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“Well, no,” Remi said slowly. “Because you were waiting for the right person. Maybe… bookshop boy?” She grinned.
I smiled. “I was fourteen years old, Rem. I’m never going to see him again.”
She frowned. “You don’t know that. And from what you told me, you two were destined to meet.”
I leaned forward and arched a brow. “I’d only just started getting my period. I thought every good-looking boy was the one I was destined to meet.”
Her smile dropped. “That’s not how I remember it. How many times did you go back to that place looking for him?”
I dropped my gaze to the table, and my cheeks heated. “Every day.”
“For how long?”
“A year.”
“A year,” she repeated. “Why?”
I looked off to the side, unable to meet her gaze, and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
I sighed, defeated. “He was beautiful,” I said, wistfully. “His eyes… they just swallowed me up.” I flicked mine towards Remi and she nodded for me to continue.
“I remember everything about that day. Everything.”
Remi clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them.
“It was just me and Mum. We were happy. She needed to go shopping so she dropped me off at my favourite bookshop. The staff knew me there – they’d practically babysat me during all my mum’s shopping trips.” I smiled, remembering those times with such fondness my heart hurt.
I looked up at the trees swaying overhead. “You know I’ve always loved buildings and design, but my interest had really grown at that point, so I made a beeline for the design section. I found a couple of books and sat in the corner. I was planning to stay there the whole two hours, just reading and getting lost in those wonderful texts.” I darted my gaze back to Remi. “When he showed up, I was actually pissed off. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, I just wanted to read.”
“So, how did he get you to talk?” Remi smiled. She loved hearing this story as much as I loved telling it. It was like a magical fairy tale from long-forgotten times that became instantly unbelievable when life hit you over the head with a reality hammer.
“He quoted a line from the book I was reading. Which was strange because I didn’t know anyone who enjoyed reading architectural texts in their spare time.”
“And then what?”
I smiled. “Then he sat on the floor, leaned his back against my chair and asked me to read to him.”
She shook her head and gazed off into the distance wistfully.
It didn’t happen exactly like that, though.
I was quietly reading when I became aware of a presence standing over me. I looked up to see the source of the heated gaze but it wasn’t pointed at me, it was pointed at my book.
“Rem Koolhas.” His voice was deep, his tone surprisingly bored for someone whose face was far from boring.
I tilted my chin, determined to not be intimidated by someone clearly older, obviously educated and infinitely better bred than me. “A genius,” I stated.
He snorted and turned his back, pulling down a book I had toyed with reading many times but for some reason hadn’t yet.
“I’m guessing you don’t agree?”
His behaviour seemed odd. He wanted to talk, but then he didn’t. Like he wanted to be friendly but then didn’t really know how to be.
“You guess correctly.”
He turned and leaned his weight on the bookshelf, giving me a clear view of the muscular body beneath his tight t-shirt and the thick wallet inside the pocket of his mouth-wateringly expensive jeans.
