James grinned and sank onto the step next to her, clinking his bottle to hers. Nina bit back a smile. She didn’t want to like him, but he had an irrepressible energy that made it hard not to.
A silence settled around them, punctuated by laughter and the hum of conversation from the backyard, the bass’s low pulse thumping like a heartbeat.
“When I heard about a party at Tudor House, this wasn’t quite what I imagined.” James leaned an elbow on the step above them.
“What did you expect, Elizabethan ruffs and court jesters?”
“At the very least a gabled roof and charming English garden. The only thing Tudor about this place is the number of people crammed into a small space.”
“The party has hours to go. We might still get a banishment or beheading.”
“In that case, I may stick around.” There it was again: that hint of an accent, maddeningly unplaceable.
“I can’t decide where you’re from,” Nina declared. “You don’t sound European.”
“I traveled a lot when I was younger, with my parents. I picked up a hodgepodge accent along the way.”
“So what brought you to King’s College?”
He considered the question with surprising thoughtfulness. “I wanted a change, and this was as much of a change as I could get away with,” he said at last. “My family expects a lot of me. Getting far from home…it’s a way to escape the attention, for a little while, at least.”
That much Nina understood. Her parents were the best, but they were still parents, and could hover too closely over her life.
“If you don’t like attention, why did you audition for the play?” she ventured.
James winked, the moment of seriousness evaporating. “Maybe I auditioned because I heard you were auditioning.”
Nina rolled her eyes. “You said it yourself: we’d never met before the audition.”
Something deepened in his gaze, but it was gone before Nina could fully decipher it. “What about you? Did you come to King’s College to get away from home, too?”
“Hardly. My parents live half a mile from campus.”
James spun the beer bottle on the steps, a restless gesture that reminded Nina of Sam. “You like having them nearby?”
“It’s the best. They give me space to do my own thing at school, but if I need to go home for any reason”—like needing to cry in private because my royal boyfriend broke up with me, Nina thought—“then I can go sleep in my own bed, eat a home-cooked meal. My mom is the only one of us who can cook,” she added. “My mamá can’t make anything but toast, and even that she usually burns. She works at the Ministry of the Treasury.”
“Sounds like you’re very close,” James said quietly, perhaps a bit enviously.
“What about your family? What are they like?”
“Oh, they’re glad I’m here,” he replied, which wasn’t really an answer to her question. “Since you’re an expert, though, Nina, I’d love to hear your advice about King’s College. Anything I should know?”
“Didn’t you go on a campus tour before you arrived?” Nina asked, and he shrugged.
“Just a virtual tour. I’m here for the semester on an exchange program.” Before she could ask what school he’d come from, James flashed that roguish grin. “Come on, pass along some of your wisdom. What’s the best place to eat off-campus?”
Her reply was automatic. “Mulberry’s, but never at happy hour. It’s way too crowded. You want to go late-night for their cheese tots.”
“Cheese tots,” James repeated slowly.
“Tater Tots covered in cheese.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the concept,” he agreed, amused. “I just didn’t take you for someone who would recommend cheese tots.”
“Try them and you’ll see,” she promised.
“Fair enough. Should we go tonight?”
Behind them, the gate to the backyard creaked open, and Nina blinked. What was she doing out here, making vaguely flirtatious plans with a boy she didn’t particularly like?
Yet she didn’t dislike him, not the way she’d expected to. At the very least she’d become curious about him. And some unnamed force—the beer, or loneliness, or perhaps the way he smiled at her—seemed to have pinned her in place, right here on the concrete step, in spite of the fact that she was still angry about that kiss during the audition.
Nina hadn’t been kissed by anyone but Jeff in so long. He had wound his way into her life, taken up residence in her thoughts and dreams, and she wasn’t sure how to shake him loose. For years she had adored him and resented him, back and forth from one extreme to the other, and whether it was love or hate, her heart had always belonged to him.
Maybe she should kiss another boy, if only to banish the specter of Jeff that haunted her.
James shifted, and for a wild moment Nina wondered if she’d said that last thought aloud.
She sat back quickly, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Nina.” James’s voice dipped low. She sensed that he was watching her very carefully, guessing the thoughts that whirled frantically through her head. “I’m not going to kiss you unless you ask me to.”
“You certainly have a high opinion of yourself,” Nina replied, though it lacked the sarcasm she’d intended.
She wanted to feel his mouth on hers again, and in the enchanted haze that had woven itself around them, it made sense. Before she could second-guess herself, Nina lifted her mouth to his.
James kissed her back eagerly. He seemed to crackle with heat, his palms singeing her through the fabric of her shirt. He tugged her forward and Nina found herself on his lap, her weight balanced easily on his thighs.
Nina had never expected to feel this again—the white-hot rush that used to blaze through her whenever she kissed Jeff. She’d thought that feeling was extinguished when they broke up. Yet here it was, and with a boy she barely knew. Who would have thought.
Dimly, she heard a buzzing from the purse at her feet. She ignored it, focusing on the feeling of James’s hands skimming over her arms, down the sides of her torso to settle around her waist. He knew how to kiss a girl, that much was certain.
Nina wasn’t sure how far things would have gone if her phone hadn’t immediately started buzzing again. Whoever was calling, they were insistent.
She broke away from the kiss and grabbed her bag, ready to silence her phone—but when she saw the name on caller ID, she went utterly still.