Page 8 of The Rest is History
‘Do you want to make yourself a coffee?’ he asks suddenly.That’sspooky.
‘No, thanks. It can wait.’
‘Okay, then.’ He pauses and, looking down, carefully rotates the hexagonal sides of his pencils so the Staedler sign is facing upwards on both of them.
I huff out a little laugh. ‘What’s going on, Charlie? You’re making me nervous. Have I done something wrong?’
His head jerks up. ‘No. No. Not at all. It’s nothing to do with school. It’s. Ah. I wanted to ask you…’
He’s going to ask me out.The thought hits me from nowhere, and a tidal wave of heat rushes relentlessly up my neck. Shit shit shit. I’m equal parts horrified by how excruciating this will be and filled with anticipation. What thehellis going on with me?
‘I have—there’s a gig I thought you might be interested in.’
He cuts through my mental spiralling. Oh, thank God. Wait—what?
‘Agig?’
‘Yes. That is’—he adjusts his pencils again so the rubbers and points are exactly aligned—‘I hope you don’t mind, but I heard you mention the other day that you wouldn’t mind a bit of extra cash, so I thought of you for this… thing.’
Oh my God. It’s mortifying that he knows I need cash. I mean, it’s not for me. It’s for Olive, but… There’s an unfortunate conflict between my attempts to keep my personal life away from Charlie and Zara’s love of gossip. Sometimes I forget he’s in the room when I’m answering her questions.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Right. What kind of gig?’ He makes it sound like I’d be pulling pints at a concert or something. Not that that would be a problem, especially if there are tips. It all adds up. If I was still at St Michael’s, I’d have been forced into some extra bar shifts already, but this substitute teacher thing pays far better.
‘It’s—’
He clears his throat and tries again. He seems to be finding this inordinately difficult. Those blue eyes, with lashes darkerand thicker than they have any right to be, keep flitting between my face and those bloody pencils. Props, that’s what they must be. Something to keep him occupied while he, God forbid, has a one-on-one interaction with another human being.
‘It’s a Saturday thing. At Hampton Court.’
I perk up. I adore Hampton Court. I haven’t been in ages—it’s far from cheap—but I wouldn’t be a Tudor aficionado without finding Hampton Court Palace to be one of the magical places around. Not only is it physically breathtaking, but the knowledge that I walk in the footsteps of Henry VIII, his queens, Cardinal Wolsey, and God knows how many larger-than-life characters from history never fails to give me goosebumps.
So if Charlie Vaughan is offering me a chance to get past those high walls and iron gates and getpaidfor the privilege, I know I’ll take it.
Even if it’s shovelling up horse shit.
I can’t help it. I smile at him, a slow smile of surprise and delight that he’s already piqued my interest so unexpectedly. His eyes widen.
‘Go on.’ I gesture impatiently at him.
‘It’s an acting role.’ He studies my face for a reaction as he says it.
‘Anactingrole? Need a new beefeater, do they?’
He doesn’t acknowledge my lame little joke.
‘I don’t know if you know this about me’—he rolls the pencils in sync—‘but… I work there on the weekends.’
I definitely did not know this about him. ‘Do you?’
‘Yeah.’
A pause, where I raise my eyebrows in a silent question.
‘I play Henry VIII. As, like, a kind of actor.’ He looks up at me again as if daring me to challenge this statement. Or, more likely, daring me to laugh.
Because oh. My.God.
We stare at each other, and I’m so fascinated I forget to be uncomfortable.
