Page 5 of The Likelihood Of You

Although, even after suggesting that a photo was what she wanted, this girl is looking at me like I just asked her if she knew all sixty-eight trillion digits of pi. Her eyes are glazed over with even more confusion than when I first spoke to her, and the overly furrowed brows aren’t a good sign I’ve cracked her, either.

My eyes drop to her lips as they drift open, while she ever so slightly shakes her head as she mutters, “Um…no?”

I let her words hang between us, settle in the air for a second, and it takes a moment for what she said to register in my head. She said no.Right?

“No?” I repeated, not willing to trust my ears.

The only response I get from her is another slight shake of her head, confirming that she did say the word no.

This is…weird. I must either be in one of those situations where the person is too nervous to go through with their selfie request, and they slowly start to back away and run in the other direction, or I’m in an even rarer situation where this girl has no idea who I am. And something in me is hoping it’s the latter.

Because this never happens anymore.

AfterDefenderspremiered, I was experiencing what I had gone through with Nate for years, only this time, it was me getting bombarded in the dairy aisle of Target instead. It was me being swarmed outside Sal’s. It was me who couldn’t walk home from filming without stopping for fifty million selfies. Suddenly, my life had gone from private to public overnight. People would scream my name in thestreets if they saw me like I was a Royal. I was the newbie that everyone wanted to see.

And I’m not naive. I knew going into this career, if I were to ever get to the level of fame that Nate was at, that this side of the job would be a non-negotiable clause, but I still didn’t expect it to be as intense as it was. I never expected to be quizzed by ten people in the dairy aisle why I was buying cows’ milk and not the oat milk alternative to hashtag save the cows.

So hearing her say no, after months of ‘CAN I GET A PICTURE?’ being screamed at me, is my equivalent of hearing a hallelujah chorus.

I take this moment while her head is slightly dropped, her eyes on her fidgeting hands, to take her in.

Her eyes were the first thing I noticed. They were impossible not to be. They’re the perfect shade of emerald green, all round and doh-like. They suit her more than she probably knows; her other features do, too. Like her hair, a curly blonde and brunette fusion which sits a few inches below her shoulders. Some curls frame her face, falling around her forehead and past her apple-like cheeks that are flushed pink, probably due to the weather, but it suited her regardless.

My eyes fall down her body, admiring the layers of her outfit. Although she was covered up, and her body was mostly hidden by the coat she had on, I could still make out her curvy, hourglass figure. She was a sight for my sleepy morning eyes, that’s for sure.

I lifted my head back up to meet her gaze again while my mouth unconsciously curved into a half smile, and before I realised what I was doing, I spoke to her again. “What’s your name?” I asked, nodding my chin at her.

Her eyes darted back to me, but this time, there was no veil of confusion in them; they were softer, and she looked almost relieved that this question was a relatively normal compared to the last.

I watched as the points of her mouth twinged. “Florence…Dayes.” She replies timidly.

I only needed that one word to figure out she’s not a local, and it was satisfying how her accent completed her in a way that seemed too good to be true. I’d always been a fan of a British accent. There’s just something so charming and classy about it.

“You’re from England?” I ask intrusively, even though I’m sure of her answer.

She nodded gracefully in affirmation while tucking a curl behind her ear.

The possibility that she doesn’t know who I am only gets smaller after finding out she’s not from here. There is a very slim chance that she’s flown all the way from England to hunt me down, only to turn me down when I noticed her. She’d have to have put a fair amount of research into a plan like that, to be able to find me at Pin’s. And sure, I came here every day, but my connection with this place wasn’t common knowledge from what I’d seen in the press. Nate didn’t even know about it until I walked out of here on the last day of filming with an entire tray of doughnuts for the cast and crew, not paying a cent for it.

If she had done all that,Ishould be asking to take a picture withher, because that, although creepy, would be very impressive.

“How about you? What’s your name?” she asks, nodding her chin right back at me, a small smirk gracing her face.

Here we go.

I brace myself before I rush out, “Jacob Emerson.”

I try not to move as I anxiously wait for her reaction. I’m scared if I do, I’ll miss the moment that internal pin of hers drops, and the realisation of ‘HOLY SHIT, I’M TALKING TO JACOB EMERSON’ pans across her face. Perhaps she didn’t recognise me at first and needed the name drop to connect the dots. But after a few quiet seconds, the only noise coming between us being the muffled chatter from the tables behind us, that post-realisation glow never comes. She doesn’t react. All she does is let that smirk morph into a wide, gorgeous smile.

That smile. It’s as if the most timeless painting has just been finished right before me.

Her lips are blushed the same colour as her cheeks, but if anything, it makes them look fuller. They’re the cherry on top of a perfectly crafted Bakewell tart, completing it. A cherry that also seems to have made all my natural social skills evaporate from me like hot steam, and my palms go all tight and clammy.

“Have you just started it?” she asks, bringing my focus away from her mouth.

“Sorry, what?”

She nods towards the book in my hands that I’m, for some reason, clenching way tighter than I need to. “I made it to chapter twenty-eight this morning. I’m dying to get home to find out if it was Mrs Dalton who stashed the body or that creepy maid who left halfway through the book for a family emergency, which I’m not buying for a second. Like, hello! She was seen wandering around where that poor boy’s body was taken, for Christ’s sake.” I open my mouth to reply to her, but at the same time, she brings her hand over her mouth as a tinygasp escapes it. “Oh my god. Shit, I’m so sorry. Please tell me I didn’t just ruin it for you!”

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