by Lissa Del
The gesture is so unexpected that I press my lips together to keep from laughing, my eyes flicking to the clock above his head. His timing is exact, down to the minute, and I wonder how many drafts he wrote before he got my attention. Amused, I shake my head and turn back to face Noah, who is now apoplectic with indignation and outrage. Of course he saw the note, how could he have missed it? My amusement diminishes rapidly as I gaze down at Noah’s sullen face.
Thankfully, Noah is the only exception in a course teeming with colour, texture and beauty. I hadn’t always wanted to be an architect, in fact I’d spent most of my high school career entertaining the notion that I would become a chef. Then, in my senior year, my parents took my brother and I to London on a family vacation. The beauty and diversity of the buildings had taken my breath away. I had always loved old buildings, finding the form, space and ambience fascinating, but my senses had been assaulted by the flamboyant face-off of the old and the new world. Something about that trip had sparked a flame of yearning inside my eighteen-year-old self and I returned home with a new dream of becoming an architect.
The Holmes Institute, situated in Los Angeles’ famous Arts District offers Advanced Placement Opportunities for their top students in final year and I’ve applied for a position at Burke & Duke, a prestigious architectural firm renowned for its innovative concepts and forward thinking. Hard work and natural flair have ensured that I’ve placed top of our class since the very first year of my B. Arch studies, but now, entering our fifth and final year, I am even more determined to prove myself, particularly after the disastrous six-month courtship with Noah, who is still rabbiting on below us. I had dearly hoped that my schedule this year wouldn’t include him, but alas, here I am, listening to the rambling of an ex-boyfriend, who, every now and then, throws me a wounded, doe-eyed look for good measure.
I barely notice. In the few seconds that I’d held the stranger’s gaze something had shifted within me - something that could never shift back. I was drawn to him from the moment I laid eyes on him and our story would play out with, or without, my consent.
CHAPTER 3
“I saw that,” Jessica smirks beside me, blatantly blowing a kiss over my shoulder to the stranger. I can still feel the heat of his gaze on my neck and I shift awkwardly in my seat, still half-heartedly trying to focus on Noah, who seizes the opportunity to give me a lingering look that would probably make Samantha Simpson self-combust.
“Saw what?” I reply, feigning nonchalance.
“Oh please,” Jess snaps. “Don’t act like you didn’t see Mr Sex-on-legs over there undressing you with his inhuman eyes. You need a good cleaning out,” she adds, chewing on her thumbnail. “It’s been what, over two months since old Noah hosed your pipes?”
“Hosed my pipes?” I exclaim, finally turning to face her. “Who actually says things like that?”
Jessica ignores me, a thoughtful expression coming over her pale face.
“The question is though, how will Needy Noah handle seeing you with another man?”
“Stop it,” I laugh, shoving at her shoulder with my own.
“Is there something you would like to share with the class, Miss Holt?” Noah’s eyes bore into mine and I can imagine the perverse pleasure he’s taking in calling me out.
“No, nothing, Mr Allen,” I call out clearly across the room.
“You won’t mind, then, informing the class of the benefits of double-glazing that we’ve been discussing?” Noah traps his bottom lip in his teeth as he crosses his arms over his chest. It’s his smug look and I know it well. Heaving a sigh, I sit forward. Noah should know better, I think resignedly. I may not have been paying attention the past few minutes but, up until two months ago, I had helped him prepare his lesson plans for this semester. Lessons that I’d hoped I wouldn’t be subjected to.
“Double, or insulated glazing is separated by a vacuum or gas-filled space and reduces heat transfer across a part of the building envelope,” I recite easily. “The key advantages are energy cost savings, limited condensation, sound insulation, safety, and reduced damage to furnishings.” Jess gives a low chuckle beside me as Noah visibly twitches with annoyance before unravelling his arms and resuming his wounded expression.
