I didn't get good sleep. I kept seeing the library shadows and the way Alistair's jaw had tightened when I used his name, every time I shut my eyes. Calling him by his name was a mistake, I was aware of it the moment the word came out of my mouth a small crack in the discipline I had maintained since Zurich.
I wasn't here to make a play at my history professor. I came here to knock down Diana Halloway's name, piece by piece. Because of my mother, there was a shadow cast in these corridors, and I was supposed to be the storm bringing the reckoning. Getting close to Alistair was supposed to be tactical; he was the archivist, the one who knew where the old records were hidden. But last night, between the shelves, the tactics had seemed... less important.
The shyness Id experienced was not a put on. That was the goddamn problem. For a few moments, I wasn't a girl with a vendetta, I was just a girl who liked the look she got from a man when she talked about Thomas Hardy.
I spent the morning in a state of low-level anxiety. By the time I reached History, my palms were sweaty.
I took my seat in the back, staring deep into my notebook, drawing sharp useless shapes in the margins.
I told myself he wouldn't do it. He was a man of habit, a man of grey and mute colors. He wouldn't listen to a eighteen-year-old girl's fashion advice.
Then the door opened.
Alistair walked in with his usual measured walk, a stack of essays tucked under his arm. He reached the podium and set them down with a soft thump. He didn't look at me. He didn't look at anyone.
He was wearing the blue tie.
It was a deep, midnight silk that caught the morning light coming through the high windows.
Against his crisp black shirt, it made his eyes look less like tired aqua and more like deep water.
It changed his entire aura. He looked less like a piece of the school's furniture and more like a man who had secrets of his own.
My breath hitched. It was a small, audible sound, and for a terrifying second, I thought the whole room heard it.
Saffron Leith certainly noticed something, she turned around, her eyes narrowing as she looked at me, then back at Mr. Howard.
"Today," Alistair began, his voice as dry and professional as ever, "we will discuss the impact of the Great Depression on British social mobility. Or the lack thereof."
I couldn't focus. My heart was beating against my ribs like it wanted to get out. He'd done it. The responsible, distant Mr. Howard had made a choice. One out of his personality.
Because I'd asked him to.
Throughout the lecture, I felt his gaze drift toward the back of the room. It wasn't the usual sweep of a teacher checking for distracted students. It was a heavy, lingering presence. Every time our eyes met, I felt a jolt of pure, unadulterated, dirty electricity.
I looked down at my desk, my face heating up, feeling that familiar, sickeningly sweet shyness.
"Miss Vance," he said, and I jumped slightly. "Since you seem so interested in your notebook, perhaps you can tell us how the rural poor reacted to the 1931 budget cuts?"
I looked up. He was leaning against his desk, arms crossed. The blue tie was right there, a secret signal between us in a room full of people who didn't understand.
"They didn't," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "They realized the system was designed to ignore them, so they stopped waiting for permission to survive. They created their own economies. Their own rules."
Alistair stared at me for a beat too long. A quiet, knowing silence stretched between us.
"Quite," he said finally. "An unconventional interpretation, but accurate."
The rest of the class was a blur. When the bell rang, Saffron lingered by her desk, watching me pack my bag.
"Mr. Howard looks different today, doesn't he?" Saffron asked, her voice low and venomous. She stepped into my path as I tried to leave. "He's usually so... grey. That tie is almost fashionable. I wonder who told him to wear it."
I didn't look at her. I didn't give her the satisfaction of a flinch. "Maybe he just got tired of the view, Saffron. Some people eventually do."
I pushed past her, my heart still racing. As I reached the door, I glanced back. Alistair was watching me leave. He didn't smile, and he didn't nod. He just adjusted the knot of the blue silk tie.
Fuck.
I walked into the hallway, my mind spinning. I was supposed to be the one in control. I was supposed to be the one playing the game.
But as I headed toward my next class, I realized something terrifying, I wasn't just obsessed with the revenge anymore.
I was obsessed with him.
And the worst part was, I think he knew it.