Page 50 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
‘You’re going to have to wait,’ he said as he slowly pulled the pair of lacy underwear, down my legs. I let my knees drop to the bed in response.
Matt knew how to turn my impatience into giddiness, how to take control in a way that made my toes curl.
‘I want you,’ I said, a final time. And then I stopped talking.
‘I think we were always good at this, even the first time,’ I said once I could finally speak. I lay on Matt’s chest, recovering and wondering why everyone didn’t spend Tuesday in bed with their fiancé. Our various limbs were entangled, the linen bedding twisted. Belinda’s questionnaire, half complete, was scattered around us. ‘Movies and books make it seem like sexual tension is the hottest thing in the world. But I think when we became each other’s person and there was no more tension... that’s when the fireworks happened.’
‘I agree. When we started sleeping together, it was great because it was exciting,’ he said. ‘But I think it’s better now that we know we belong to each other.’
I rolled off Matt’s chest onto a few crumpled pages.
‘I’ll return the forms to Belinda in the morning and we can drop the cake stand at your parents’ house on the weekend,’ I said as I smoothed out the pages. ‘You’ve told your mum there won’t be cake toppers, right?’
‘All taken care of,’ Matt said, still catching his breath.
‘And maybe let’s not mention the decapitated groom cake topper to my mum. She doesn’t need another reason to invoke the—’
‘Don’t say it—’
‘Curse.’
Chapter 24
THEN
I had agreed to meet Alex at the Commemoration Ball on our final night in Oxford. I must have walked through the front gates of Trinity College hundreds of times over the last year, but this was the first time that my stomach writhed with excitement and anticipation.
Lily and I arrived together, flashing our nylon wristbands at the girls in gowns manning the entrance. The courtyard was almost unrecognisable. Circus performers, decked out in silver costumes, roamed around on stilts, enormous lanterns with real flames were dotted around, a string quartet played as trays of champagne circulated.
I’d barely had time to absorb it all when I saw him. Everything else disappeared – there were no violins, no fire, no swishes of satin. Just him. How did an Australian guy, who barely wore shoes most days, look so perfect in a tailcoat?
He saw me and smiled. Lily squeezed my hand and then peeled off to find her college friends. I took one step towards him then stopped, my hands fluttering to my turquoise silk dress. I’d bought it during my trip to London – I normally wore dark colours and I shouldn’t have been spending money, but for the first time in my life, I felt properly beautiful.
He grabbed my hand, like he’d done on the May Day morning, and silently led me through the crowd until we reached my staircase. I noticed that my nameplate had already been taken down – ready for someone else’s name to be put up at the end of the summer.
‘No one’s allowed back up to their rooms until the ball’s over,’ I said slowly.
‘No one’s allowed on our college roof either,’ he said with a teasing smile.
The climb to my room on the top floor took a long time. We kissed on the step where we’d made out weeks earlier. He tasted like champagne, and I was sure I would taste like juniper from the gin I’d had with Lily while we got ready.
Finally, he pulled away and stared at me with soft eyes.
I took his hand again and led him to my door. ‘Before I met you, I lived in my head,’ I said. ‘You make me feel like I live in my body too. Discuss.’
‘I think this is a subject for an equation rather than an essay,’ Alex replied, his voice huskier than usual. ‘Maybe we can work it out together?’
I wordlessly nodded.
‘I think we start with subtraction,’ he said, closing my door behind him.
‘Subtraction sounds good,’ I said, though any words could have been coming out of my mouth.
I turned around, facing away from him. He slowly unzipped the dress and let go. It fell to the floor. I wasn’t wearing a bra and my underwear was skimpy and sheer. But I didn’t feel self-conscious in the slightest. I turned back to face Alex and his eyes lit up.
The insides of my body felt like one of the electron diagrams you learned about at school – everything zipping around, bumping into each other.
Classical music wafted up through my open window, accompanied by a chorus of laughter and chatter. This night felt different from our other nights together. I felt out of time, like I didn’t exist in the real world. It wasn’t real life.