The small female contingent of the class cast me dark, dirty looks. Noah, despite the tedium of the subject matter that he teaches, is good-looking and charming. He is also young enough, at twenty-nine, not to be considered pervy for dating his students. I know for a fact that I’m not the first student Noah has become romantically involved with, but I am the only one who ended it before he could. I think it is the brutal blow to his ego that has him so worked up, rather than the actual loss of me as his girlfriend, although I’m still fairly certain he felt more for me than I ever felt for him. I already knew he wasn’t for me by our second month of dating but I hadn’t known how to end things, and the fact that my parents adored him made it hard for me to break it off. After six months, however, I was done trying to please everybody.
“Well, that certainly puts it into perspective,” a deep voice utters, deadpan, and I glance across the lecture hall to find the golden-haired man chuckling. He has made a paper airplane out of his note, which he unabashedly sends soaring in my direction.
“Excuse me, but who are you, exactly?” Noah demands, consulting the roster at the edge of his desk.
“Leo Russell,” the man replies smoothly. The paper airplane has landed in Samantha’s hair and she rips it out, tearing it in half and shooting daggers at Leo.
“You’re not on my list,” Noah announces pointedly.
“That’s probably because I’m not supposed to be in this class,” Leo grins. “I’m actually registered for Art History 101, but I stumbled into the wrong lecture hall and I thought I’d look a right ass if I got up and left.” He gives me the ghost of a wink and I turn back to the front of the class, bemused.
“Two words,” Jessica hisses in my ear. “Pipes. Cleaned.”
“That is enough,” Noah orders, narrowing his eyes at the newcomer, but, as he opens his mouth, no doubt to evict Leo, the bell sounds and forty or so students get to their feet, scrambling for the exit. All save for Samantha, who makes a show of leaning forward to retrieve her brightly-coloured notes, her pink push-up bra creating a veritable Silicon Valley right here in the Arts District. Sadly, her practiced movement is wasted on Noah who only has eyes for me. I step aside, offering him a better view of Samantha’s cleavage, hoping he might be distracted, but he barely notices.
“Miss Holt, a word, please!” Noah strains to be heard over the mass exodus of students filing from the room in their haste to get to our next period. In an act of pure sadism, according to Jess, the university had scheduled most of our compulsory lectures on a Thursday rather than spacing them out.
“I’m going to be late for class,” I reply, as Jessica scuttles past, leaving me to deal with Noah on my own.
“You can tell Luke I kept you back.” Luke, or Professor Hanson as he is more commonly known to his students, is one of Noah’s lecturer friends and we had doubledated a few times while Noah and I were together. It irks me that Noah would use that fact to hold me up, as though our personal lives are a perfectly reasonable excuse for being late to class.
“Don’t you think that’s a little nepotistic?” I ask, only to be rewarded with yet another petulant look. “What is it, Noah?” I watch longingly as the last straggler disappears through the double doors. They swing shut behind him, rocking to and fro before closing properly with a depressing thud.
“Sarah,” Noah murmurs, in his most charming voice. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t. We really don’t,” I argue, trying to keep the irritation out of my tone. Noah has spent the better part of the past two months trying to get hold of me, leaving numerous text messages and voice mails which I refuse to answer. When that hadn’t worked, he had come to my apartment bearing flowers and wine – which is usually a guaranteed entry, but which, in Noah�
�s hands comes at too high a price - and eventually, out of sheer exhaustion, I had banned him from the building.
“You can’t just forget the time we spent together,” Noah whines.
“I didn’t, Noah,” I reply kindly. “What you and I shared… it was special.” The bald-faced lie tastes sour on my tongue but I continue, determined to keep things between us amicable. For all his idiocy, Noah could make my college life difficult if he really set his mind to it and I just want to get through my final year without incident.
“If it was so special, why aren’t we together?” Noah’s tone is harder than before. Not as stupid as he looks then, folks.
“I told you at the end of last semester, I have too much on my plate to be in a relationship right now.” This of course, is only partially true. My plate may be full, but that had nothing to do with my breaking it off with Noah. The sad truth was that I’d come to realise that Noah cared for me far more than I had ever cared for him and I didn’t want to lead him on. He was a nice enough guy, if a little self-absorbed, but he wasn’t the man for me. Even so, I had expected him to bounce back quickly and transfer his attention to another, far more willing, student. Instead, my rejection had spurred him to unbecoming heights of desperation.
