“You feeling all right, love?” Penny asked Daniel, brushing his hair away from his eyes. “You hardly touched your dinner.”
Oh, how I longed to run my fingers through his hair and call him “love.”
“Yeah, I don’t have much of an appetite, I guess,” he said.
As Bradley and Penny took their after dinner drinks with them to the sofa, Jeremy and I sat on the stools. Daniel poured himself another Guinness and then opened the fridge, grabbing a Stella and a Keith’s. He held them up, eyebrows raised in question.
“I’ll have another. Thanks,” I said.
“Cheers, bro,” Jeremy said. He took a swig and then rested the bottle on the bar. “Okay, I know this is going to sound weird,” Jeremy said, “but I swear I know you from somewhere. Like, I think we bumped into each other recently, but I can’t think where.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Jer,” Daniel said. “Is that the best you can do?”
Jeremy shot him an annoyed look. “I’m serious.” He turned to me again. “You know what? Were you at the indie music revue a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yes, I was!” I exclaimed. “You were there?”
“Yeah, I went with a friend of mine who’s a music reviewer.” He snapped his fingers at me. “I knew I recognized you.” He gave Daniel a smug look. I thought for a second he might stick his tongue out. “I have to be honest, though, it was your friend who caught my eye.”
“Well, that’s not insulting at all,” Daniel said with a laugh.
“It’s okay,” I sighed, pretending to be deeply offended. “I’m used to playing second fiddle.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” Daniel said, looking at me over the rim of his glass as he took a long drink.
His voice was thick, and his words were beginning to run together. I picked at the label on my beer bottle, confused by this compliment, which came out of left field. Luckily Jeremy was now on a fact-finding expedition, and he filled what might have been an awkward silence by quizzing me about Julie.
“Is she single?” he asked.
“You’re talking about the blond girl, right?” I asked him.
“Yeah, blond and cute as hell. I don’t think she stopped singing along and dancing all night.”
“Yes.” I laughed. “That’s Julie. And absolutely, she’s very much single.”
Daniel shot me a surprised look. Yes, Daniel, that Julie, my expression told him.
“Do you think it would be super creepy if I got her phone number from you?” Jeremy asked. “And maybe you could tell her about me? Put in a good word? I was kicking myself for not asking for her number that night.”
Daniel snorted cynically.
“Hey, you should see this girl,” Jeremy said.
Well, actually…Daniel must have been thinking. We shared another glance.
“She seemed feisty and cute and confident and sweet, all at the same time.” Jeremy had a faraway look in his eyes. “I didn’t even meet her, but there was something about her that struck a chord…that sounds bizarre, right?”
Daniel tilted his head pensively. “No, I think I know what you mean, Jer,” he said, locking eyes with me.
I looked away, trying to convince myself that I was misreading the signals he was sending me. I was desperate to ask him what he was thinking, but it was neither the time nor the place. I focused instead on Jeremy’s dilemma.
“Sorry, Jeremy, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to give you Julie’s number. Not without her permission, anyway.”
“Why don’t you take Jeremy’s number?” Daniel suggested. “You can pass it along to your friend and then the ball can be in her court.”
I tried to read Daniel’s expression. Was he really okay with the idea of his brother dating someone from Professor Brown’s class? I sure hoped so. Jeremy was a great guy.
I gave Jeremy my phone so he could type in his information. Then he asked for my number. I saw no good reason not to provide it. Daniel gulped his beer as he watched our exchange. With my phone safely back in my purse and Jeremy suitably placated, he and Daniel wandered off to join Bradley while Penny returned to the bar to refill her wine glass. At the pool table, Brad must have said something hysterical under his breath because Daniel started giggling like a nine-year-old girl.
“My God, he’s wankered,” Penny said. I looked at her quizzically. “Drunk,” she clarified.
“Right. Gotcha.” It was as if she was speaking a different language sometimes.
