Page 15 of Love, Academically

He glared at her.

“Or perhaps you’re not a morning person,” she said, turning back to the TV. “Or a person person.”

Watching Lila Cartwright eat toast was not the best use of his time this morning. He should be in work, he should be charting Henry II’s movements, going over his lecture notes, checking his emails. The hangover from corporate business and the urge to always do more was strong.

“What is it, Rhys? What’s going on in that head of yours?” Lila sighed and sat back on the sofa.

“I’m just used to being in work early. It’s stressing me out not being in work early.”

He ran a hand through his hair and wondered if Lila had a spare toothbrush.

“Why didn’t you say it was stressing you out?” She shoved the rest of the toast in her mouth. “I’ll do my best. I can’t guarantee I’ll be as quick as you want, but I’ll try.”

“Lila, you…” He started to say that she didn’t have to, but he changed his mind. “Thank you.”

What a relief. To know she was making an effort was enough. Well, it would help if she was quick, but he couldn’t expect much more from her.

It took her about half an hour before she called for him to bring her crutches.

She was sat on the bottom of the stairs, one flat shoe on, the other foot encased in a fluffy purple sock.

The wide emerald green trousers and equally flashy lime-coloured shirt somehow made her eyes bluer. Her crutches were already in the car.

“Rhys, I can walk,” she protested as he scooped her up, although she didn’t protest very hard, and settled her arms around his neck.

“It’s quicker. You have everything?” Rhys didn’t really care as he bundled her out of the door and into his car.

He settled in the driver’s seat and cranked up the heated seats, because despite the sun shining, it was firmly autumn.

“Too hot?”

“Not as hot as you,” Lila replied and he looked at her, just to check that she was teasing, and she flashed him a smile, before digging in her handbag for something.

Was that an embarrassed pink flush creeping up her neck? Perhaps he should just joke about the whole winding himself around her?

“Because I’m ‘like a radiator’?” He popped a wry smile on his lips.

“Yes, that’s exactly it.” Lila retrieved a lip balm and pulled down the sun visor to apply. “Now, Jeeves. To work please.”

Yes, madam.

“I need to stop at the Sainsbury’s on the way, get some new underwear and a shirt. They’re not brilliant shirts, but they’ll have to do.”

“Oh, yeah, fine.”

He caught her smile out of the corner of his eye. It must be her default setting.

“Yeah, just so people don’t think I spent the night with you.” He glanced at her. “As in, spent the night with you.”

“I get it, Rhys.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant,” she said, her lips in a tight smile.

He was making this worse.

“Lila, you’d be a catch for anyone.”

“Just not you, yeah?”

Lila pulled out her phone and started tapping away on it.

“That’s not—” he started, but she just waved a hand at him.

It was best he shut his mouth. Right now.

Lila

So people wouldn’t think he’d spent the night with her? What did he think she was, some kind of brazen hussy? Well, she had invited him into her bed, but it wasn’t like that. Besides, what was wrong with spending the night with her?

Sure, she wasn’t as attractive as Jasmeet, but she was nice enough. And calling her ‘a catch’? Who even says that? Perhaps a ninety-year-old grandmother in a rocking chair talking about her granddaughter’s first real boyfriend.

But she was obviously not ‘a catch’ for Rhys Aubrey-Dallimore. Why did he even want her as his fake girlfriend if he was so repulsed by the idea of people thinking that he had ‘spent the night’ with her?

Lila scoffed lightly. Maddy couldn’t help, she had too much to do.

She sneaked a look at the man currently looking after her. He was definitely looking harassed.

Lila put her phone back in her handbag. Jasmeet was right.

But no, she wasn’t a perv, and yes, she would definitely erase the image of a shy Rhys Aubrey’s muscular back from her mind.

And she would one hundred percent stop thinking about the warm weight of his arm across her stomach, his soft breath across her collarbone.

“Do you want anything?” Rhys asked, pulling smoothly into a parking space.

“No, thanks.”

She’d have to hope that Sue would take pity on her and get her lunch from the cafe downstairs, so there was no need to bother Rhys ‘spent the night’ Aubrey anymore.

Obviously, her mum had forgotten that she thoroughly disliked milder Christmases. No hot chocolate, no snow, no frosty windows? No, thank you.

Lila spent the next few minutes staring out of the window feeling sorry for herself.

Her ankle wasn’t that sore at the moment (thanks to lovely painkillers), but Jason was there, picking at that locked door in her mind where she kept all the feelings of uselessness, smallness and pathetic-ness.

She really didn’t want to let those out because they were so difficult to put away again.

Rhys had, unknowingly, brought back harsh memories of ‘you won’t find anyone else who loves you for who you are’ with his graceless comment, and the memories of other pinpricks slowly started to deflate the balloon of her self-esteem.

When Rhys reappeared in a crisp, light-blue, short-sleeved shirt that was definitely not his slim fit, long-sleeved style, she plastered on a smile. That was enough meandering around the streets of Put Down Town for one day.

“Hey,” he said, closing the door with a soft click. “I got you these.”

Rhys rummaged in a bright orange Bag for Life and produced a suspiciously cookie-shaped package from the in-store bakery.