“Sarah…”
“I have to go,” I insist, cutting him off and throwing my bag over my shoulder. “I’m going to be late.” Without waiting for a response, I hurriedly make my way from the room.
“So, did he fling you over his three-by-two and have his wicked way with you?” Jessica grins as I emerge into the corridor. She is leaning against the duck-egg blue wall, one black-booted foot placed flat on the clean paint.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I mutter.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she points out wryly and I can’t help but laugh.
“Thanks for waiting.”
“No problem. It seems I wasn’t the only one.” She inclines her head and I follow the direction of her gaze. The tawny giant from inside is leaning casually against the wall a few yards away speaking into a mobile phone.
“He isn’t waiting for me, Jess, he’s on the phone.” I take a moment of undetected scrutiny to admire the breadth of his shoulders and how his torso tapers, criminally narrow, shape into his hips. He looks a lot older than the average first-year student and I wonder why he is only starting his studies now. As I watch, he lifts a dinner-plate-sized hand and runs it through his hair, leaving it standing up at all angles. All the relaxed teasing is gone from his face. Instead, his forehead is furrowed and his broad shoulders are bunched up under the cotton of his shirt.
“He looks furious,” I whisper, as he hisses something inaudible into the handset.
“He looks like coffee and hot buttered toast,” Jess sighs, adding a suggestive growl for effect, then, sashaying towards him, she hollers in a voice loud enough to be heard across the state, “Hey, new guy!”
I flush as he whips around to locate the source of Jess’s voice. His eyes move over her and back toward me and the same lazy grin settles crookedly on his lips.
“I’ll talk to you later,” he announces abruptly, ending the call. “Hi,” he says, looking directly at me.
“Hi,” I say.
“I’m Leo.”
“I know,” I tease, reminding him of the incident in class. “So, you got lost huh? From what I recall Art History 101 is on the other side of campus.”
“I have a terrible sense of direction,” he says, his eyes directing their way up and down my body with the precision of sat-nav. “I didn’t catch your name?” He leaves the question hanging in the air, his head cocked slightly to one side.
“Sarah,” I offer.
“Sarah,” he says, as though tasting the name to see if it’s palatable. I wait, expectantly, but Leo doesn’t offer anything else. He seems to enjoy making me feel uncomfortable, his eyes boring into my own as though he is waiting for something.
Jessica, who is easily bored, thrusts her hand between us, engaging Leo in an arm-pumping hand shake. “Jessica,” she introduces herself. “So, now that we’re all acquainted, how about we get our asses to room 27 before Hanson locks us out?”
“He won’t lock you out,” I correct, “you’re his favourite.” Luke Hanson is not only one of our fifth year lecturers, he’s also Jess’s mentor. In this final year we are each assigned a professor to mentor us through our final projects. Jess is certainly not Luke’s most talented student, but she’s probably the most fun to work with.
“Says she of Marchant stock,” Jess teases, referring to my own mentor, the Dean of the Holmes Institute and a legend in Architectural circles. “Anyway, let’s hustle!”
“I’m free this period,” Leo says, pointing to his chest, “first year, remember?”
“You were being serious?” Jess’s jaw drops, revealing a row of perfect white teeth, courtesy of a lifetime of private health.
“Yes,” Leo’s amusement is plain to see, but Jess looks horrified.
“You’re too old to be a first year.” She narrows her eyes at him. “How old are you, exactly?”
“Thirty-two,” he replies easily. To Jess’s credit, even I’m stunned by this revelation. He looks younger, not by much, but I certainly didn’t expect a thirty-two-year-old man to be beginning his studies now. My disappointment must show, because he scrutinises my face, a thoughtful look coming over him.
