Happy Place(10)

For some reason, it feels like a lie when I say, “Yes.”

Wyn makes driving the Jaguar along those dark, curving roads seem like a sport or an art form. One corded arm drapes over the wheel, and his right hand sits loose atop the gearshift, his knee bobbing in a restless rhythm that never disrupts his control over the gas pedal. As we get closer to the water, I crank the window down and breathe in the familiar brine. He follows suit, the wind ruffling his hair against his cut-glass profile. That one chaotic strand always finds its way back to the right side of his forehead, as if connected by an invisible string to the peak of his Cupid’s bow.

When he catches me studying him, his brow lifts in tandem with his lips.

Quicksand, I think again. An old predator-prey instinct seems to agree, my limbic system sending out marching orders to my muscles: Be ready to flee; if he gets any closer, you’ll never get away.

“You’re staring,” he says. “Suspiciously.”

“Just calculating the odds that you are in fact my friends’ roommate and not a murderer who steals his victims’ cars,” I tell him.

“And then picks their friends up from the airport, exactly on time?” he asks.

“I’m sure plenty of murderers are punctual.”

“Why do you think our entire generation expects everyone to turn out to be a murderer?” he asks with a laugh. “As far as I know, I’ve never met a single one.”

“That just means you’ve never met a bad one,” I say.

He glances at me as a bar of moonlight passes over him. “So I hear you’re some kind of genius, Harriet Kilpatrick.”

“What did I tell you about Sabrina and embellishment?”

“So you’re not an aspiring brain surgeon?”

“Aspiring’s the operative word,” I say. “What about you? What’s your major?”

He ignores my question. “I would’ve assumed surgeon was the operative word.”

This coaxes another snort of laughter out of me. Eyes back on the road, he smiles to himself, and my bones seem to fill up with helium.

I look out the window. “What about you?”

After several seconds of silence, he says, “What about me?” He sounds vaguely displeased by the question.

“Is what I’ve been told about you accurate?” I ask.

He checks the mirror again, teeth scraping over his full bottom lip. “Depends what you’ve been told.”

“What do you think I’ve been told?” I say.

“I’d rather not guess, Harriet.”

He uses my name a lot. Every time, it’s like his voice plucks a too-tight string in a piano deep in my stomach.

What’s actually happening is my sympathetic nervous system has decided to reroute the path of my blood to my muscles. There are no butterflies fluttering through my gut. Just blood vessels constricting and contracting around my organs.

“Why not?” I ask. “Do you think they said something bad?”

His jaw squares, eyes back on the headlights slicing through the dark. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

He’s gone back to bouncing his knee, like there’s too much energy in his body and he’s siphoning it out.

“They told me it would be impossible to tell whether you were flirting or not.”

He laughs. “Now you’re trying to embarrass me.”

“Maybe.” Definitely. I’m not sure what’s come over me. “But they did say that.” In actuality, Sabrina had bemoaned not being able to tell, even while adamantly proclaiming that she liked him too much to make any kind of move anyway. It would’ve disrupted their living situation too much.

“Either way,” Wyn says, “I’m much better at flirting than that makes me sound.”

“Have you ever considered,” I say, leaning over to insert myself into his frame of view, “that that might be the problem?”

He smiles. “Flirting never killed anybody, Harriet.”

“Clearly you’re unfamiliar with the concept of the Regency-era duel,” I say.

“Oh, I’m familiar, but since I rarely find myself flirting with the unwed daughters of powerful dukes, I figure I’m okay.”

“You think we’re just going to skate over you being well versed in Regency customs?”

“Harriet, I don’t get the feeling you skate over anything,” he says.

I give another involuntary snort of laughter, and his dimples deepen. “Speaking of highborn ladies,” he says, “they teach you how to laugh like that at etiquette school?”

“No,” I say, “that has to be bred into you across centuries.”

“I’m sure,” he says. “I’m not like that, by the way.”

“Gently bred to laugh through your nose?”

His chin tips, his gaze knowing. “The impression you have of me. I don’t play with people’s feelings. I have rules.”

“Rules?” I say. “Such as?”

“Such as, never tell the rules to someone you’ve just met.”

“Oh, come on,” I say. “We’re stepfriends now. You might as well tell me.”

“Well, for one thing, Parth and I made a pact to never date our friends. Or each other’s friends.” He casts me a sidelong glance. “As for stepfriends, I’m not sure what the policy is.”