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Like Christopher, he commanded the clay with effortless grace and was already well on his way to a cylinder. His big hands looked as though they should have been heavy, incompetent, but instead, his fingers drifted nimbly over his work, biceps flexing as he leaned closer to the wheel with his thick thighs parted at either side.

Something tight coiled in Juniper’s core, unexpected and completely unwelcome. She pressed her own thighs together, squirming on her stool to try to encourage the feeling away. She didn’t. The clay caked his skin, spattering his veiny forearms,where more dark hair reminded her that he wasn’t that boy from school anymore. He was a man, sturdy and confident and—

Looking at her. He was looking at her, looking at him. She raked her focus quickly back to her clay, the wheel shuddering as a result of her unsteady feet.

‘Enjoying the view?’ he remarked, voice rough with knowing.

The sound sunk right through her, vibrations gathering in the same place that already throbbed. ‘You have clay in your hair. It’s gross.’

It wasn’t a lie. Those with long hair, like the woman two rows in who had introduced herself as Nomi over lunch, had tied it up to avoid mess, and while Aiden’s didn’t quite reach his shoulders, he dipped close enough to the wheel for it to splatter. She pulled the spare lavender-coloured scrunchie from her bag and pinged it at his face like a slingshot.

He caught it with a smirk, but then raked his dirty fingers through his waves just to irk her even more, which it did. The scrunchie ended up on his wrist, and she lamented at the fact she might never get it back. He didn’t deserve her scrunchies.

‘Maybe you should focus on your own work,’ he said. ‘A little erotic, don’t you think?’

She frowned, and then realised she hadn’t made a cylinder at all, but rather something much thinner and taller. Something much, much more phallic.

‘Very mature,’ she grumbled.

Aiden cleared the laugh from his throat and went back to his perfect little vase, but, to her surprise, tied his hair up in a way that should have looked ridiculous yet didn’t.Only the back was long enough to stay put, wisps escaping to frame his jaw.

Juniper allowed herself a final moment to watch – hatefully, of course – then worked desperately to fix her phallic vase, using water to better mould the clay and trying to remember Christopher’s advice.Soft touch. Keep your hands connected.

‘I did it!’ she announced finally, perhaps a little too loudly, but was too excited to care.

Everybody looked at her as she lifted her arms up in triumph… and slumped them back down again, perfectly mirroring her vase’s untimely collapse. It was painful to watch the slow fold of her cylinder, clay becoming curved and distorted as it fell in on itself.

‘I didn’t do it,’ she whispered.

And while she tried to hold back tears, Aiden laughed. So did the rest of the class, but it was his that hurt most. Always his.

5

Aiden felt just a sliver of guilt when Juniper dashed out of the classroom as soon as they were dismissed. He didn’t get it. She wasn’t the first person to screw up throwing. His first attempt had resembled a wonky version of the Gherkin skyscraper, but the people in his class had laughed – with him, not at him. That was the point, wasn’t it?

He’d spent all day subjected to her anger, and as he threw his apron into his bag and tugged on his jacket, he wondered just what he’d done to deserve all this bullshit.

Fuck this. He bounded after her without saying goodbye to Luc, glad to find her in the lift at the bottom of the corridor.

‘Hold it a minute,’ he demanded, and then rolled his eyes when she pressed theclosebutton. The doors sliced over her dejected form, leaving a dull pang inside him.

Double fuck this.She couldn’t treat him like that in class and then ignore him altogether outside of it.

She would talk to him. He would make sure of it.

He rushed to the stairwell and skipped down the spiral steps two at a time, coming out in the building’s entranceway just in time to see her step outside.

Gritting his teeth, he followed, the warm humidity of late summer leaving a light sheen of sweat on his face as he jogged over, stopping her in her path.

She tutted, making to turn around, but his fingers looped around her wrist to keep her there. He let go quickly, palms smarting against the contact. Other than when she’d trodden on his toes, it might have been the first time he’d ever really touched her. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did, somehow.

‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on?’ he asked, breathless.

‘Why can’t you just leave me alone?’ Juniper tilted her face stubbornly, but her glare wasn’t quite as fierce anymore. Her mascara was smudged, eyes watery and dark as ink. She’d smeared clay on her cheek, and her hair was falling out of its ponytail to curl around her oval face. He resisted the urge to fix both problems, knowing that even if she’d let him touch her, she was better off left messy.

‘I could ask you the same thing. I don’t get what’s happening here!’

She scoffed. ‘Nothingis happening here. I just didn’t come all the way to London to share a classroom with the same moron I did in high school, okay?’