Page 36 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He sat back, baffled. “I don’t get it. She tells me I’m not her type, and you say that means she’s into me. What would she have done if she really wasn’t interested?”

She gave him athat’s obviouslook. “She would have laughed.”

He shook his head. “I am so glad you speak girl.”

“‘I am so glad you speak girl.’ Joseph Greene, famous lover.” She drew in a breath. “So, have you heard from her since?”

He held up his phone. “I sent her this message right after. No reply.”

She squinted at the screen, then back at him, her eyes crinkling in disappointment. “You just sent her that? With no explanation, no reference to anything she said?” She tipped her head back and addressed the vaulted ceiling. “This. This is why it’s so hard to be a woman who dates men.”

He tried not to focus on the soft hollow of her throat. “Are men not better in the future?”

She laughed, her head dropping. “You know what, I think it actually might have got worse. You at least are teachable.” She pressed her hands flat on the bench between them. “Here’s a test. Joseph Greene. What’s the first thing we do when we’ve hurt someone through our actions?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Apologise?”

“Apologise.” She patted him on the head. “You get a gold star.” She tapped her fingers against her lips. “Okay, how’s this. ‘Sorry about before. You’re beautiful, and I got carried away.’”

“Bury a compliment in there. Nice.” He typed the message eagerly. “What else?”

Esi closed her eyes and extended her hand towards Joe, like she was channelling him. “‘Sometimes,’” she said, “‘I get poetry mixed up with real life.’”

He was indignant. “That makes me sound like a psycho.”

“No. It makes you sound like apassionate artist,” she growled. “Which is exactly who she wants you to be.”

He sighed and added it to the message. “Okay,” he said, feeling like he was getting the hang of it. “And now I say it won’t happen again.”

“No!” She rapped the back of his hand. “Bad poet!”

“What? You told me to say that last time!”

“This is different from last time. Last time, she didn’t want your attention. This time, she does.”

He groaned. “This is so complicated.”

“It’s really not.”

He went back over the message, then held it up to show her. She scrolled through it and nodded. “Send.”

He pressed the button and put his phone away, feeling like he had just survived an exam.

The ACS gathering had divided into an impromptu dance floor and an informal study group. Esi’s head was turned over her shoulder, watching the talking, laughing students around the table. He could almost see the gap she saw, the person who should have been there but wasn’t.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

She looked at him, her eyes huge in her solemn face. “What if we don’t?

Chapter Thirteen

He didn’t understand. “We will. We’ve got months. Your mum might be some kind of reclusive spy genius, but—this is Cambridge. Like you said, it’s barely a city. She can’t hide from us forever.”

Esi was shaking her head. “But that’s the point. She shouldn’t be this hard to find. And it got me thinking. What if it means you’re right?” She dipped her fingers into a pool of spilled water on the table. “What if I can’t save her?”

He tried to find a way to say it gently. “I guess—you go back home and you try to live with it.”

She made a soft noise. “You sound like my dad.” Her finger drew the water out into a looping line. “He told me not to come here. He thought it was a mistake.”

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