“Daniel’s awesome when he’s drunk,” she explained. “You know how some blokes get mean or angry? He gets silly. Listen to that laugh!” She smiled over at him affectionately.
It was true. He had the best laugh ever. I wanted to curl up in it and roll around.
“So, what do you think, love? You and Daniel?” Penny said, lifting her eyebrow and clicking her tongue inside her cheek.
“Oh, no, not at all,” I protested. “I barely know him.”
Oh, the lies. I was marinating in them. I could have been basted, turned over, and served at the next family dinner. My face burned as Daniel sauntered back over to the bar, grabbing himself yet another beer. I’d lost track of the number of times he’d replenished his drink, and believe me, I was watching his ass every time he bent down to open that cupboard.
“So then you are seeing the bloke from Canoe?” Penny persisted.
“No, it’s not like that with him, either.”
Daniel surveyed his glass. “Tell me, Aubrey, is there someone with whom it is like that?” A trace of a smile danced on his lips. God, he was unreal! Nobody uses “whom” properly. How the hell was he able to do it when he was half wasted?
“Not at the moment, although I do have a few irons in the fire,” I replied.
“Really?” he said, his voice silky.
“How about you? Do you have any irons in the fire?” I asked.
“I don’t think he does, Aubrey, but I’m guessing there’s one fire he wouldn’t mind putting his iron in,” Penny said.
I quietly celebrated this confirmation of Daniel’s single status while Penny laughed at her own crude joke then walked over to cajole Brad and Jeremy into playing a game of darts, leaving Daniel and me alone at the bar. Between turns at the dartboard, Penny and Bradley cuddled and kissed. Poor Jeremy was an unfortunate third wheel in the proceedings.
“Oy! You two, get a room!” Daniel yelled across the room.
“Sod off, wanker,” Penny hurled back.
Daniel looked at me, the one-dimpled grin working its way to the surface. His face was flushed, and he looked like a vulnerable little boy. I returned his smile, but then I had to look away, certain that my face must be betraying every detail of the way I felt.
Instead, I watched Penny in action. The girl knew her way around a dart board. Daniel took the opportunity to mock his brother’s lack of skill compared to Penny’s command of the game.
“Jesus, you daft prat! You’re not gonna let her walk all over you like that, are you?”
“Fuck yourself, Daniel,” Bradley said good-naturedly.
“You couldn’t hit the back of a bus with a banjo, bro,” Daniel mocked.
There was something about being with Penny that brought back Daniel’s accent and the accompanying lingo with a vengeance. It was unbelievably hot.
Suddenly he took my hand and said, “Come on, I’m going to teach you to play snooker.” However, between his slurring and his emerging English accent, it sounded like, “C’mon, I’m gon’ta teachoo ta play snookah.”
Delicious.
I adored drunk Daniel. Bring on the Guinness! It was dissolving his stony, carefully maintained exterior quite handily.
He led me to the pool table and put our drinks on the ledge. “Ever played before?” he asked.
“Um, no. I don’t even know how to hold the cue properly,” I confessed.
“Well, we can’t have that now, can we?” he asked. “You’ve got to know how to hold it before you can do a
nything else, Aubrey.”
My name, a husky sigh rather than a word, was rolling off his tongue so smoothly I wondered how he’d cope on Monday when he had to revert back to calling me “Miss Price.”
He retrieved Bradley’s discarded cue and grabbed a little blue square off the edge of the table. He was standing far too close to me, looking at me through lidded eyes. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
With the cue in his left hand, one end on the floor and the tip up, he took the blue square between his fingers. “This is cue tip chalk. Before you begin, it’s a good idea to rub some on the tip, but gently. Not too hard. If you get too much on the tip, you blow it off—like this.”
His gentle breath fanned strands of my hair around my face. My knees turned to rubber as he spun me around to face the table.
“Take the cue in your left hand here and your right hand here. Now lean over the table.”
