Chapter 24
Lesson 23: One can make an exception to the rules, if that exception looks like a Bridgerton.
Bridget Jones Tally:
boys—1
girls—1
rom-com moments—1
Tristan arrived at seven on the dot. Gorgeous and punctual.
“Wow. Alice. You look lovely.” He smiled and gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek.
We walked to Brasenose despite his repeated offers to call us a cab, but I put my time in with my heels now, showing my legs
to their best advantage, safe in the knowledge that I could switch to flats on the way home. It also gave me an excuse to
clasp onto his elbow and hold tight to his arm. He was a bit awkward at first, but I made an extra effort to draw him out.
The city was somehow even more magical by lamplight. The old street lamps turned the great imposing stone castles of the city
into spun gold against a darkening sapphire sky. We approached Radcliffe Square, this time from the other side, and when the
Radcliffe Camera appeared into view, it was lit up and glowing: a thing divine.
We curled around the corner and into Brasenose, and in the ten minutes we had remaining Tristan snuck me in to visit some of the more interesting things that were restricted to outsiders.
“Here you go.” He held a strange sleeveless robe out to me, with long strips of fabric at the shoulders that seemed to be
entirely useless and that hung all the way down to the knee. “Your subfusc, my lady.”
“Oh, wow. This is so cool.” It really was.
“I borrowed it from a friend so you wouldn’t be swallowed up in mine.”
“That makes you the third person in your family to dress me this week.”
He forced a laugh, and as he ducked his head to focus on putting on his own robe, I noticed his neck reddening. I hadn’t meant
anything untoward by the comment, but I suppose it had put him in mind of dressing me or undressing me. On some men, the shyness
could seem weak or off-putting, but on Tristan, who looked like a goddamned movie star, it was delicious. It left me scheming
about how to get more of it.
Dinner was impeccably laid out and steeped in ancient traditions about high table and who was allowed to eat when, etc. Tristan
and I spoke easily enough—not quite old friends, but interested new ones, at least.
We spoke about our hobbies, our work, his new job, and his upcoming move to Boston. He was obviously intelligent, but not
boastfully so. He laughed at all my jokes, and though he didn’t really make any of his own, he seemed to enjoy my odd sense
of humor.
I changed into my flats, and we walked the winding paths and crooked trails of the city’s glowing streets. We ducked into
some colleges on the way back, just to take a turn around their quads by moonlight, and then went for a drink at Freud’s,
a really cool bar in an abandoned church. All in all, it was a more dreamlike first date than I’d ever had.
When we got back to my B&B in Jericho, he asked me if I would be interested in seeing Port Meadow: a nearby park with a river and pubs. I didn’t even bother to check my watch.
After a short walk, we went through a kissing gate into a rolling green space where cattle roamed freely. A tendril of the
Thames thinned into a quiet creek that meandered lackadaisically through the trees, keeping painted lock boats afloat.
The moon was full that night, and we didn’t need a flashlight to stroll through the meadow and traipse up the little wooden
bridges that arched charmingly over the knobby fingers of the Thames. Something caught my eye. A twinkling in the distance—magic,
surely. After all, Oxford is where some of Hogwarts was kept, where Narnia was born and Middle-earth was forged, and where
Alice couldn’t help but follow that rabbit down the rabbit hole.
The sparkling was Christmas lights, it turned out. They were wrapped around arched vines, and we entered through a little
gate and ducked down a narrow hedge path until a garden opened up before us. It was a tiny thatched-roof cottage in the woods
of the meadow called the Perch, and it had a fish painted on its wooden sign.
We got local ales and sat under a huge tree in the twinkling garden until it got too chilly, and then we went inside, ordered
a final drink, and stocked up on heat on a leather club sofa by a massive fireplace blazing with warmth.
On the way home, we stopped under a canopy of arching oaks. Tristan turned to face me. In the quiet of the night, with his
eyes large and dark, he asked me a question.
“Can I kiss you good night? I don’t want to wait until we get back to your bed-and-breakfast in case we get interrupted there.”
He brushed his hair out of his face. “Also because I don’t want to wait that long.”
No one had ever asked to kiss me so politely before. I smiled and stepped to him, turning my face up in answer. He put his arms around my waist and dragged me in, no longer shy. When he finally put his lips on mine, it was the last scene of a rom-com—much anticipated, sweetly satisfying. He opened my lips with his, and my body softened into his arms. Sensuously gentle and warm, the kiss was a delicate thing—a moth’s wings brushing a candle flame. He was a talented kisser, and when it was over and we walked the few remaining blocks to the B&B, I felt quiet, soothed, safe, and warm throughout.
Alone in my bed, I drifted contentedly. A date with Tristan had sent me into a tailspin. How much of these feelings were for
a glittering Oxford evening, and how much was for Tristan? Robbie was there also, hunkered down in the quiet eye of the storm,
a string tied to his finger that wouldn’t let me go.
I wondered if who I was—and who I thought I was, and who I allowed myself to be—might be changing. I certainly had a new perspective
on some things because of the trip. Perhaps that might go some way to explaining my confusion—how might I know who would be
a good match for me, if I wasn’t really certain who me was anymore.