”
“Yes, but it’s going to get more and more difficult to sell hard copies. I think exclusive digital sales are in the future.”
“Not mine,” she retorted with a bite in her voice. She took back the idea that anything about him might be endearing.
Despite her insistence, Oliver started detailing sales forecasts and predictions for publishing’s future and Aurelia tried to stifle yet another yawn.
He spouted one last statistic, then they were both silent again.
She started wondering what time it was and longed to get back to the flat so she could try to catch up on sleep—if the ghosts in the shop would keep it down for once.
Or maybe she should try to stretch the date out, after all, since the alternative was dealing with a haunting at home.
But it was hard to show an interest in Oliver when she was so preoccupied—and tired.
Besides, he didn’t have much to say aside from rambling on about publishing.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I was in my own world for a second.”
He began talking about what he liked and didn’t like about the publishing company where he and James worked. She hadn’t asked, but he dove right in—though, in fairness, she wasn’t exactly winning points for offering up any sparkling conversational topics of her own.
“It’s a small boutique-type place,” Oliver explained. “We put out a few books a year and only do a limited distribution. My goal is to work there for a year or two before going somewhere larger. I want access to more authors and bigger budgets.”
Aurelia frowned. She didn’t like to think Oliver was just using the publishing closet—house, she corrected herself—as a launchpad to something bigger.
He sounded aggressively ambitious, a five-year-plan man who would stop at nothing to get ahead.
She took in his jacket, his buttoned-up shirt, and started recasting him as a Mad Men-type.
There was a sudden silence and she snapped-to as she realized she must have missed her cue to respond to something he’d said.
She reached for her glass of wine, hoping to give herself another few seconds to try and figure out what to say.
Yet, somehow, she managed to knock the glass with her hand, sending red wine sloshing over the lip as she fumbled to keep it upright.
“Oh! Damn,” she spluttered as she mopped up the spill with her tiny cocktail napkin before leaping up to grab extras from an empty table. “Did I get you?”
“No, I think you just missed,” he said, patting at his jacket.
“What a mess—I’m so sorry.”
She made a pile of wet napkins between them, and even though the table was clean now, she kept uselessly swiping one last napkin over its surface. Oliver reached out and put his hand on hers, stopping her.
“It’s fine—no harm done. I’m sure it’s not the first time the table has seen some red wine. Or my jacket, for that matter.”
Aurelia stilled, taken in by the gentleness of his touch and tone. There was a warmth there that he’d kept locked away before, and it was disorienting to suddenly see another side of him. She sat back down, her hand slipping from beneath his as she added the napkin she’d been holding onto the pile.
“Let’s try that again,” she said lightly.
She reached slowly for the glass, carefully lifted it to her mouth, took the daintiest of sips, and then used both hands to put it back on the table.
His face bloomed into a smile as he laughed with her, and she was distracted by how it lit up his features.
Her eyes lingered a bit too long, their silence stretching from a shared moment into something more awkward and unsure.
She dragged her eyes away and looked around the nearly empty bar again, desperately searching for something to say as she stifled yet another yawn.
“We can call it a night,” Oliver said abruptly.
“Sorry?”
“You’re tired—or bored. We can say goodnight.” He began reaching into his pocket for his wallet as Aurelia scrambled to catch up with what was happening.
“No—I’m sorry—it’s just been a bit of a mad week.” She almost laughed to think of everything that had happened. “I mean, that is truly an understatement.”
“It’s fine,” he said as he waved over their server.
“I really am sorry.”
Aurelia reached for her bag, but Oliver shook his head to signal he’d pay.
“I… Look,” she began, flustered that she’d come across as rude with her yawning and distraction. “I tried explaining it to David, but he insisted we meet each other. I’m… I’m not really ready for this just now.”
“This?”
“This. Dating,” Aurelia said, waving her hands to sweep in Oliver, their table, the bar.
“Bad breakup?” he asked, sitting back in his chair, his tone almost amused.
Aurelia only just managed to hold back her first response—No, dead mother—and her second—No, I just seem to have inherited a haunted bookshop. One was unfair, the other wasn’t likely to improve his first impressions of her.
Instead she simply said, “Something like that.”
He nodded and said, “Me too.”
As he said it, his stiff shoulders relaxed for the first time that evening, giving Aurelia another glimpse of what seemed like the ‘real’ Oliver.
“To be honest,” he continued, “I didn’t really want to meet tonight either, but James was fairly adamant.”
“I’m going to guess it was David’s plan, and James went along since he knew David wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“That does seem to be how they work,” Oliver said with a laugh.
“It’s how he and I work too, apparently,” Aurelia said, laughing back and feeling relieved to be on even footing with him.
He paid for their drinks and they walked out of the hotel together, then stood on the pavement to pull on scarves and button up coats.
“Thank you for the drink,” she said. “I’m sorry again. And I hope you get over your breakup soon.”
“Thanks for that,” Oliver said with a smile.
Aurelia was momentarily caught off guard by a fluttering in her stomach—he really was handsome when he smiled.
“You as well,” he added. “So, what should we tell David and James?”
“We can tell them… It was nice meeting each other, but we just weren’t a match,” Aurelia offered, shrugging her shoulders.
“Alright. Well, it was nice meeting you, Aurelia.” He stuck out his hand once again and she shook it.
She started to pull her hand away but he held it in his. She stared down at their joined hands, then looked up to see a question playing on his face.
“Would you mind—since… Well… Could I try something?” he asked.
“Try something…”
Aurelia had meant it to be a question, but Oliver seemed to take it as a request or a command.
He quickly leaned forward and kissed her.
It happened so quickly, in fact, that her eyes shut reflexively before popping open again in surprise.
She saw his hand rise to touch her cheek and she closed her eyes again, willing to lose herself in the moment as he was, against all odds, doing an excellent job of kissing her.
When he pulled away, he had a bemused look on his face and seemed shocked at his own daring.
“I was just… curious,” he said, flashing a shy smile before wrinkling his brow, looking for a moment as confused as she felt. “Take care, Aurelia.”
He walked away and she stared after him, eventually managing to say “Take care,” to his back.
He turned and gave a small wave, then continued on his way.
“What on earth was that?” Aurelia wondered under her breath.
Though she had to admit, she hadn’t minded it all that much. It’d been too long since she had kissed someone, and what was the harm when they would never see each other again? Besides, it was an awfully good kiss.