The It Girl(25)

The first time Hannah had woken to find Will sitting alone in the set, he’d jumped like a guilty person, caught doing something he should be ashamed of.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said quickly. He stood up, crossing his arms over his bare chest. He was wearing nothing but jeans, and she had to force her eyes up, away from his lean, muscled body and the fine ribbon of dark hair that arrowed to his belt buckle. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t think you’d be up yet—I didn’t want to wake April. I’ll go—”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Hannah said. She focused on a point just past Will’s right ear. “You don’t need to go. Finish your coffee.”

“Are you sure?” He looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t want to take the piss—I mean, this is your room. I don’t know how I’d feel about a stranger hanging around uninvited.”

Hannah found herself laughing at that in spite of herself, and for the first time she found herself able to look Will in the eye, sympathetic to his awkwardness.

“Will, first, you’re hardly a stranger. And second, you’re not uninvited. April invited you.”

“But you didn’t,” he pointed out.

She smiled.

“Okay. I invite you, Will de Chastaigne. Is that better?”

“Okay,” he said, and then his face broke into a grin. “Vampire rules, you know. I’m over the threshold now, you can’t get me out.”

“Don’t suck my blood,” she said lightly.

There was a moment’s charged pause, then Will coughed, breaking the tension.

“Still, I’d better get a shirt on. Pretty sure vampire rules don’t entitle me to lounge around half-naked.”

“Don’t worry,” Hannah said. “I was heading out for a run anyway. I like to go in the morning, before the river path gets too busy.”

“Sounds nice,” Will said. And then he smiled, and Hannah realized that she wasn’t having to force her gaze away from his chest, because her eyes were locked on his face, on the way the lines at the corners of his mouth crinkled, on his crooked nose and the shape of his lips. “I’ll probably be gone by the time you get back,” he added, and she nodded and made herself look away.

“Sure.” Her voice sounded croaky in her own ears. “See you later, then. Maybe at breakfast?”

“Maybe at breakfast,” he echoed. And she laced up her trainers and left, taking the four flights at a run.

But he wasn’t gone when she came back. Not completely at least. He was gone from the living room—an empty coffee cup the only sign of his presence. But as she opened the door to the set, the sound that greeted her from behind April’s door was the unmistakable one of two people having sex.

Hannah found herself wincing as she tiptoed across the living room to her own door. Once safely inside her bedroom she shut the door and turned on the radio, a notch louder than necessary.

She had been planning to take a ten-second shower, then work on an essay in her room. Instead she showered, left her towel hanging on a peg in the communal bathroom, and went straight down to breakfast with wet hair and scrubbed face.

But to her surprise, when she walked through the door to the Hall, Will was there, eating a full English.

He saw her as she came in and waved a fork.

“Hannah! Over here!”

He had nearly finished, she saw, and as she moved across to him, frowning and trying to figure out how he had gotten down here so fast, let alone finished the best part of eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, and beans, he swallowed a mouthful and spoke.

“Could I be cheeky and get you to grab me another coffee if you’re going up?” He held out his empty cup.

Hannah took it, feeling slightly dazed.

“Um… sure.”

She had turned half away from the table when she remembered something and turned back.

“Sorry, how do you take it again? I should know but—”

“Black, no sugar. Thanks.”

Hannah nodded and moved away to join the queue at the hatch, but she could not shake the feeling of unease as she stood there, Will’s still-warm cup in her hand, waiting to be served.

Had she been in the shower longer than she thought? Or…

But no. That was ridiculous. Will was… well, if not April’s boyfriend, at least a significant fixture in her life—and she had seen him going into April’s room herself that very morning. She had made a mistake, that was all. Just a silly mistake.





AFTER


In the restaurant, Hannah looks at her phone again, gnawing at a breadstick. Wednesday night is date night—it always has been, virtually since she and Will moved in together, when they realized that between book events for Hannah and accountancy exams for Will, they needed to carve out time for each other. For the first few years it was nothing fancy—fish and chips on summer evenings in Prince’s Street Gardens, the castle glowing red-gold in the sunset and the hills shining in the distance. Popcorn and a movie at the Edinburgh Filmhouse, then McDonald’s on the way home. Lately, as Will has moved up the ranks at Carter and Price, the restaurants have become nicer—and tonight’s is one of their favorites, a cozy little Italian place tucked along one of the winding medieval lanes leading down from the Grassmarket, not far from Tall Tales.