Page 9 of Love, Academically

“My car, the little blue one, with the rainbow sticker in the back window,” Lila said happily.

“Uh, no.” Rhys stopped in his tracks. “I’m not driving that.”

“Don’t say that, she’ll hear you,” Lila whispered dramatically. “She’ll be offended!”

“Lila, it’s a car. It doesn’t hear me,” Rhys rolled his eyes so hard she was unsure they’d ever come back round. “I cannot fit in that car. Neither can you with your leg out. It’s too small, and—” he snapped his mouth shut.

“And what?” Lila pushed.

Rhys let out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s got a pink steering wheel.”

She let out a cackle of a laugh; the idea of posh, double-barrelled Rhys Aubrey-Dallimore squeezed in behind the pink wheel of her teeny-tiny car was utterly ridiculous.

He took her in the wrong direction.

“We’ll take my car.”

Like Rhys, his car was stoic and black, shiny and new, parked next to rust-bucket student cars and staff family saloons with Peppa Pig sunshades in the rear windows.

It was sleek and nearly triple the size of tiny Petunia.

He let her down gently onto her good foot and fished the keys from his pocket, keeping his arm around her waist for support.

“This is a posh car, Rhys. I feel like I’ll get it dirty just by sitting in it,” she said, because she probably did have wet leaves stuck to her arse where she’d fallen.

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s not like you’re covered in filth.” He opened the door for her and helped her in, fussing like a particularly put-out mother hen.

“Rhys,” she said quietly as he pulled the seat belt around her. He was close enough for her to see his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks. The column of his throat bobbed in a swallow and his arms bumped her thigh, her stomach, her arm.

“Rhys.” More pointedly this time, as she stilled his cold hand with hers. Rhys’s brown eyes flicked to hers. “I can do it,” she said, working his fingers from the seat belt.

He nodded and extracted himself from the passenger side, closing the door with a soft click.

Lila let out a breath. The car smelled of Rhys, of woodsmoke and strength.

The dark stubble across his strong jaw lingered in her mind.

She had to get a grip. He was just dropping her off at the hospital in the quickest way possible.

He’d carried her, not because he wanted to (because who would do that), but because it was the quickest way to get her to the car park.

She was fine, all fine. That little crush on Rhys Aubrey’s arse could stay exactly where it was.

Rhys folded himself into the driver’s side and pressed the button to turn the car on. Nothing so basic as an actual car key for Rhys Aubrey-Dallimore. He pressed a couple of buttons on the dashboard and the seat warmed under her legs. He rubbed his hands together.

“Oh Rhys, I’m so sorry. You’re cold,” she said. He’d been outside all this time without a coat. It wasn’t cold cold, but it was chilly enough that a jacket would be preferable.

“I didn’t expect to be traipsing around outside to find you.”

The car slid forward silently.

“Do you want to go back and get your coat?” She’d wait.

Rhys’s jaw tightened. “No. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back to work.”

Okay, fine.

Rhys

Why they had to wait, Rhys did not know.

Surely there should be someone available?

He’d never had to wait for any kind of medical service before, but then again, he’d always called the private health care provider and swung the considerable weight of his name around.

There were some bonuses that came with being a Dallimore.

This, however, was a whole different world.

Lila shifted in the uncomfortable plastic seat, her leg out awkwardly in front of her.

“You can go, you know. You don’t have to wait with me.”

Rhys sighed. Dan wouldn’t just leave her here, so he couldn’t either — no matter how much he wanted to — because he had no lectures and just the sweet bliss of Henry II’s Charter Rolls waiting for him.

“How are you going to get back?”

She shrugged. “I’ll get Jasmeet to come and get me when she finishes work. Or Maddy. Or I’ll get a taxi.”

Ridiculous. She should have someone to sit and wait with her, make sure she was okay. A taxi? No. He should be plotting Henry II’s movements over the first five years of his reign, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her by herself. She needed someone with her.

“Do your parents live close?” Perhaps they could come and sit with her. She’d be much more comfortable with that.

“They live in Italy. So no, not that close. They moved about ten years ago. We video chat sometimes.” Lila smiled sadly. “Seriously, Rhys, I’m okay. You go, you’ve probably got stuff on.”

He took a long look at her, trying to discern whether she was teasing him or not.

Would she even be comfortable by herself?

Would she be annoyed if he left her? Would it jeopardise his fake girlfriend for the evening of the Dallimore family dinner?

There was a minefield behind those guileless blue eyes.

He couldn’t take the risk. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

Lila opened her mouth, probably to argue with him, but he cut her short.

“Stop. I’ll stay and give you a lift home.”

End of discussion.

These stupid, joined-together plastic chairs were too small for any normal sized person to fit into, and he jostled and shifted to see if he could squeeze himself in a bit better.

If they were going to make people wait here, the least they could do was provide chairs people could actually sit in.

This wasn’t a waiting area, this was a punishment area for having the audacity to need medical attention.

In the end, he gave up, and leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. The awful yellow lighting hurt them.

This afternoon should have been another couple of hours working out the logistics of moving an entire household so quickly and efficiently in the twelfth century.

If there was one thing that Henry II was, it was restless.

He was always on the move, holding together his ‘federation’ of states (Rhys refused to call it an empire because that indicated some sort of homogeneous community, and Henry II’s lands were anything but homogeneous) by sheer force of personality.

After that, he would have had yet another pass at his Fellowship application pencilled in, read through some inane student essays and then gone straight to kickboxing.

Shit, kickboxing. It was unlikely he’d get out of the hospital in time.

Rhys scoffed. This was the antithesis of a ‘hot date’.

“Is everything okay?” Lila asked, wincing as she moved her ankle.

“Is it sore?” he asked, pointlessly. Of course it was sore, that’s why they were there.

