Page 23 of Kiln Me Softly

Aiden’s interest in art could never measure up to Juniper’s love of mythology.

She led them around the space as confidently as a tour guide, pointing out the figures in every painting, tapestry, and ceramic piece.

Most of it went over Aiden’s head, not because he wasn’t interested, but because it was difficult to focus on anything but the brightness in her eyes, the movement of her lips, and that snaking anxiety just beneath his surface.

For a moment, he wondered if he would fall short for this project. If the burden of his complex relationship with art would mean letting her down.

Stop . He mentally batted the thought away. He wasn’t doing himself any favours, but it was difficult not to get trapped in the cycle of terrible thoughts once it had begun.

He was glad when Tilly and Owen went to check one of the other exhibits downstairs. Finally, it was just the two of them, and that meant he was safe from more questions, more reminders, of his dad.

After scrutinising a Grecian urn, trying to memorise the curves and rim so he might throw something similar for their project, he joined her at a painting that depicted demons and monsters of Japanese myth. ‘Feeling inspired?’

She nodded without taking her eyes off the work. ‘Very. You?’

He nodded without taking his eyes off her. ‘Yeah, me too.’

He hadn’t felt the urge to reach for a paintbrush in months, but with her side profile bathed in gold from the lights above, he could imagine some of the strokes he might make in whites and yellows, dissolving into coppers and browns where wispy strands of hair fell out of its braid.

None of them would have been enough to capture her the way he’d like, but he’d give it his best shot.

And then he realised that he wasn’t supposed to have those feelings for her. No wonder he’d had that burst of anxiety earlier. He was all over the place, letting himself care for a woman who clearly didn’t want to care about him.

Just sex. That’s what it was supposed to be.

And yet he didn’t think it was. Not for him.

‘I was thinking for our amphora, we could have Medusa and her snakes coiled around the base,’ she said. ‘I know she’s one of the more common mythological figures, but I sort of love her. And I think it would mean playing about with different textures for the scales and stone.’

‘Sounds like a great idea to me.’ It was only then, with his chest free of pressure, that he realised something. ‘You know, what I said the other day about wanting you all to myself? It was only partly true.’

She tipped her head: finally, he had interested her enough to get her attention.

No mean feat in the middle of a gallery piled with things she loved.

‘I do think that the more people are around you, the more guarded you are,’ he continued.

‘But I also think the same is true of me, and that’s the real reason I wanted it to be just us. ’

At first, he wondered if she’d heard him at all. She barely moved, barely blinked. And then she groaned. ‘ Aiden .’

‘What? What have I said wrong now?’ He lifted his hands in a combination of surrender and exasperation.

‘ Everything .’ She crossed her arms defiantly. ‘You can’t say something like that to me.’

‘Why? It’s true.’ And she made him want to be truthful, even if it made him vulnerable.

He wanted her to see that he wasn’t just the cocky twatface he’d been in school, or the arsehole who was only good for sex.

If that meant he was breaking their rules, so be it.

But if she was going to hate him, she would have to hate all of him, and that meant knowing all of him first.

‘Yeah, but you’re not supposed to make me want to like you.’

His wide grin made his cheeks ache. ‘So you are warming to me. Interesting. Very interesting.’

‘I never said that.’ She shook her head, moving to the next display: a set of animal head brooches from the Viking age.

‘Sounded like that’s what you said.’ He rocked into her playfully, glad when he received a smile. A real one, unbridled and without any animosity.

‘Wishful thinking again. You’re just full of it, aren’t you?’

Before he could retort, he heard his name uttered behind him. When he turned, dread shrouded him from all sides. The woman approaching in a neat black shirt and pencil skirt was familiar, though he hadn’t thought of her for a long time.

‘Well, what a pleasant surprise to see you here!’ Sonya said with a bright, red-lipped smile. ‘Is this a friend of yours? Girlfriend?’

‘Just friend,’ Juniper blurted at the same time Aiden introduced her stiffly: ‘Juniper.’ He was so dazed that he hadn’t even thought to correct Sonya. Hadn’t thought anything of the word at all. ‘Good to see you, Sonya.’

‘Are you enjoying the exhibition?’ She huddled between the two of them as though just another visitor rather than one of the most talented curators in the museum.

Juniper clearly had no idea who she was, shuffling for some space with her lips pressed into a flat line.

