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With that settled, I enter his room. It’s the same size as mine and also looks out at a grey concrete street. He’s also got identical furniture — a double bed, bedside table, desk and bookshelf filled with sports gear and random nicknacks.
The first drawer of his bedside table houses tissues, a bunch of pens held together with a rubber band, and a spare phone charger. I pull open the second drawer. There’s nothing inside it except for a book.
I didn’t know he read.
The cover reads Pride and Prejudice in gold lettering. Impossible. There’s no freaking way that Lucas likes Jane Austen.
I pick up the book and immediately realise something’s wrong. The pages are all stuck together. I flip open the front cover and find a rectangle has been hollowed from the centre of the book, replaced with a shiny silver safe. It’s fitted with a combination lock, similar to the kind we used for our lockers in high school, just smaller, and the three numbers at the front of the lock are 0-0-0.
What the…? Why does Lucas have some weird-ass book safe in his bedside table?
Is there even anything inside it? I raise it to my ear and shake it carefully, in case there’s something fragile inside. Something slides, making a whispery shhh noise.
My phone rings, and I almost drop the book-safe onto the ground. My heart pounds, rabbit-fast, like I’ve been caught stealing, but my phone screen reads Cleo.
“Hey,” she says when I answer. “I’m downstairs.”
“Great!” I say, forcing a smile into my voice. “I’ll be down in a moment.”
After I end the phone call, I look at the book-safe. Time to put this away. Before I do, though, I check the back. It just has a Pride and Prejudice quote in the centre. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
A beautiful quote, to be fair, but not exactly helpful. But, in the bottom right corner of the back, in minuscule writing, is ClassicBookSecrets.
I’ve kept Cleo waiting too long. I return the book to its drawer, rush out of Lucas’s bedroom, and through the front door.
*
“Hi,” I say when I meet Cleo in the lobby. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
“That’s fine,” she says, leaning in to give me a quick kiss. She smells like raspberries.
I show her how to use the intercom so that next time she can come straight up, then take her to the elevator. She grabs my hand.
“How was your week?” she asks.
“Mm, pretty good. Although the next few weeks are going to get busy with my mid-term assignments.”
“Me too! My psycho tutor — the one I told you about, remember? — is making my class write extra mini reports every week. I literally want to gouge my eyeballs out.”
“Maybe we should plan some study dates,” I suggest.
“That’d be cute,” Cleo agrees.
We step out of the elevator and walk down the hallway to my apartment. “Welcome to my humble abode,” I say after I unlock the door and push it open.
Cleo walks through. “Nice view,” she says.
“Thanks.” I close the door. “I have a flatmate, but he’s not in right now. Erm… Do you want something to eat or drink?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. I haven’t eaten yet, so is it all good if I make something?”
“Sure, go ahead.” She follows me to the kitchen and sits down on one of the stools.
I grab some ingredients from the fridge and pantry to make a sandwich. “So,” I ask, “how have you been?”
“Good! My friends and I went to this rooftop bar. It was a little out of the city, but it has this gorgeous view of a park. Here, I’ll show you.” She pulls out her phone, which is the latest model. Every time I see it, it looks humungous in her tiny hands.
