Page 34 of Save You (Maxton Hall #2)

Ruby

I’ve never been this nervous on a Monday morning before. The bus to school seems to take twice as long as usual, and I’m far too antsy to enjoy it like I normally do. As we finally cover the last few yards and the bus comes to a stop, I tell myself sternly to get it together.

This is a perfectly ordinary school day.

Nothing has changed.

So, heartbeat, you can calm down a little, if you please.

I’m the last person off the bus. And as I step down, I see him.

James is leaning against the fence by the field, opposite the bus stop.

His smile looks almost shy, even if nothing else about his body language does.

I remember that one morning over three months ago when he surprised me like this.

That time, we’d been at Cyril’s party, and he’d wanted to protect me from prying eyes at school and stop people asking silly questions.

This time, he doesn’t wait for me to reach him, but comes over.

His smile doesn’t slip—far from it. Yesterday evening, I couldn’t help noticing how often he smiled, for real, when we were playing games with my family.

I can hardly believe that this is the same boy who cried in my arms back in December. It’s good to see him like this.

“Hi,” I say, smoothing down my fringe. It’s windy and I’m afraid my hair must be all over the place. But James is still looking at me like I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“Good morning.” He lifts a hand and tucks one of the stray strands behind my ear. He’s so close to me that I can smell him. His familiar scent. Warm. Kind of like honey. One day, I’ll have to ask him what cologne he uses.

“Shall we?” he asks, nodding toward the main doors.

My heart skips a beat. This all feels exciting and new—even though he’s met me off the bus and walked me to my classroom before.

“Yes,” I say, wondering if I can take his hand. Are we at that point yet? Am I allowed? What will everyone think? James makes up my mind for me by wrapping his hand around mine. The tingle spreads from my fingertips through my whole body.

“Is this OK?” he asks.

“More than OK,” I reply, squeezing his hand.

Then we walk together toward Boyd Hall. We don’t pass many people I know, but everyone knows James.

And everyone seems fascinated by the fact that he’s holding my hand.

I hear some of them whispering; a few heads turn in our direction.

For a moment, I’m uneasy and feel a bit queasy.

I glance sideways at James—and the feeling fades slightly.

Because James looks as though walking across the courtyard, hand in hand with me, is the most normal thing in the world.

“By the way, I’d like to take you out on a date,” he whispers to me, just before we reach the hall.

I fight the smile that’s trying to spread over my face. I raise an unimpressed eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

James nods. “Uh-huh. Next Saturday. If you’re free.”

I act like I have to think, and James starts to grin. “You’re killing me, Ruby Bell.”

Now I do smile.

“I’d love to go out with you, James Beaufort,” I say, looking him in the eyes so that he knows how seriously I mean what I’m saying.

As we walk into Boyd Hall, he whispers: “I was hoping you’d say that.”

After assembly, James walks me to my class.

We reach the door just as Alistair, Cyril, and Wren come around the corner behind us.

Wren glances at our linked hands, turns on his heel, and heads through a doorway.

I notice James stiffen, and at once I want to pull away, but he’s holding my hand tight.

“Morning, you two,” says Alistair, giving me the hint of a smile.

Cyril just nods almost imperceptibly, which I return. I haven’t forgotten what he said to me in December, or how hurtful those words were. It’s up to James who he’s friends with. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him.

“Morning,” James replies, his voice calm and unemotional.

“Does this mean you’re going to be a bit less unbearable now?” Alistair asks, looking at our hands again.

James lifts his free hand to stick his middle finger up at his friend. Then he turns to me. “See you later.”

It sounds more like a question than a statement, so I nod.

“Later,” he whispers, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb. The tiny motion sends shivers through my whole body.

“See you later.”

He lets go of my hand and walks toward the classroom he and his mates are in next. Cyril and Alistair follow, and I watch them until James glances back and smiles at me over his shoulder. I need to get to my own lesson, but I’m rooted to the spot.

When I think how things started between us, I can’t believe we’re now holding hands at school, in full view of anyone and everyone.

But it feels good.

More than that: It feels right.

“Everywhere I turned today,” Lin says in the afternoon, as she drops onto a chair in the little circle we’ve been arranging for the last fifteen minutes, “you and James were all anyone could talk about.”

I glance hastily at the door, but it’s still shut. We’ve got the group room to ourselves. “Seriously?”

