Page 8 of Kiln Me Softly

Juniper massaged her temples, her muscles turning rigid when Aiden spun on his stool to face her.

She’d spent the last hour of class trying to morph reality into something she could handle with the powers of her mind, and when that hadn’t worked, she unlocked her phone under the table and Googled how to build that time machine Tilly had mentioned.

Since she’d failed horribly at trying to build a simple bowl on the throwing wheel, again , quantum physics wasn’t exactly much help either.

Which meant that she was stuck with Aiden.

‘So,’ he began as she used a cloth to wipe the clay off her hands.

Her knuckles and her biceps were aching.

Meanwhile, Aiden had made the work look easy as ever.

His perfectly sculpted bowl was currently in the drying room, ready for the kiln on Monday.

A place Juniper hadn’t yet needed to visit.

All of her clay ended up back in its bag to be dried out and reused by somebody who was probably more capable than her.

‘So,’ she repeated flatly, and hoped he sensed the warning in it. It was half don’t fuck me around for the sake of my own sanity , and half please don’t let me fail this bloody module .

‘Jupiter,’ he said with a straight face.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Alex.’

His lips twitched. She tried not to let hers do the same.

This wasn’t funny. It was tragic – and just plain cruel of the universe, or the Bowl of Doom, or Christopher.

Whoever had done this had a sick sense of humour.

Talented or not, there was no way in hell she could rely on Aiden Whittaker to get her a decent grade.

He would probably laze about, leave all the hard bits to her because he’d never had to work for a single thing in his life.

Or maybe he’d sabotage her just to piss her off, bribe Christopher to give him a decent grade and leave her at the bottom of the class.

She wouldn’t put any of it past him. He’d already proven himself to be sly and immoral, good at taking things he didn’t deserve.

And she was the only one who saw it, the only one who knew just what he’d done to get into Elmington.

‘We should set a few dates each week to meet up,’ he decided finally, his hands inching a little too close to hers on the desk.

Clay caked his fingernails and clung to the hairs on his forearms, but what she really noticed was how big his hands were compared to her stubby little fingers.

Always at an advantage, right down to his biology.

‘I have a gap between lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.’ Spending them with him was the last thing she wanted, and her stiff voice conveyed it.

Sitting behind him was bad enough. Now, she would have to work with him.

Marry their ideas. She was certain that their ideas were completely un marriable, or at least destined for divorce.

Aiden pulled out his phone and unlocked it with a quick tap, his schedule lighting the screen and turning his face silver.

It made his eyes greener, features harsher, and she marvelled at the unfairness of it all.

To think someone so entitled could be so good-looking.

Yet another thing she would have to take up with the universe.

‘Hm. What time?’ he asked. ‘I have seminars from two.’

‘That won’t work then.’

‘How about evenings?’

‘I’m working.’

‘ Every evening?’ His brows lifted, and she gritted her teeth.

‘Yes, Aiden, every evening. Some of us need money.’

The muscle in his jaw feathered, but he went back to his schedule. ‘Monday mornings?’

Juniper hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to start her week with him , but she did have some free time before lunch.

She sighed. ‘Fine. How’s ten?’

‘Perfect.’ She almost laughed at that word. Almost. ‘We can meet at the library.’ He locked his phone with a terse flick of his thumb, sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘We should get started as soon as possible, really. Are you free now to grab a coffee and brainstorm some ideas?’

Juniper looked at the clock above the workshop’s threshold.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a single thing she could be doing.

That, and he was right, as much as it pained her.

She needed this project to work. She needed everything to work.

Since she wasn’t known for her ability to meet deadlines, she’d need all the time she could get.

‘Fine.’ She grabbed her bag. ‘Let’s go.’

She felt a little less vulnerable as they stepped into the campus café: it was a crowded, neutral spot beside the library rather than the place where everything she’d ever wanted in life balanced precariously on a workbench.

She stopped in front of the counter and wondered when coffee had gotten so expensive.

Her successful trial at Caffé Verde had proved that some people were willing to pay double digits for a cappuccino, but she’d expected as much on Regent Street.

