Page 6 of Love, Academically

“Hey,” Rhys said as he approached them, sliding his arm around Lila’s waist and pulling her to him, away from Jason’s grip. “You okay?”

Lila nodded, her lips pulled into a tight line, a poor semblance of a smile.

“Are you done here?” Rhys asked Jason, eyebrows raised, not really expecting an answer.

“Look, man, I’m just telling Lila that she shouldn’t take too much on. You must know how she gets, she doesn’t do well with a lot on her plate, and this new job…” Jason trailed off with a worried look at Lila.

What was he expecting? Some solidarity in putting down a woman he supposedly used to love? What the hell was this guy’s problem? Besides, Lila’s life was none of his business.

“No, I do not know ‘how she gets’. She’s doing amazingly in her new job, and has been for the last couple of months.” He looked at Lila with a confused frown. “I’m not really sure what your point is?”

“Hey, man, I’m just looking out for her,” Jason put his hands up defensively. “Lila shouldn’t take too much on. She can’t cope.”

“Look man, I don’t know who you think you are, but you don’t talk about her like that.” Because what the actual fuck. Rhys knew full well that was not how you talked to, or about, people. He’d learned that through horrible experience. “We’re done here,” he said, turning Lila away from her ex.

“I’m just looking out for her,” Jason called after them as he led Lila back to the table.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“That’s what boyfriends do.” Rhys bristled. “Why does he put you down all the time? What’s all that about not being able to cope? I think you cope just fine.”

Lila rewarded him with a beautiful, bright smile. “Do you?”

It was a real question; she was looking for affirmation as she climbed back onto the stool, smoothing her dress over her legs.

“Yes, of course I do.” For all her scatty featherbrained ways, he begrudgingly had to admit the department ran much more smoothly with Lila as coordinator.

He settled his arm across the back of her stool and let his thumb graze the skin of her arm again.

“You don’t have to keep your arm round me, Rhys,” she said kindly, letting him off the hook.

“Jason might be looking,” he replied simply. If he was going to be a fake boyfriend, he was going to damn well do it properly.

Lila

Lila was comfortable with Rhys’s arm around her, but she couldn’t push away that crushing self-doubt that always came after a conversation with Jason.

The ‘don’t do too much’, ‘you know how you get’, ‘you can’t cope’.

It had been true, she couldn’t cope when she had been with him.

She couldn’t have taken this new job in the History Department, she just couldn’t. Past tense.

“What did that knob want?” Jasmeet asked, as soon as Lila had taken a fortifying gulp of wine. “Does he not have a girlfriend to get back to?”

“Oh, you know,” Lila said, waving a dismissive hand. “Just to say hi. He’s worried about me, am I sleeping enough, I look tired – you know, the usual,”

“I don’t think you look tired,” Rhys said with a frown. Bless him.

“And?” Jasmeet knew Jason all too well.

Lila sighed. “He doesn’t know who this ‘Rhys’ guy is, and is worried whether he’s good enough for me,” Rhys choked a little on his drink. “Jason just feels that I shouldn’t overstretch myself with this new job.”

“Fuck boy over there deserves my heel up his arse,” Jasmeet said, knocking back another shot. “What a dick. Why can’t he just bugger off and leave you alone?”

Lila knew better than to argue with Jasmeet.

But Jason was only trying to look out for her, perhaps out of guilt, but now they’d broken up, it felt misplaced.

She’d put herself and her life back together in this past year and a half after Jason.

New house, new car, new job, new clothes.

New, happy, positive, Technicolour Lila.

“He’s your ex, right?” Dan asked. “I bet his girlfriend isn’t best pleased that he’s running over here to talk to you.”

“Probably not.” Lila cringed. God, what must Leanne think? Probably that Lila was so desperate and so much of a mess that she needed Saviour Jason to come and make sure she was okay.

“I bet he told that skank that he is the only one who can help you and that he needs to keep an eye out after what he did,” Jasmeet said, shaking her head. “Wanker.”

“What did he do?” Rhys asked, and she caught Dan shake his head slightly at her fake boyfriend. “Oh, am I not supposed to ask?”

Rhys looked between her and Dan quickly, confused.

Lila reassured him with a smile. “No, it’s fine.” She bumped him slightly with her shoulder. “He cheated on me with Leanne for about a year.” She shrugged again.

Rhys’s frown deepened. “Why would anyone do that? If you don’t want to be with someone, you split up with them.”

She looked at him. It was so black and white for Rhys, and she didn’t know how to explain it. Not that she should have to explain Jason’s reasoning. Actually, Rhys was one hundred percent right. If you didn’t want to be with someone, you break up. The end.

“He didn’t want to split up with her because Lila was supporting him through his medical qualifications.

She was working two jobs so he could ‘study’, supported his lazy ass, paid all the rent, and then—” Jasmeet shut her mouth quickly with a snap.

“Sorry Lila, it’s your story to tell. That man just grips my shit. ”

“It’s okay, Jas.” Lila swallowed. “We were together for years and years, from university, and Jasmeet is right. I supported him throughout his medical training, then it was supposed to be his turn to support me to go back to university to do a postgrad.”

Rhys nodded, eyes pinned on her.

“He was on student rotation at the hospital over my birthday one year, so Jasmeet and Maddy—”

“Who’s Maddy?” Rhys interrupted. “The lady on the phone?”