Lin nods. “When I went to the dining hall for a coffee at break time, pretty much everyone was talking about you.”

Her words make me feel kind of uneasy, but I decide not to let them faze me.

It was obvious that I’d lose my cloak of invisibility if I walked around Maxton Hall hand in hand with James Beaufort.

Anyway, so much has changed since the start of the year that I don’t really care whether people are talking about me or not anymore. Or not much, at least.

“I’m dying of curiosity here, by the way,” Lin adds.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say. “But even I don’t really know what happened. He turned up at my house yesterday, and…” I allow myself a tiny smile. “It was nice.”

“Did you talk? About everything?”

I nod. “Yes. It was so hard. And I don’t think we can act like nothing happened. But…” I take a long breath in and out again. “Even so, I have some kind of hope that we can get through it.”

It’s definitely not true that everything between James and me is fine again now. Too much has happened, and I’m too scared of him hurting me again. But yesterday, I just felt happy—and I want to hold on to that feeling for as long as possible.

Lin sighs. “That sounds good. I’m really happy for you, Ruby.”

Her wistful tone takes me by surprise. But then I remember that Lin went to the pub with the others on Friday so that she could talk to Cyril. All at once, I feel guilty. There was so much going on that I totally forgot to ask her about it on Saturday.

“Do you have any news?” I ask cautiously.

Lin presses her lips together. For a moment, it looks like she’s going to change the subject, but she suddenly exhales with a sigh. “Yeah. The news is that, as of now, I can officially focus one hundred percent on my exams.”

I look sympathetically at her. “What happened?”

She shrugs. “Cyril dumped me.”

I breathe in sharply. “Shit.”

“It’s what I thought. He’s in love with Lydia,” she goes on. “And he hopes the two of them might have a chance.”

“Did he say that?” I ask in disbelief.

She nods, slowly. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“I’m so sorry, Lin. If I can do anything to help…”

“No, but thank you. I think it’s good that he’s finally told me. Otherwise, I’d probably still have been chasing after him when we got to Oxford, messing up my fresh start there. I just read too much into stuff.”

Hesitantly, I put a hand on her back.

“It’s all good. Honestly . If anything, I’m just relieved that I finally know where I stand.”

After watching her uncertainly for a moment, I give her back a quick pat, then pull my hand away. “Are you up for a girls’ night on Friday?”

Lin looks unsure but forces herself to smile. “I’ll let you know, OK?”

We sit in silence for a moment, side by side, staring at the tables we’ve pushed to the side to make room for our circle of chairs.

“Do you think everyone will be pleased?” Lin asks, her voice deliberately cheerful.

“Definitely,” I say. “We all need a breather after Friday, I think.”

Lin’s about to reply when the door opens and Jessalyn and Kieran walk in.

“What’s going on?” Jessalyn asks in confusion, looking around.

Kieran just mumbles “hi” and sits hastily down. Am I seeing things, or is he even paler than normal today? He won’t look at me, just digs furiously around in his bag.

I see Lin look at me, and then at him, and then back at me, but I don’t know what I can do to make this moment any less weird.

Fortunately, Camille and Doug now join us, and there’s more surprise about the rearranged seating. The last person to stroll into the room is James. He lifts an eyebrow and looks around, then walks right through the ring of chairs to drop into the one opposite mine with a wry smile.

Next to me, Lin clears her throat. “Ruby and I have planned a little surprise for today,” she says.

“I don’t know if you’re the same as me, but there’s always a rough patch at some point in the school year, when everything seems really hard.

” There are murmurs of agreement around our little circle.

“I get the feeling we might be in for one of those after all the mayhem of the last few weeks. But we don’t really have time for a break, because there’s the Spring Ball coming up soon too. ”

“So,” I add, “we thought that we’d do things a bit differently for today’s meeting. You all worked so hard and the charity gala was a total success. So, I think we all deserve to take things a bit easy today.”

Lin bends down and pulls a large bag out from under her chair. She opens it and pulls out two large thermos flasks and a handful of mugs. “We thought we’d liven the meeting up with tea, coffee, and cake.”

“Ohhh,” says Camille, and Jessalyn cheers beside her. “How cool are you?”

Lin hands out drinks and I stand up to get the paper boxes I hid under our coats on the other side of the room. “I brought muffins from my mum’s bakery,” I announce.