He said it lightly, but his eyes caught Amy’s and held them. Not sure what to do with his full attention, she felt her face grow hotter.
Amy found Sam infuriating and intriguing, in proportions that seemed to shift and fluctuate so frequently she could never quite be sure whether she liked or loathed him. She never missed a chance to poke fun at his insanely privileged upbringing and well-to-do accent; she’d once informed him that he sounded like a BBC newsreader from the 1930s.She had also openly berated him when she found out he’d refused to do A levels at the posh independent school he’d been at previously. Amy would have given her eye teeth to be at the sort of school where classes weren’t rammed, expectations were high and resources weren’t strained. Everybody hates a tourist, she regularly informed him. It riled her that he seemed to be cosplaying a normal person, when he was born into the English peerage and would probably never have to work a day in his life.
Amy was further annoyed by her increasing awareness of how good-looking Sam was. Until recently, his attractiveness had mostly been theoretical to her; like the date of the Battle of Hastings or the positions of the planets in the solar system, it was something she’d filed under ‘indisputable, but not of immediate interest’.
Lately, though, Amy hadfelthis allure as well as recognising it as fact– most recently in the exam hall this afternoon, staring up the row of single-seater desks to where he was sitting, square-shouldered and scribbling furiously in the blazing light that spilled through a nearby window.
Sam had hair the colour of something delicious you might find in the window of a French patisserie: the same shade as the warm, glossy sheen on a fresh croissant, or the gilded top of a perfectly singed crème brûlée. His eyes were a rich, chocolatey brown, framed by the sort of thick, perfectly curled lashes nature always bestowed on boys who– in Amy’s view– could never truly appreciate them. His skin was a clear, soft beige that freckled and tanned in the summer, which she also resented. At this time of year Sam positively glowed, while Amy lived in sun hats and fervently hoped she wouldn’t burn through her factor 50.
Even worse, Sam was tall and lean; a lifetime spent playing sport had given him the sort of triangular torso that effortlessly raised pulse rates. Despite Amy’s disdain for his army of female admirers– and her determination never to become one of the hangers-on who seemed content to wait around in the hope he’d notice them– she could sort of see their point.
Most disturbing of all was his mouth, from which issued many ill-formed arguments and sarcastic comments, but which was also a full, perfect pout. She’d once ranted to Hari that Sam’s lips were set in a permanently surly expression, only to realise she’d said ‘sultry’ by accident. Hari had laughed his arse off about it, and Amy’s slip of the tongue had sparked days of relentless piss-taking.
‘So you two haven’t declared your undying love for one another yet then?’ Sam asked, one corner of his troublesome mouth lifting in a wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
‘It isn’t like that,’ Amy huffed, insistent. ‘Ugh. I’m done with this topic today. And I should head home anyway.’
‘I’ll walk with you,’ Sam said, heaving himself back up to standing.
‘You don’t have to do—’
‘I need to stretch Max’s legs anyway,’ he cut in, ‘and it’ll be pitch-black out here by the time you’re over the bridge. Only a proper arsehole would knowingly let you go alone. I’ll follow you at a respectful distance if I have to, but I’d really rather not stalk you back to your gran’s.’
‘Fine,’ said Amy, and before she could register what was happening Sam had pulled her to her feet, both her hands somehow in his.
A moment later, he loosed them to bend down and pick up Max’s lead. Amy’s palms tingled.
The bracelet around her wrist jangled as she pushed her dark hair out of her face, willing herself to calm down. It was some assortment of green crystals on a stretchy band, sent to her by her mother from California. Lily Godwin, whose name had never been Perry because she didn’t believe in marriage, was what Gran called ‘a flighty type’. After a whirlwind romance with Amy’s father, John, she’d had their baby but soon decided infant Amy would be better off brought up in the sort of stable environment her aura could never provide.
Leaving Amy’s father heartbroken, she’d gone travelling and eventually settled in America, in an apartment stacked full of tarot cards, astrology charts and antiques, permanently fuggy with joss stick smoke. She and Amy– or Amaryllis, as Lily had originally named her daughter– kept in touch, but their relationship was casual rather than close.
‘So, how did you find it this afternoon?’ Sam asked as they made their way out of the little wood and walked towards the village centre.
‘Don’ttell me you want to dissect the English Lit paper,’ Amy said, laughing. ‘I didn’t think stressing about tests was your style.’
‘It isn’t,’ Sam said amiably. ‘You were the one who wanted to change the subject. Ten quid says you picked the question about the meaning of love inMuch Ado About Nothing, then wrote two thousand words arguing it’s about the patriarchy’s need to control women.’
Amy felt her face flush again and sniffed indignantly. ‘So what if I did?’
‘Well, it’s a bit blinkered, in my opinion,’ Sam said, ‘andverybleak– but I have every confidence you’ll get an A star. You always make a compelling, if depressing, case.’
Amy threw him a withering look. ‘And what didyouwrite about?’
‘I answered that one too, but in my version love is redemptive: Beatrice’s heartbreak over her cousin forces Benedick to face how he really feels– how he’salwaysfelt about her. That love, finally declared, makes a happy ending possible for pretty much everyone. What can I tell you?’ he went on, smirking. ‘I’ve spent two years defending literary romance in the face of your committed cynicism. No reason to stop now.’
Amy’s stomach began to do something strange and utterly treacherous as he spoke. She hated slushy movies, happy ever afters and soppy songs– in fact, she loathed the whole sentimental circus of love as much as her father had adored it. At the same time, she was acutely aware of how close Sam’s arm was to hers.
For a fraction of a second, Sam’s hand brushed hers and she felt a powerful urge to grab it. Instead, she shoved her fists into the pockets of her oversized hoodie.
‘So,’ she said, to cover her suddenly shallow breathing. ‘You’re off to Cambridge in the autumn.’
‘If I get the grades,’ Sam confirmed.
‘You’ll get them. You know you will,’ she chided. Sam wasn’t just handsome and popular; sporting and academic achievements seemed to come so easily to him that they were practically automatic. He was, quite literally, the village golden boy.
Next to him, Amy felt every bit the short, somewhat weird interloper: the pale, petite nerd with no parents who was more comfortable reading books by herself than getting pissed with her peers in the park. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to be so self-assured, sovisible– to be comfortable with attention in the way that Sam was. She supposed it helped if people gawped at you because you were gorgeous and clever, rather than because you were an almost-orphan who dressed like a goth.
He shrugged again, oblivious to her unease. ‘Honestly, I’d be quite happy going to Sheffield instead. I haven’t admitted this to anyone else, but I might even prefer it. It’s my parents who want Cambridge– they pushed me to apply. It’s UCL for you, right?’