I did as I was told. He leaned in behind me, wrapping his left arm around mine to help me plant my fingers on the table in a little bridge.
“Now take the cue and place the tip right there,” he said, helping me balance it atop my left hand.
Oh, I’ll tell you where to place the tip, Mr. Shmexy.
“With your right hand, grasp the shaft of the cue firmly up here.”
I looked over my right shoulder. His face hovered beside my ear and his right hand wrapped around mine.
“How does that feel?” he asked, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear him.
“That feels good,” I said, and then I brazenly shifted my position slightly so that I could feel his crotch pressing against my ass. “Wait…now that? That’s perfect.”
I looked over my shoulder again. He was grinning naughtily. And I never thought I’d say it, but Shakespeare was wrong. There was no “performance” being compromised by drink in this scenario.
“Now, slide the cue back and forth on your left hand to get a feel for it. Don’t grasp it too tightly here.” He loosened my right hand a little. “You need exactly the right amount of pressure to follow through properly. It’s all about angle and speed. If you hit it too hard, you’ll lose control; too softly and you might miss it entirely.”
“I see. What about earlier, what was that you were doing with your leg?”
“Yes, well, sometimes you have to hitch your leg up a bit to give you better—”
“Friction?” I asked.
“No,” he said, his tone becoming more and more seductive. “I was going to say access.”
Hitch your leg up to give you better access? Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean.
“Daniel, are we still talking about pool?” I giggled.
He laughed softly too. “I’m not sure I was ever talking about pool.”
Oh, God!
He gently trailed his left hand up mine before allowing it to come to rest on my wrist. He rubbed himself against my backside, and I moaned softly.
All of a sudden, Bradley broke the spell. “Dude, are you trying to teach her to play pool, or are you molesting the poor girl?”
Bradley laughed at his own joke, but Daniel froze behind me, quickly releasing my hands. Before I even had time to process what was happening, he’d pulled away, saying something about needing coffee and striding across the room to the stairs, his hands frantically raking his hair out of his eyes. The mood had changed in an instant.
Bradley, you dink.
“Well done, you silly bugger. He was starting to have fun then,” Penny said.
Yeah, so was I. My girly bits were all aflutter.
“Yeah, idiot, I haven’t seen him having that much fun since…well, in a long time,” Jeremy added, clipping Bradley on the head with his hand.
“Aubrey?” Dean Grant’s voice called out.
I walked over to the bottom of the stairs. “Yes?”
“I’m going to have to take Daniel home. He’s in no shape to drive. I’ll drop you off on the way. We’ll leave in a few minutes.”
“Um, okay,” I said, grabbing my purse.
“Jeremy? Are you able to drop off Daniel’s car for him tomorrow?” Dean Grant said.
“No, can’t do it tomorrow,” Jeremy called up to him. “I’m in Scarborough all day. Maybe Monday?”
“Okay, we’ll figure something out.”
Dean Grant retreated from the top of the stairs, and I threw my purse over my shoulder.
“Well, it was nice meeting you all,” I said.
Penny hugged me warmly. “It was nice to meet you properly, lovey.”
I was glad I’d left Penny’s eyes intact. She was a great girl—a little rough around the edges, but hey, I wasn’t one to judge on that score. Bradley gave me a wave.
“Take it easy, Aubrey. Maybe we’ll see you soon?”
Oh, I don’t know about that, Bradley. I imagined the fallout this day would surely have. Jeremy gestured to my purse.
“Don’t forget about the phone number,” he said. “You’ll put a good word in for me, right?”
“Of course,” I assured him.
Bradley elbowed him. “Shit, I don’t know who’s worse. You or Desperate Dan up there.”
“Shut up, Brad!” Jeremy glared at his brother.
I smiled as I made my way up the stairs, but my smile quickly dissolved as I glanced into the kitchen. Daniel was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug in front of him. His mother was leaning over him, rubbing his back as she whispered to him.
“I’m going to warm up the car,” Dean Grant said.