Weren’t people here supposed to be struggling students, or was she the only charity case at RACA?

‘You can put the purse away, Hodge. It’s on me.

’ Aiden nudged her hand away from her backpack, skin pink and rough from throwing.

She jolted away immediately, but a traitorous current of electricity still shot up her arm.

She told herself it was more of that abject hatred, though it wasn’t unpleasant so much as disarming.

‘No, it really isn’t.’ The thought of him paying for anything of hers made her want to gag. The last thing she needed was to owe him, even if a few quid meant nothing to him. It meant enough to her. If they were going to do this, they’d do it on equal footing – if that was even possible.

Before he could protest, she walked up to the counter and ordered a cold brew, which probably wasn’t wise given all the caffeine and sugar, but she needed something energising to get her through this.

She heard Aiden ask for a latte beside her and was surprised he didn’t request something fancier, like truffle syrup or those extortionate beans pooped out by Asian palm civets.

Once her drink was ready, she didn’t bother to wait for him, heading over to a table by the tall window so that she at least had something other than him to look at.

It was a grey day outside, like most in the UK, with only a few patches of blue breaking through the overcast sky.

Still, it was warm enough that a few students congregated around Mags’ statue, with more overcrowding benches or socialising on the steps of the gallery across the square.

If she was alone, she might have taken a moment to really drink in her surroundings, to appreciate them.

She’d longed to be one of those students lazing on the grass between classes, and now she could be.

But when Aiden sat opposite, chair dragging across mosaic tiles with a deafening screech, it was hard to appreciate anything at all. She sipped her iced coffee from an already soggy paper straw and waited for him to start.

‘Any ideas on what themes you’d cover?’ he asked, peeling off his khaki jacket, which brought out the green of his eyes to an obnoxious degree. Was it her, or did pretty-eyed people open their eyes a bit wider just to brag?

Not that anything about him was pretty.

With his muscular bare arms back on show in his white tee, it was all that much harder to concentrate.

Still, she perked up as her brain stuttered back into action.

One thing Aiden couldn’t ruin was her creativity, and she’d been preparing project ideas for months.

It was a shame some of them would be wasted on him , but hopefully she’d be able to cross the themes over into other modules.

‘Well, actually, yes. I’d like to explore mythology. ’

‘Right. Yeah. I remember you always liked history and all that stuff.’

The ice in Juniper’s drink rattled against the cup, proof of her shock.

He remembered her that well? She’d always thought him to be more interested in his dim-witted mates or that black sketchbook he’d carried around with him everywhere.

‘You did, too, from what I recall. Probably because you sat right behind me, which meant you were always kicking my chair or making fun of my hair.’

He pinched his chin with a pensive tilt of his head. ‘That doesn’t sound like me.’

She rolled her eyes. He really did love pissing her off. Always had. Just as she was about to say as much, he continued, ‘Besides, I liked your hair. Still do.’

She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or throw her coffee in his face.

Aiden Whittaker was giving her a compliment, which meant something terrible must have been happening.

Maybe she’d hopped dimensions, or he’d been cloned.

More likely was that he was messing with her, but when she searched his face, she saw no taunts.

His sincerity was somehow far worse than the alternative, so she decided to ignore it entirely, sweeping her hair back and returning to the matter at hand. ‘Anyway. Mythology. I’d like to focus specifically on creatures and monsters. The chimera and the Midgard serpent spring to mind.’

‘Sounds good.’ Aiden nodded, and then frowned. ‘What are those?’

She bit back a smug grin. Finally, she knew something he didn’t. ‘The chimera is a hybrid that’s part-lion, goat, and snake. She terrorised men in Greek mythology, a hobby I greatly respect.’

‘Colour me shocked.’

She waited for him to mock her for the excitement she couldn’t contain whenever she spoke about her interests, but it never came. Maybe he was saving it for later, getting to know more so he could really pack a punch.

She didn’t particularly want to ask about his ideas, but when silence blanketed the table, broken only by tentative sips of coffee, she grew restless. ‘And you? What grand ideas do you have?’