Lila nodded with a grimace. “And cold.”

Did he have a blanket in the car? No, of course he didn’t. Why would he?

“Put your foot up here.” Rhys gestured to his lap. “You should elevate it.”

“You want me to put my leg on you?” Lila asked, surprised.

“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But you should elevate it.”

Why was she making this so hard? He was only trying to help.

“Oh, should I?” she asked, forehead creasing.

“Yes,” he said firmly. Surely, everyone knew that you had to elevate a twist or a sprain.

Rhys watched her throat bob in a swallow before she said, “All right,” and put her hands under her thigh, lifting her leg gingerly and resting it over his legs.

Ah. He hadn’t thought this through. What was he supposed to do with his hands?

He couldn’t put them on her leg. That would just be weird.

He had said that she could put her leg up there, so the least he could do was not maul her.

With a lack of anywhere else to put them, he just kind of squished them across his waist.

“Thank you,” Lila said, facing him, sitting sideways on her seat now. “It is more comfortable this way.”

Rhys just nodded. Lila had managed to get some glitter on her face (where did it even come from?), and it glinted in the fluorescent light. That’s it, the car would have to be valeted. There was no way he could cope with glitter flashing at him when he was trying to drive.

She was looking at him expectantly.

“Do you bake cookies every night? Is that why you always smell of vanilla and sugar?” He blurted the first thing he could think of. And he was hungry.

“I hate baking, but I like the end result, and they taste so much better than any from the shop. Believe me, I’ve tried them all.”

There was a lot to unpack there. The whole goddamned History Department smelled of cookies and sweetness and she didn’t even like making them?

Eating them was a different matter, and he fully appreciated their appeal.

Rhys would lay a wager that she had pushed a shopping trolley full of different brands of cookies and a head of broccoli around a supermarket, with just the barest nod to five-a-day.

“So if not baking, then what do you want to do with your life? Not that running the department isn’t a worthy thing,” Rhys added quickly, tightening his jaw, because could he be any more condescending? Sometimes his words didn’t come out right. They didn’t sound the way they did in his head.

“I don’t know what you lecturers would do without me. You wouldn’t even know what lecture halls you need to be in, regardless of the rest of the stuff I do for you all,” she chided lightly.

“I didn’t mean that your role wasn’t important.”

“I know, I’m teasing you.” She nudged him with her shoulder.

But she hadn’t answered, she’d deflected. Rhys waited, but Lila looked down at her fingers, fiddling with one of her sparkly rings.

“I don’t want to tell you, you’ll laugh.”

“Why would I laugh?” Unless it was something he was supposed to laugh at? Although he didn’t think it was, not the way her cheeks were flushed with what he presumed was embarrassment. He would be the last person to laugh at anyone following their dreams.

Lila shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. “Jason always thought it was a bit silly.”

“Oh right, did he?” It wasn’t a question. He’d already established that Jason was a bit of a self-centred dick. “I think denigrating someone because of what they want to do, what their passion is, is an awful thing to do.”

He should know.

“Personal experience?”

“We’re not talking about me.” But they would have to before family dinner and drinks.

Lila blinked a couple of times and wet her lips, deliberating. Rhys waited.

A soft sigh, and then she answered. “My absolute best, biggest dream job, would be lexicography. It’s—”

“I know what it is,” he interrupted. “Writing the dictionary, the history of words.”

Lila’s smile was small and hesitant, looking for approval.

“I don’t think it’s silly. Dictionaries are the cornerstone of the English language. Words are the basis of all learning.”

Her face lit up, a beacon of excitement and happiness.

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” she said, blue eyes sparkling. “The history of words, their etymology, bringing new words and usages into our everyday language. I love it. I can’t think of anything better.”

He drank in all her passion. That was exactly how he spoke about the Angevins to his father when he told him he wanted to pursue history and not corporate business anymore.

Dreams deserved to be nurtured, not squashed.

He knew how it felt to be disparaged for wanting to follow your dreams. The least he could do was encourage her.

“So, why aren’t you doing it?”

It wasn’t as easy as all that. There were always things that held you back, always things to overcome. You couldn’t just say to someone ‘just do it!’, because changing your life like that was hard, and it was scary as hell.

Lila looked around the waiting room, pale lips turning down at the corners. Her leg was a comfortable, warm weight across his thighs. Her eyes rested on her fingers, twisted together in her lap, before meeting his.

“I’m not good enough. I don’t have the right qualifications or experience.” Lila scrunched up her nose.

Rhys frowned and opened his mouth to say that she could get the qualifications, she could get the experience, but changed his mind. Not everyone had the luxury of money or time.

“It’s just a weird, silly little thing that I like. That’s what Jason always used to say anyway.” Her knuckles were white in her lap.

“I don’t think it’s silly or weird and I’m pretty sure you would be good enough.”

It was the truth. She was meticulous and detail-orientated, if a little fluffy and glittery. He didn’t see why not.

“That’s kind of you to say,” she said, tilting her head.

“Not really, it’s just my opinion.” Rhys shrugged. “You should have people in your life who believe and encourage you, not people who put you down.”

“I’ve got Jas and Maddy. But no more men. I’ve sworn all of you off completely,” she said with a brittle laugh.

“I don’t blame you. Jason sounds like a right dickhead.”

Men like Jason gave the rest of them a bad name.

“Yeah, well,” Lila said quietly, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear. “But never mind about all of that.”

Rhys studied her. There was much more to his colourful Departmental Coordinator than met the eye, and he was surprisingly enjoying this little chat with her.

She hated baking but liked the end result.

She loved words. She’d had a not-very-nice relationship, and she was dealing with the aftermath.

Lila was admirable. And yes, with her pink cheeks and elegant sweep of her neck, she was quite pretty.