“He’ll be out in a minute,” Gwen called out from the kitchen.
Dean Grant helped me put my coat on and then ushered me out the door with him. He opened the front passenger door.
“Shouldn’t we let Daniel—”
“He can sit in the back. At this point I think I could throw him in the trunk and he wouldn’t notice.”
He climbed in and started the car. “I wish you’d told me Daniel was your TA, Aubrey,” he said with a sigh.
“He asked me not to. I didn’t know what to do. He fenceposted me,” I said, hoping he’d understand. “I didn’t think it would hurt to come over for dinner. You told me Daniel wouldn’t be here.”
“I know, but you realize Daniel has to keep his distance from the students in class. That includes you. He has to maintain impartiality and objectivity. Not courting familiarity with students goes with the territory. It’s not that he doesn’t like you—he can’t compromise his academic position. I won’t allow it,” he added, looking at me almost sternly.
“I understand. I’m sure nothing like this will happen again. Daniel has been nothing but professional for the last month,” I told him.
Up until about twenty minutes ago.
“That’s good to hear. So let’s keep this between us and try to forget it ever happened, all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
Daniel finally emerged from the house, falling into the back seat with a groan. I kept my eyes trained out the front windows. As Dean Grant drove through the dark streets, Daniel began snoring gently behind us.
“Someone’s going to be miserable tomorrow,” I said.
Dean Grant smiled and shook his head. “I gather he hasn’t eaten much today. It was foolish of him to drink so much.”
I looked out the window, watching the city lights go by.
“Oh, and before I forget,” he said, “these are for you from Gwen.” He handed me two complimentary tickets to the Gardiner Museum.
“Tell her I said thank you, would you?”
“Of course.”
A few moments later, we pulled onto Charles Street, and Dean Grant came around to open my door, holding his hand out to help me over the curb and onto the sidewalk.
“Thank you for a lovely evening, sir. Your family is wonderful.”
He placed his hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently. “It was our pleasure, Aubrey. Business as usual on Monday, yes?”
“Absolutely.”
I watc
hed as he climbed back into the car. Daniel was hunched down in the back seat, arms crossed over his chest, head bobbing.
Adorable.
The car sped off. I walked up the path, prepared to be greeted by my roommates and listen attentively to all their fabulous Reading Week stories, when all I really wanted to do was review the all-important ground rules for playing snooker.
Chapter 15
Outward Shows
So may the outward shows be least themselves:
The world is still deceived with ornament.
(The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 2)
BETWEEN CATCHING UP WITH MATT and Jo and reading ahead for classes, I found plenty of time on Sunday to daydream about firmly grasped pool cues and leg hitches. Even the non-snooker related parts of my trip to the Grant home made me long for a second visit. But that wouldn’t be happening. Dean Grant’s words rang in my ears like a death knell.
“It’s not that Daniel doesn’t like you—he can’t compromise his academic position. I won’t allow it.”
Dean Grant wouldn’t allow it. What about Daniel, though? How did he feel about what had happened?
Dean Grant had advised me not to take Daniel’s distance personally, and it occurred to me that Daniel’s chilly TA persona was probably a response to his father’s guidance. On second thought, pressure might have been a better word.
I spent most of Sunday evening worrying about my return to work, unsure what to expect from Dean Grant in the wake of his dire warnings, but everything in the office was normal on Monday morning. He greeted me cheerfully as always, and he mentioned again how much the family had enjoyed my visit. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and no more was said about it.
Daniel didn’t show up for their routine Monday morning meeting with his father, and Dean Grant didn’t leave. I wondered if they needed some time apart after the craziness of the weekend.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t dreading seeing Daniel, even though we’d definitely crossed a line. The whole crotch-ass rubbing episode—complete with off-the-charts sexual innuendo—had launched us soundly into the dangerous territory that his father would probably refer to as “familiarity.”
The Weight of Words (The WORDS Series) Page 14
