How to train your rival - Part 2
Within ten minutes Stephen had sent me a message. What
the hell? You drag me into this mess and
then run off? When are you available to
meet and discuss our presentation?
I smiled. He’s such a
brat. I replied. I can
catch up at 4pm. Should we meet in one
of the study rooms?
His response was instant.
I’ve booked room 3. See you at 4.
I spent the next couple of hours planning ways to torture
him with glee. This of course in no way
prepared me to find him talking to a girl when I arrived. I was momentarily taken aback. He didn’t shy away. He wasn’t blushing. He was talking confidently. He even smiled in a charming way. The whole thing irked me.
I walked up behind him and straight into the conversation,
“Stephen! Partner! I hope you weren’t
waiting long” I clapped him on the back and stood next to him facing the
girl. He instantly shied away from me and
said, “Candice. I didn’t see you
there. This is Sam she’s another law
major. She’s gathering up the other law
majors at Burgmann for dinner tonight.”
I smiled brightly at Sam who was looking like she’d swallowed a bug and
said, “Hey that’s great. I’m a law major
too. Can I come along?” She looked at me like a deer caught in
headlights and mumbled, “Sure. We’re
meeting at 6pm.” I sniggered internally
and said, “Awesome.” Turning to Stephen
I said, “How long do we have the meeting room for?” He checked his phone and said, “Another
twenty eight minutes.” I grabbed his arm
and said to Sam, “We’d better get going.
See you tonight!”
Stephen let me drag him into the meeting room and then
turned and closed the door. I sat down
and got out my notes and notepad to start planning out the assignment. When I was finished I noticed that he was
doing the same. I decided to wait for
him to finish so simply stared. His
serious brown eyes were focusing on the task but some of his hair which was
just a little bit too long was getting in his eyes. I resisted the urge to brush it back.
When he was finished he looked up at me with daggers in his
eyes. “Are you done?” He asked tersely. I decided not to rise to the bait and headed
straight into the task at hand. “Out of
the questions posed I think number three would be easiest to set up as a
situation and argue positively for the law.”
All business he re-read the question again and said, “I agree. No point in making additional work for
ourselves. This one will probably give
us the best marks.”
I smiled to myself and sat in silence for a moment. He looked up when I didn’t immediately reply
and gave me a derisive look, “What are you smiling to yourself about?” he
asked. I leaned forward with a cheeky
expression and said, “I was just taken aback for a moment. I do believe that’s the first time we’ve ever
agreed on anything.” He slammed his
pencil down and exclaimed, “Do you have to make a snide mark about
everything?” I leaned back again in my
chair and replied, “No I don’t but you’re special.” He blushed slightly, looked down at his notes
and said, “I think if you work on constructing the contractual example I will
work on noting down the points of law and getting references. That’s fine right? You’re good at that sort of thing.” I said, “That sounds fine.”
However when he’d looked back down at his notes again his
hair had fallen back in front of his eyes and this time I couldn’t help
myself. I reached over and gently pushed
his hair out of his face. He jerked back
violently and looked at me in shock. He
stood up with his head down.
“Hey.” I said, “What’s with that reaction. One could almost think you like me.”
His head jerked up and the words exploded from his mouth,
“Of course I like you. I’ve liked you
for six years. Ever since I found out
you had a boyfriend I’ve tried to suppress it but everything you do just makes
it worse! You’re pretty. You’re smart.
You’re confident and arrogant.
You’re so cheeky sometimes that it just makes me want to attack you but
I’m not that kind of guy! Just do you
part of the assignment and I’ll meet up after I’ve had a chance to cool
down.” He quickly shoved all his gear in
his bag and stormed out.
Credit to Umezawa Marina from the manga Kedamonozakari, Koizakari |
I sat in shocked silence.
He’s liked me for six years? I
could feel the heat in my cheeks and knew I had turned red as a beetroot. Thank god he’d gone already but why did he
think I had a boyfriend? How would he
even find something like that out? It’s
not like he saw each other with any sort of frequency back home. I glanced at the clock on the wall. I had about an hour and a half till I
hopefully saw him at dinner.
When it was finally time for dinner I got stuck talking to
one of the seniors so arrived about ten minutes late. Stephen was there and was sitting next to
Sam. The only seat nearby was diagonally
across so I grabbed my plate and sat down.
Stephen stubbornly refused to acknowledge my presence even though I knew
he’d noticed so I went about introducing myself to the other law grads. The girl next to me, Clare, was talking about
how different uni life was when her phone buzzed.
She checked it quickly and looked dejected so I asked, “Are
you ok? Is something wrong?” She sighed and explained, “My boyfriend has
just started his electrician’s apprenticeship.
We were supposed to meet up after his work today but apparently the site
is really remote.” I leaned over and
trying to make her feel better said, “Just because you can’t meet up all the
time doesn’t mean he doesn’t want too.
Not that I can talk really. I
have zero experience in the field of love.
I went to high-school in this really cloistered all girls school.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see
Stephen stiffen. So I continued, “We
were so desperate and dateless we used to make up these stories about a fake
boyfriend called Mr Imagination. We’d
describe the dates we’d go on. It was so
lame.”
At this point I had Stephens’s full attention and with an
outraged and shocked expression he said, “That is the stupidest thing I have
ever heard!” I laughed, put on my best
evil smile and replied, “Well what did they do at the cloistered all boys
school you attended? Fall in love with
girls they barely know and then don’t talk or make a single move on them in six
years?” His eyes narrowed at my highly accurate shot across the bows. Then he looked me straight in the eye and put
on that smug self satisfied smile that I knew so well. He leaned forward and said, “What makes you
think that if I knew a girl was available I wouldn’t make a move?”
