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13
PRECIOUS NICKNAMES
The cityof London greeted Theo’s and my awkward silence by screaming through it. Cars puttered past, honks ensued, music pulsed out of open windows and storefronts, and crowds of chattering people crossed intersections. The clog of pedestrians yelling at each other in a clipped English accent seemed to be the only difference between sounds of the UK and New York.
Well, that and the brief but politebeep-beepsrather than the prolonged leaning on car hornspreferable to pissed-off New Yorkers.
Now wasn’t the time to tell Theo that my bladder was also screaming, but I hoped we would reach our destination soon. My throat was parched, too. It was unfortunate that in my raiding of the private plane, I didn’t think to swipe bottles of water, lime curls included.
We stopped at another light and I uncoiled my legs, wincing at the small space the car offered my bottom half.
“We’re five minutes out,” Theo said. They were the first words he’d uttered in over an hour. Granted, I hadn’t provided any of my own, either.
I nodded and shifted again. “Good.”
“Do you have to…?” Theo quickly took his eyes off the road to glance at my thighs.
“That obvious?” I asked.
“You’ve been twitching around like a toddler for the past fifteen minutes.”
“Nice of you to notice.” I gave him the side eye. “And offer to pull over somewhere.”
“I told you, we’re in a rush.” He turned left. “Just past this block, and we’re there.”
I fisted my hand against my stomach, like that would stop the torrent of need coursing through my gut.
He found a spot on the side of the road, and his parallel park was seamless.
Why was it so sexy to see a guy one-hand a steering wheel while turning and looking out the back window of a car?
Did parallel parkingreallyturn me on these days?
I winced.Ouch.my lady parts shouldn’t be prodded more than necessary at this point.
Theo flicked off the engine. His movement, after being frozen in the driver’s seat for the past hour, reactivated his scent, and his familiar smell, a smoky amber wood, drifted below my nostrils.
“Let’s go.” He shouldered open his door and I followed suit. Theo parked us in a small, cobblestone alleyway, where the sounds of Central London were present, but muffled. It was midday, thus the bustling lunch crowd we’d driven through minutes ago, but here in the shade of Victorian architecture and hand-placed stones beneath my sneakers, it was more like I was meeting for tea in the nineteenth century.
I’d never been to London before. It would have been wonderful to see Big Ben, or the Tower of London, or Westminster Abbey—all the touristy places that somehow, in London, seemed not so ad nauseam and more essential to one’s education.
Did I want to see where King Henry VIII cut off his wives’ heads? Abso-fucking-lutely.
But sadly, the Clyde to my Bonnie had other plans.
I trailed behind him, taking stock of everything in this alleyway, from the modern trash bins to the Gothic-era stone carvings framing doorways and window sills. The gray wasn’t so gray here. It was entrenched, an essential color of history that fascinated and gave me pause. There was a light drizzle, but it didn’t feel dreary. It fit perfectly within this scene of silent spirits and historical homes. How many footsteps preceded mine? Hundreds of years’ worth of ghosts moved through this street, despite the modern bleats of traffic and calls and curses of pedestrians clad in the latest trends.
The pull in my gut wasn’t so physical this time. It was a loss, being unable to explore the bones of this city.
A creak sounded, and I realized Theo had unlocked and opened a wooden door while I’d been standing on the sidewalk with my face tilted up underneath my raincoat.
“Coming?”
I scurried over as he swept a hand inside. A gentleman at last. I went in, wondering what the catch was in walking through first.
A light turned on behind me and the entrance sounded shut. Theo’s close presence caused tangible pinpricks along the backs of my arms and shoulders, until he swept in front and gestured up the stairs. Then it was just his scent, tempting my nose and causing me to fall into step like a cartoon cat following the smell of cooking fish.
Another door greeted us on the second floor. We were in some sort of walk-up, with wallpapered blossoms on the walls and wainscoted stairway railings. Now that Theo’s cologne had tempered, it was stale in here, airless and clogged. Without electric light, we would have been groping around in complete black.