“Bit of a late bloomer, then?” Jess sighs, giving me an apologetic look. I know exactly what she’s thinking. All her high hopes of hooking me up with the sexy new student have shattered. So much for her pipe-cleaning project! After all, it doesn’t matter how good-looking Leo is, nobody wants to set their best friend up with a loser.
“You could say that,” Leo says. “Or,” he adds, as Jess turns away, pulling on my arm, “you might say that I’ve had a change of heart.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Jess grumbles, still leading me away. Sometimes her lack of tact is mortifying.
“A change of heart?” I ask politely, throwing the words over my shoulder. Leo is leaning back against the wall, watching me go, his lips pressed together to keep from laughing.
“I’ll see you around, Sarah,” he winks, and then we turn a corner and I can’t see him anymore.
CHAPTER 4
“False representation, that’s what it is,” Jess says. “He deliberately presented himself as one thing and it turns out he’s another.”
“He didn’t present himself as anything and he clearly said he was a first year. How is that false representation?” I ask, trying to talk out of the very corner of my mouth. Luke had given us a hard look when we scuttled in at least five minutes after everyone else. I hadn’t mentioned Noah keeping me back, but, at the very least, I wanted to look as if I was paying attention to make up for it.
Jess looks alarmed. “Is there something wrong with your lip? Are you having an allergic reaction? I swear they put dishwasher in the coffee here.”
“Miss Atkins,” Luke Hanson growls a warning.
“Sorry, Professor!” Jess mock whispers, her voice carrying across the lecture hall and no doubt to the pedestrians on the street three storeys below. Luke cringes, but when I catch his eye he smiles. Luke is a nice enough guy, and, to be honest, I don’t think he’s quite as fond of Noah as Noah likes to think. Unlike Noah, Luke is actually a professor, and a visionary. He is also mercifully pro-cooling and, for the first time today, I’m not genuinely concerned that I might vaporise.
Out of respect for Luke, Jess waits a full seven seconds before resuming our conversation.
“I mean, why would you go and sit through an entire lecture of a class you’re not even supposed to be in? Especially one of Noah’s lectures,” she adds meaningfully. Like a dog with a bone, Jess refuses to let the subject of Leo go, as though he has insulted her personally, his mistake a deliberate affront to her matchmaking skills.
I nod sagely. “I’m sure he only does it to seduce innocent fifth years.”
&nbs
p; Jess looks pensive, considering this, until she figures out that I’m pulling her leg. “Oh ha-bloody-ha!” she snaps.
It’s only when we reach the cafeteria that she finally lets the matter rest and then only because she’s distracted.
“I heard Tom Cruise is filming Mission Impossible 37 or something down on Alameda Street,” she takes a monumental bite of her burger before continuing almost intelligibly, “we should totally blow off the rest of the day and go check it out.”
“First up, Tom Cruise is a little long in the tooth for us to be stalking him,” I say.
“Tom Hardy’s in this one, apparently,” she interrupts, through a mouthful of food.
“Second,” I say, “what part of Advanced Placement at Burke & Duke do you not understand?”
“Oh please!” Jess washes down a mouthful of food with water. “The AP’s in the bag. You know it, I know it. Everybody knows it. You’re leagues ahead of everyone else in this place, myself included and you have the Dianna Marchant as a mentor. Now stop setting such an impeccable example and let’s get the hell out of here!”
“Bunking again, Atkins?” a deep voice interrupts. Thomas Brooks has been the only other constant in my four years at Holmes. Devastatingly handsome, incorrigibly lazy and undeniably gay, Jess, Tom and I had met during our very first week at Holmes. It had taken only one wild Wednesday night and five bottles of wine to bring us together and we’d been inseparable ever since. Tom’s barely been in class this week as he’s been scouting for a location for his final project. Tom shares Jess’s distaste for the institution of learning, but, despite his frequent truancy, he’s in the top ten percent of our class.
“Hey Thomas!” Jess insists on using the French pronunciation, even though Tom was born and raised in Manhattan. He once ventured out of the city on a dirty weekend away with one of his many boy toys and now refers to himself as being internationally-travelled.
