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She supposed it meant that Aiden was who he’d always been: perfectly infuriating and better avoided.

If only Juniper was good at following her own instincts.

17

It came as no surprise to Aiden when the group was left waiting for Juniper outside the British Museum. He’d considered picking her up from Caffé Verde himself, just to make sure she arrived in one piece, but after her reaction to his accidental show of… well, infatuation, the other day, thought it better not to. One wrong move was sure to send her running once and for all.

He didn’t get it, though. They got along, no matter what she said. Their chemistry was off the charts, and the sex was like nothing he’d experienced before. What was it about him that made her want to keep him at arm’s length? Why did he spend his days waiting for her to shove him away?

‘Typical Juniper,’ Tilly said when the silence got a bit too awkward. Beside her, Owen shifted from foot to foot, laces loose on his Adidas trainers. No wonder Tilly had needed a buffer. As nice as he seemed, conversation was stilted, awkward, and his attempts at humour often fell flat.

Now, Owen brightened, pushing his glasses up the crooked bridge of his nose. ‘Did you know that, in ancient times, Juniper branches were used to ward off evil spirits?’

Aiden chuckled, slipping his hands into his coat pockets. An autumn chill had crept over London this week, though Tilly seemed not to feel it in her crocheted mustard vest.

‘Something funny, Aiden?’ asked Tilly, a challenge in her inky eyes.

‘Well, I just thought it was ironic. Juniper seems to carry some traits of evil spirits herself.’ Her hot-headedness was just one of them. Maybe he could do with something to ward her off – but he’d never want to, even if he was tiptoeing a steady descent into madness.

‘Oi! I heard that!’ a voice bellowed behind them. He turned to find Juniper hopping up the steps two at a time, her hair twisted into a messy braid that draped over one shoulder. She looked as she always did after a shift at the cafe: drained.

He could remedy that later, he was sure. A pattern had begun to emerge this week: the worse her time at work was, the hungrier she was for him. He was her distraction, a fact he might have had a problem with if she wasn’t also his.

‘Juniper, my dear,’ Tilly said, checking the time on her phone, ‘I love you and all of your terrible time-keeping skills, but the exhibition closes in two hours, so can we get a shifty on?’

‘Sorry. Gianna was teaching me how to clean the coffee machine. Again.’ She puffed out her cheeks as she reached them. At his side, Aiden’s fingers flickered with the urge to brush the matted fringe from her eyes, then kiss her until she was capable of smiling again. ‘Hi, Owen.’

Owen seemed pleased by her attention. ‘Hello, Juniper.’

‘No hello for me?’ Aiden teased.

‘Nope. Shall we go in, then?’

Tilly linked her arm through Juniper’s and tapped the round peak of her nose. ‘Less of the flirting, please. You’re beginning to make me jealous.’

Falling into step beside Aiden, Owen frowned. ‘Wasn’t that the direct opposite of flirting, or am I just out of practice?’

‘Oh, Owen.’ Tilly patted his sandy hair, flattening the already fine strands. ‘You have much to learn about these two.’

‘She’s in love with me, secretly,’ Aiden supplied, coolly turning up the collar of his shirt. ‘Her dislike for me is all an act.’

He’d been hoping for a reaction, and it was what he got. She turned around to send out a harmless kick to his shin. ‘In your dreams, Whittaker.’

‘That’s right.’ He winked. ‘How did you know?’

It wasn’t a lie. The thought of her found him at all hours of the day, whether it was in the darkness of his bedroom at night or when he was scribbling into his sketchbook on the tube. It was aggravating. Worse because he’d been trying to find some inspiration to paint again, but his brain was too full of her to fit in much else. They’d been getting more than just pottery done during their study sessions and after-hours workshops, too, though thankfully, it hadn’t impacted their progress. Their first amphora was almost done, and they only had a few more paragraphs to write for their research paper.

Juniper’s heatless scoff carried into the museum. The interior was exactly as he remembered: echoey, vast, the white stone walls cold and uninviting.It had once been his favourite place to visit with his father when they travelled to London. Now, it was just another reminder of where he should have been. All the goals he’d abandoned, the people he’d disappointed.

He couldn’t bring himself to regret causing those disappointments by dropping out of Elmington, not when Juniper’s elbow brushed his as they stopped to look at the Myths and Legends Exhibition poster, which displayed an oil painting of a centaur. The details of light and shadow, colour values and varied brushstrokes, pulled him just as it always did, the beauty not lost on him. It must have taken months, if not years, of patience for the artist to pull together the bend of tawny fur against brown skin, not to mention the effeminate facial features that broke traditional expectations.

‘I could spend days in this place,’ Tilly confessed. ‘Y’know, I never used to see people like me in paintings growing up. This… This is special.’

Juniper squeezed her hand in silent support, and Aiden’s chest grew a little fuller. He hadn’t had reason to think about it before, how few people of colour were framed on the walls of museums like this, but now it was impossible to ignore. He couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to never see parts of himself in a place that supposedly existed to immerse people in culture.

‘Did you know that this was the first public museum in Britain?’ Owen rattled off, fiddling with a button on his shirt. ‘It’s been here since 1753.’

Juniper frowned at him, much the same way Aiden had when he’d first realised that Owen had a habit of listing a lot of facts.As interesting as it was, it was a stark change in subject, as though he was trying to gloss over Tilly’s point.