It was the first time he shot back and it floored me. The blush warmed my cheeks and I was
literally frozen in place for a minute. Internally
I was frantically trying to adjust my world view. He’s not awkward with women at all. I’ve been playing around all this time on the
assumption that I’d finally found his weakness but now the tables have
turned. I felt like prey.
Next to me Clare burst into laughter and said, “You guys are
hilarious. Like an old married
couple. Thanks for cheering me up.” Stephen smoothly stepped in and said, “Well
our rivalry has been long and hard fought.”
In my frozen state I realised that Sam across the table was staring
daggers at me. Oh god. Not only was I now prey to a genius I was
also hated by a fellow undergrad because of it.
My life suddenly and unexpectedly got more complicated than I was
prepared for.
With considerable mental effort I rallied and said,
“Hopefully this time with our powers combined we can get a kick ass mark on our
contract law assignment.” Across the
table from me the guy sitting next to Stephen groaned. “Can we make a rule about no shop talk at
dinner?” he asked. I’d completely
forgotten his name after being introduced fifteen minutes ago and replied,
“Ok. What would you like to talk
about?” He looked thoughtful and said,
“Surely we have more in common than our degree.
What do you guys do for fun?” Oh
that’s right his name was Matt.
Having moved the conversation along from my now dangerous
love life I spent the dinner resolutely trying to avoid Stephens gaze. Stephen spent the rest of the dinner
deliberately trying to bait me. He
slipped concepts from debates in the past into the conversations. Matt started going on about this new game
he’d been playing called “Breath of the Wild” and Stephen commented that his
favourite part was finding particularly wild mounts and bringing them to
heel. At that point I looked up from the
conversation I was having with Clare in alarm only to have Stephen grin evilly
at me. Determined I dove back into my
Bibliophile conversation with Clare and resolutely blocked out every other
thing he said. I refuse to let him lead
me round.
By this point I had long finished my dinner and when Clare
offered to lend me a book I accepted with relief. If I went up to her room to get it with her
Stephen would have no chance to ambush me.
I put away our trays whilst Clare collected up her stuff. When I returned to the table Clare was
staring at her phone. When she looked up
she said, “I’m so sorry Candice my boyfriend managed to get back early and
wants to catch up. I can’t go with you
to get the book.” I looked around
frantically and when I didn’t see Stephen anywhere with relief I said, “It’s
alright. I’ll just get it off you
tomorrow.” I waved to the rest of the
table and said, “See you later. It was
great meeting you all.”
I fished out my phone and started checking my messages
whilst walking back to my room. As I
walked past the vending machines I heard a very familiar voice behind me. “You know I have that entire series back in
my room if you want to borrow it.” It
was Stephen. He scared the living
daylights out of me and I jumped a practical mile. I’m afraid I also let out a pathetically
girly squeal and dropped my phone. He
knelt down, picked up my phone and handed it back to me chuckling. “I get why you did that last time now.” He mused, “It was pretty entertaining.”
He was looking straight at me and I felt a distinct
tightening in my chest. If I’m not
careful I’m going to lose this one and Candice Holl does not lose but running
away at this point is not an option. The
best defence is an attack so I met his gaze with determination and said,
“Sure. Know that I will take note of all
the nude girls you’ve hung on your sheltered choir boy walls as evidence to use
on a later date.” He walked past
motioning me forward and replied, “A date?
How bold of you.”
I blushed thankful that he was facing the other way and
followed him to the elevators. After I
regained my composure I replied, “You know very well that is not what I meant
but if you really wanted a date you could just ask.” We stepped inside the elevator and in the
close confines I became hypersensitive to the fact that he was standing so
close. He stepped even closer and took
hold of my hand and said, “Well now that I know you’re single I’d rather just
get straight to the point. Go out with
me.” I paused at the direct attack and
stuttered, “But I barely know you. I
mean I’ve known of you for six years but the first words we ever said to each
other were a little over a week ago.” He
was so close I started to think he was going to lean down and kiss me. He lifted his head up and said, “You know
going out with someone is a great way to get to know them.”
At that moment the elevator doors slid open. He took a firm hold of my hand and pulled me
out of the elevator through the group waiting to get on. I thought he’d let go of my hand the moment
we were through but he kept holding on as we walked swiftly down the
corridor. I silently allowed myself to
get pulled along. Even though he’d
turned everything I knew about him upside down today I did still want to know
more. I’d only responded that way out of
surprise. I needed to turn this around
to my advantage.
We reached his room and he let go of my hand to unlock it in
silence. His face was serious and he
walked in without looking back at me. My
insides clenched in fear that I may have missed my chance so I stepped through
behind him whilst he ruffled through one of the boxes and closed the door. He came up with the book and walked over
holding it out to me. His head was down
and his face was hidden behind his hair again.
He started to say, “You can borrow it for as long as you like. I don’t really...” As I reached up and
brushed his hair out of his eyes he stopped and looked at me in surprise.
The best defence is an attack and I knew I was going to lose
this battle so I took his face in my hand, stood on my tip toes and kissed
him. I was mildly chuffed that he was
indeed shocked for a moment but in the next he wrapped his arms around me and
kissed me back. I could almost feel the
six years of his longing transmit through that kiss. It was so powerful that when we came up for
air it left me breathless.
“I’ve decided I want to know more.” I breathed between
puffs.
He smiled down at me smugly and said, “Well I am a
fascinating subject.”
I rolled my eyes smiling and said, “Oh shut up.” Before
pulling him back down into a kiss again.
Credit to burdge at https://burdge.deviantart.com |
Comments
Post a Comment