I’d also curtailed my Devourfests with Nick, although in fairness, we’d also run out of episodes. It was a handy excuse to step away while I sorted out my feelings, but I couldn’t—and desperately didn’t want to—avoid him forever. I took to suggesting safer, more academic outings where there would be crowds of people and no inviting-looking beds, like studying at the library, or group movie outings, or one particularly amusing foray to a local theater revival of Cats. We’d bought last-minute tickets in the back row after a long Sunday at the Bodleian, and watched agape as the legendary musical unfolded like a disjointed feline fever dream. Everyone tumbled into the dark night after the show, laughing at the absurdity of it, feeling very young and superior.
“That was the oddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Nick said.
“I can’t believe you tripped that actor,” Cilla said to Gaz. “He’s probably going to sue.”
“A man has a right to stretch his legs without worrying some bloody great giant in spandex and cat makeup is going to come running past him,” Gaz protested.
Cilla threw her hands wide. “You were at Cats! What did you think would happen?”
“I should sue him for terrifying me,” Gaz said.
“I wish I could have had a crack at those costumes,” Joss ruminated as we began to head back toward the high street. “All those catsuits were so obvious.”
“THEY ARE PLAYING CATS. IN CATS,” boomed Cilla. “I am going to need a drink to deal with you lot. Come on, there’s a pub ’round the corner.”
“I can’t. I promised India I’d stop by Christ Church for a nightcap,” Nick said apologetically. “And it’s already…Crikey, it’s almost nine o’clock.”
I cursed under my breath. “I’m supposed to be on the phone with Lacey. She’ll kill me if I’m any later than I will be already.”
Clive made a move toward me, but Joss stuck out a hand and grabbed him.
“Oi, not so fast! You owe me a pint because you never wore that shirt I made you.”
“It said SKIRT on it!” Clive protested.
“Well, I’m still practicing,” Joss said. “It looked like shirt if you squinted just right.”
She dragged him off, and Cilla corralled Gaz, with a backward wave at me that suggested my situation had been discussed.
Left alone together for the first time since Fawkesoween, Nick and I smiled gamely at each other, pulled our coats tight, and began the walk to Pembroke. Cornmarket Street was lit with the glow of warm lamplight from upstairs windows, the occasional peal of laughter echoing from passing couples huddled together against the chill. A wave of intense happiness washed over me, and I told myself to carry this moment as a talisman of a time in my life when I was both truly content and lucky enough to realize it. In a very short time, Oxford had stamped itself on me, and everything back in the States—for the first time, I didn’t use the word home in my mind—felt so far away.
“…although in Julian’s defense, he didn’t know Gran kept Sergeant Marmite’s ashes in any of the urns on the floor,” Nick was saying.
I jolted. I had been too busy enjoying being with Nick to listen to Nick.
“Works every time,” he said triumphantly. “I knew you’d vanished on me. Where did you go?”
“I was just thinking how much I love being here,” I said.
An unreadable look washed over Nick’s face. “Bex,” he said.
And then the clouds parted like they’d been slit with a letter opener, pelting us with massive drops of a cold November rain that wasted no time leaking through the soles of my flimsy old sneakers. We broke into a run straight down St. Aldate’s toward the intersection that divided Christ Church and Pembroke. India’s home and mine.
Water streamed down my face. “This is my first hard-core English rain,” I called out to him, my words almost drowned out by the rhythmic pounding of the drops and our feet.
“It reminds me of the first time we met,” Nick panted. “You looked so put out from that tiny drizzle, I didn’t have the heart to tell you how bad it would get.”
“Please,” I said, grinning even as the rain got blown up against my teeth. “Winter at Cornell would make your face crack.”
We ducked down our cobbled drive and stopped outside the main doors, still giggling and breathless. The porter was long gone, so I had to fumble for my keys; Nick pulled off his coat and held it over us so that the contents of my purse wouldn’t get drenched. Not many guys would think of a girl’s handbag. If I hadn’t already started swooning for him, that would’ve sealed it.
“You’ve got some mascara on your cheek,” Nick said, his teeth starting to chatter. “Very Fawkesoween of you.”
He reached out to wipe it away, which meant half his coat-canopy sagged, so I tilted up my face and scooted closer to stay under it. His expression changed as he moved a wet hair off my cheek. My skin felt warm even with the cold rain hitting one side of it.
“We should get you inside,” Nick said, his lips so close to my face that his breath and mine were basically the same puffs.
“India is waiting,” I agreed.
“And your phone call.”
But we didn’t move. A jolt passed between us. I thought of high school English, and that part of the Keats poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” about how the breath right before you kiss your beloved is the sweetest one of all, because you realize you’re about to get exactly what you want.
Then something in my periphery twitched, and I jerked my head sideways. Pembroke’s main drive bent around and connected with a slim back street alluringly named Beef Lane, at the corner of which I could swear a camera lens was poking out at us.
“Nick,” I said, nodding toward it. “I think we’ve got company.”
Nick whipped his head around and squinted. “Are you fucking serious?” he said.
The heat between us evaporated as his coat fell down to his side, and I felt the frigid raindrops crash anew onto my head. As if he were conjured by magic, PPO Twiggy crept up Beef Lane and shoved the camera lens with his hand, as PPO Stout blocked me from sight and unlocked Pembroke’s door in a fraction of the time my freezing, stiff fingers could have done it.
Nick looked shaken and irate, the very image of a guy whose careful bubble had just burst. But he had nothing on the murderous expression on Twiggy, who had a cameraman by the scruff of the neck and was waving Nick over, his face scarlet with rage.
Lady Bollocks appeared in the open doorway, ready to pop open an umbrella. She stopped short at the kerfuffle.
“Now you’ve bloody done it,” she said to Nick, not unkindly.
“Can you get her inside, please, Bea?” Nick pleaded.
“Wait, is that seriously the paparazzi?” I asked.
But he’d already turned to go, Stout by his side. Bea all but lifted me inside the college and closed the door. I skidded on the wet stone entry and had to stabilize myself on her arm.
“Did they see your face?” she demanded. “What have you done?”
I was too breathless to do anything but stare blankly at the closed door. Bea grabbed me and forcibly turned my face to her.
“Were you snogging him?” she snapped, eyes narrow, which was their default state where I was concerned. “I could throttle that boy, carrying on with the Sofa Queen in public. You’d best hope you’re not the ruin of him.”