‘It’s wonderful. Juniper is very passionate about mythology, so we couldn’t miss it.’ He didn’t know where he was plucking the words from, body and mind stuck on autopilot. He had to be the old Aiden now, the impressive one who had plenty to say.

‘That’s great!’ Sonya clasped her manicured hands in front of her. ‘And how is your father doing at the moment? Well, I hope.’

‘I believe so, yeah.’ Aiden tensed, suffocated again. Everyone spoke as though he only had a right to be here because of his father. Like, without him, he served no purpose.

Everyone except Juniper.

‘Good. We must admit, we were disappointed when you turned down the internship with us.’ Sonya rubbed his shoulder gently. ‘Will you be applying again this year? The deadline is soon!’

Ice pooled into his veins when he saw Juniper’s reaction to her words: disbelief, quickly dissolving into disgust. He’d hoped she wouldn’t bring it up, but of course he couldn’t be so lucky. Of course his past was still there, waiting with jaws as sharp as the hellhound framed in front of him.

‘Not this year,’ he answered as politely as he could manage – which wasn’t very polite at all, but Sonya didn’t seem to notice.

‘That’s a shame. Just have your father give me a call if you change your mind.’ She patted him once more, and then swayed elegantly from the room with a high-pitched click of her heels.

Juniper’s silence was deafening. He dragged a hand through his knotted hair, finding them shaky again.

‘She works here?’ she asked, her voice dangerously low.

‘Yes. She’s a curator.’

Her nostrils flared. ‘And you just… turned down an internship? For the British fucking Museum?’

‘It was around the same time I dropped out of Elmington,’ he explained, and then realised that it probably didn’t sound any better.

She couldn’t understand, not really. To her, these differences between them were a rift they’d never be able to breach.

He was certain a part of her liked that: that, if she could find no other excuse to hate him, there was this to fall back on.

Little did she know he hated himself for the same reasons.

‘So you really just decided to throw every opportunity away, then,’ she snarled. He looked around, glad to find the crowd thinning as closing time approached. ‘It must be nice, to have the power to turn your nose up at chances like that, knowing another one will always come along.’

‘It wasn’t like that, Juni.’

‘Then what was it like?’ Her voice rose. ‘Do you know how lucky you are to have these things handed to you on a plate?’

He squeezed his eyes closed. She sounded just like his dad. Just like everything he’d come here to avoid. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘God, I’ll never understand you,’ she whispered then. He could barely look at her, barely look at anything. ‘I’m going to find Tilly. I’m ready to go home.’

‘No, don’t,’ he pleaded, but she was already skirting around the ceramics displays to leave. Panic gripped him, and for a moment, he couldn’t move at all. What was the point? He couldn’t tell her the truth.

Could he?

It took him about five seconds to decide that he at least wanted to try. That, if nothing else, it would save their project. He’d worked hard to soften her, to get her to trust him, and he couldn’t bear to go back to the way it had been before.

He hadn’t minded her hating him so much then, but now he knew what it meant to taste her, feel her, be inside of her, tear down her defences. He knew how she sounded when she was on the verge of climax, knew how her voice was so much lighter, quieter, when she felt safe.

He raced to catch up, dragging her away from visitors’ prying eyes with a hand around her arm. She soon fought him, slapping him away. ‘Stop. Just leave me alone, Aiden, for once.’

‘I wasn’t well last year!’ he blurted. He’d never said it out loud, never wanted to, but he’d do anything to stop her from looking at him like that. Like she had that first day of class. Like he wasn’t worth anything to her, and she’d be glad if she never saw him again.

Behind him, an entryway was bathed in darkness.

He used her surprise to his advantage, guiding her inside with his confession still hanging over their heads.

The room held seats and a projector screen for visitors to view videos and documentaries, but the footage had clearly ended, because now all that flashed inside the frame were oil paintings along with soft piano music and the museum’s logo floating from edge to edge.

When she said nothing, he forced himself to continue. ‘I struggled at Elmington. I nearly failed the entire course.’

‘Why?’ Juniper interrogated.

‘Because…’ He trailed off, unable to say the truth even now. Because I had a breakdown.

With the exception of his doctor, nobody knew about it. His dad still thought he was a pathetic, uncommitted dropout who took his support for granted. A spoilt kid who hadn’t lived up to his name. ‘I just did, okay? Like I said, I wasn’t well.’