“I know they won’t be as good as yours, but I thought…” He trailed off awkwardly, watching her face with confused brown eyes.

Lila accepted the package and the unspoken apology.

“Thanks, Rhys.” She smiled, and this time it reached her eyes.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t ruin it.” She cut him off.

He nodded once and started the silent car. It was actually quite sweet. Rhys was not nearly as inept at reading people as he might think. Well, not her anyway.

They drove in an amicable silence. Rhys parked as close to the pedestrian exit to the car park as possible so she wouldn’t have to hobble so far.

“Give me your car keys. Dan and I will drive your car home on our lunch break.”

He was so bossy.

Lila handed them over dutifully and started what felt like an eighteen-mile trek to the History Department, Rhys falling into step beside her.

“You don’t have to snail it to work with me. I’ve already made you late,” she said, giving him yet another out.

“I can’t very well leave you by yourself, Lila, can I? How would that look?” Rhys retorted, shoving his hands in his pockets, his breath pluming out in the cold air.

Oh. That’s right.

It was all about how he presented himself, not that he actually wanted to walk with her. Graceless wasn’t the word. Possibly maladroit, bungling, oblivious or downright rude.

“Hmm.”

Rhys visibly forced himself to slow down to wait for her on her stupid crutches.

Her bag fell off her shoulder down to her elbow and Rhys hoisted it back up for her.

He brushed her hair carefully over her shoulder, his cold fingers flitting over the skin of her collarbone, so the strap of the bag didn’t rest on it, a crease of concentration between his dark eyebrows. She swallowed.

Should she explain to him that most people didn’t like being treated as a chore, or that his what other people thought was more important that being a decent human being.

Or was his precious reputation going to be tarnished by her glitter if he was seen with her?

How on God’s green earth was he going to have her as his fake girlfriend, if he couldn’t bear to be seen with her?

Perhaps that was it. He’d changed his mind and was being extra hurtful so she would cry off.

Well, that’s not how she worked. She’d made a deal and she intended to hold up her end of the bargain.

Lila pulled her eyes away from the stubble across his jaw.

“I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” He sighed. “I don’t do well with people.”

“That’s not true. You just need to think before you open your big fat mouth.”

Wisely, Rhys did not open his big fat mouth again until they got out of the lift on the second floor of the building that housed the History, Classics and Anthropology departments.

The lift journey was too long, it was all too close and Rhys smelled vaguely of her house, her washing powder, her bedding.

Of her. And Lila didn’t hate it. Not one bit.

“Okay, see you later then,” he said awkwardly. He was a greyhound, desperate to get away from her.

Lila swallowed hard and gave him a smile.

“Go to your office, Rhys. It’s fine.”

With a brisk nod, Rhys was gone and she shuffled to her own office. Plonking herself in her wheelie chair and resting her foot on a pile of folders, she started work for the day and tried not to think of the soft touch of Rhys’s fingers across her collarbone.

Lunch was a meal deal from the cafe downstairs brought by Sue, who was more interested in a potential claim against the University than the fact that she was hurt.

“I think we’ll need to do a risk assessment,” she said.

“For leaves? Sue, it was my own fault.”

Sue shifted on her feet. “And you’re comfortable with Rhys?”

“Yes, it’s fine, Sue,” she said. “We’re friends.”

Or, at least she thought they were something like friends.

Especially after how she had woken up practically pinned to the bed by Rhys’s strong arm pulling her close to him.

She definitely did not stroke his hair and let him sleep until he started to stir, because he must have been shattered.

Besides, she had been snuggly warm with an extra person’s body heat.

A flush crept up her neck, because that practically naked person had been Rhys Aubrey pressed against her and she had felt everything. Everything.

“Okay. Make sure you get TurnitIn sorted for the end of semester undergraduate essay submissions. Oh, and I’m going to need you to produce a PowerPoint for my meeting with the Vice Chair on Friday.

” Sue heaved herself off her desk, snagged a couple of cookies and trudged back to her office and her Solitaire game.

Lila checked the WhatsApp group chat.

Resigned, she clicked online and ordered a taxi to take her home. There was Amanda in Admissions, but she didn’t know her well enough to ask for that kind of favour.

The only other person was Rhys, but she couldn’t ask him.

He’d already done so much for her, and besides, it seemed like he needed a break from ‘people’.

And by ‘people’, he meant her, because he hadn’t been with anyone else.

He’d practically sprinted down the corridor to his office, couldn’t wait to be away from her.

Okay, he could have some leeway because he’d looked after her.

He was full of contradictions; desperate to get away from her, but insisting that he stay.

Huffing and puffing about missing work and having to wait in the hospital, but then staying on her sofa all night and literally curling up with her in bed.

Oh Rhys, if a girl wasn’t careful, she would get sucked into that world of dichotomies. Good job she was careful. But best to keep it business-like, professional, efficient. By email.

Lila span her wheelie office chair around and stared out the window at the lake.

She’d missed her sanity break looking over its stillness (and her favourite red-leaved trees) because it was too dangerous with her crutches.

Besides, it would probably take her half an hour to get to her bench and then she’d have to turn around and come back to the office.

Positive thinking. She’d be having lunch out there again sooner rather than later.

Without Rhys Aubrey.