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He laughs. “I mean, when you know, you know.”
That laugh is lovely. Musical. It reminds me that I’ve heard that he’s a singer, even though I’ve never heard him sing. Now I want to hear him sing.
Right now.
I can see gold flecks in his deep brown eyes.
I want to do a close-up photo of his eyes, just to explore the colors and pattern of his irises.
But obviously, that would be weird for everyone.
I am gazing. Gazing into his eyes. And now that I’ve noticed, I have to stop. I turn my head and face the building across the lawn.
My face is too warm. I must be blushing. What were we even talking about? Oh, right. Pronunciation.
I clear my throat quietly and speak in a measured tone. “I have been carefully trained to minimize any natural tendencies to speak with an accent.”
“And in general, you do a good job of not sounding like you’re from anywhere. But I can hear it. I’ve done a lot of work with diction coaches. I listen.”
Somehow our arms are touching again. I weigh the costs of looking into his (lovely, deep) eyes against the costs of feeling his (warm, strong) arm touching mine. I keep looking straight ahead.
I could deny my accent, but there is no reason not to answer his original question. “Yes. I’m from Boston.”
He does what sounds like a bit from a comedy show, highlighting every stereotypical Boston-accented word. He’s very good.
“Do you specialize? Or can you do other accents?”
“Alphabetical or geographical?”
I don’t know what he means. “Pardon?”
“Geographical, then.” He keeps speaking in his Boston accent as he points to a space in the middle distance. He moves his finger along what must be an imaginary map as he changes his accent to Brooklyn, to Florida, to Chicago, to British Columbia. He’s speaking nonsense, but I can hear that he has a great ear.
When he stops for a breath, I give a few claps.
“Well done,” I say. “Nice performance.”
He leans back on his elbows. “Come back on the weekend, and I’ll take you to Europe. My French accent is tres impressionant.”
I’m already impressed, but I don’t want to embiggen his sufficiently big head. Instead, I stand up.
He catches my hand, holding it gently. “Wait. Where are you going?” he says.
I can feel my heartbeat in every finger. Where am I going?
Oh. Right. Back to my apartment. “I have loads of work to do, and I imagine you do, too.” Why did my words come out with so much air in them? I sound like I’m panting.
I am NOT panting.
“What work?” Does he really not have any idea how overloaded I am? Is he actually not feeling this beginning-of-semester strain?
“I’ve got a Harvest Ball to plan, remember?” Totally normal breath.
He is still holding my hand. “I think you mean we. We have a Harvest Ball to plan.”
“Right. We. And there’s kind of no end in sight. So many activities. On top of so many classes. On top of I still don’t know what I’m doing.” Is my heart racing in reaction to this never-ending to-do list? Or is it more about standing so close to him?
I kind of hate that thought. Because if I can’t tell if I am responding to his proximity, how can I guess how he’s feeling and what’s causing it?