“Yeah. So Jasmeet and Maddy took me out to a posh restaurant. We were just about to start our main course when Jason walks in with Leanne, arm around her, kissing her. There was no way they weren’t together.

Turns out it was her birthday as well.” Lila smiled sadly.

“What are the odds, eh? Two women, same birthday?”

She’d replayed the moment she’d seen them over and over in her mind, especially in the first few months after Jason had moved out and before she’d moved to a house closer to the university.

She’d replayed it so many times that the sharpness had faded and it lost its colour, like an old VHS tape.

Sometimes there were replays of things that hadn’t happened; throwing her drink over Jason, making all the scathing arguments that she thought of three days after the fact, sweeping out of the restaurant on the arm of a dashing young man.

What actually happened was that Jasmeet had thrown her drink over Jason, Maddy had laid into him, and she had slunk out of the restaurant into the late March rain and waited in the taxi rank by herself.

The stabbing pain whenever she thought about him with Leanne had dulled into a slight ache, and then, after a few more months, into nothingness.

She mourned her time with Jason, but not because of him, but because of her.

She’d wasted so much time supporting him, living for him, that it had been difficult to find herself again.

They’d been together for so long, it was hard to know who she was without him.

“Oh,” Rhys said, and there was little else for him to say.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Lila,” Dan said, those sparkling eyes settling on her earnestly.

She smiled at him across the table. “That’s kind of you to say, Dan.”

“She’s just too damn nice to tell him to fuck off,” Jasmeet said, not so under her breath. “And she hates that goddamned Oasis song that Jason sings at her every time he sees her. Pathetic.”

“Never mind, it’s over and done with. He just makes me feel stupid when I see him. So really, Rhys,” she turned to him, and his face was closer to her than expected, “thank you so much. I really appreciate you helping me out.”

Rhys’s lips turned up into a small smile and he nodded. “You owe me though, Miss Cartwright.”

She laughed, and Rhys’s smile spread.

“Anything. But not the course.”

“Another round?” Dan asked the table, while only looking at Jasmeet. She blushed prettily and nodded.

“I’ll have a lemonade please,” Lila said, and Rhys nodded.

“Make that two.”

“Okay, and done.” Dan ordered on the app and put his phone back onto the table.

“Enough about my dismal love life, is there a girlfriend or boyfriend who is going to be upset with you, Rhys?” Lila mentally slapped her forehead.

Why hadn’t she thought about this before?

He was an attractive early-to-mid-thirties man – of course he would have a significant other.

And here she was pressuring him into being her fake boyfriend.

“No.”

“Okay…” She stretched out the word, pushing for more information. She’d just laid herself bare in front of a colleague and his random guy friend, so the least he could do was return the favour.

No, he’d already gone above and beyond, and still was pretending to be her boyfriend.

“What Rhys means to say is that, no, he’s not seeing anyone at the moment, and his last serious relationship was a few years ago,” Dan said, giving Rhys a meaningful stare. “You’ll have to excuse Rhys, sometimes he lacks social etiquette.”

Rhys’s neck flushed.

“That’s all right, people are hard to read sometimes,” she said.

Rhys cut his eyes to her as if checking that she wasn’t making fun of him. Lila gave him a smile.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a girlfriend. There’s no one to be annoyed at me.”

It was Lila’s turn to flush a little, and she swung her eyes away from Rhys before he could see.

“What about you, Dan?” she asked, draining the last of her wine.

Lemonade was definitely a good choice, otherwise she would be good for nothing tomorrow.

Jasmeet took a sip of her fruity cocktail and tried not to look overly interested (but the gratitude came down the best friend telepathy line). Excellent wing-womaning.

“I’m free and single,” he said, turning to Jasmeet.

“Well, that’s good to know,” Jasmeet crooned, cocking an eyebrow at him. Dan smirked.

Well, that was that then.

What had been the possibility of them leaving together was now a strong eighty-five percent. Lila and Rhys exchanged exasperated glances as Dan and Jasmeet continued their conversation, voices too low for anyone else to join in.

“So, Rhys, tell me, what would be your worst date ever?” Lila asked. “If you say pretending to be a work colleague’s boyfriend, I’ll be mortally wounded.”

Rhys laughed. A proper, throw-your-head-back, truthful laugh and Lila laughed with him.

“Karaoke.” He shuddered. “I will never, ever, do karaoke. I cannot imagine anything worse than putting yourself up there for everyone to see you sing terribly. Where’s the fun in that?” Rhys said, taking both his and Lila’s lemonade off the tray held by the young waitress.

“That’s the whole point! You’re not supposed to be good at karaoke, you’re just supposed to enjoy it.” Lila said. “Karaoke is fun, especially when you’re with friends.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Rhys sipped his lemonade, secure in his assessment. “What’s yours?”

“I’m pretty much up for anything,” she said, tilting her head in thought. “I just like to know that someone has thought about spending time with me, but…” She hesitated, thinking.

“Yes?” he prompted, his fingers grazing her arm.

“If I had to choose, I despise those high ropes places, you know? Where you’re all hooked up and you climb around the trees?”

Rhys’s face twisted, like he had just eaten the sharpest of lemons. “Oh God yeah, no. I am not good with heights.”

“Me neither.” She wet her lips and took a long look at him. “You know, you’re not all bad, Rhys Aubrey.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Neither are you, Miss Cartwright.”