When she uncovers his plan to lead an entirely uneventful life, Mia Evian is determined to teach Preston Maddox how to stop living like a ghost, but Mia and Preston have history, tension, and a lot of complicated feelings.
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It turns out uni students do very little reading during reading week, me included. I'm not a total lost cause; since Preston assigned me my first proofreading task for Typewriter Magazine, I've become possessed by the spirits of editors past and am spending reading week devouring as many writing pieces to fix up as I can. As uncool as it is to admit, I love it.
'Yeah, it's–I'm getting ready, I swear!' I insist into my phone, which is perched on my windowsill as I swoop blush onto my cheeks.
I pause to check my reflection, then frown. I was unsure about the green eyeshadow before I even applied it; I'm worried it looks jarring against the navy colour of my eyes, but I've committed to it.
'Mia, if you ditch this party because you're marking someone's homework, I swear–'
'It's not homework! It's a short story about a Yorkshire woman who finds a penguin in her back garden and has to figure out how to get it to back to Antarctica,' I correct Margot. 'And I'm literally leaving in five–Okay, like, twenty minutes.'
Silence over the phone, then, 'a woman who–What?'
'Exactly!' I reply as I rummage through my make-up bag for my highlighter. 'You're intrigued, right?'
'Nah, that's it; I'm getting your boss.'
The phone line turns static and it sounds like Margot then throws her mobile down the stairs because there's a lot of loud banging–slamming?
'Apparently, you're abandoning the party to edit our next issue's penguin rehoming story,' Preston says in a tone so nonchalant that he makes the topic sound normal.
'Margot's being dramatic,' I argue. 'I'm finishing my make-up–nearly done, by the way–then giving the story a final once over.'
'Take a day off, Gifford.'
'Giff–What? I'm too busy to untangle your bullshit right now.'
'William Gifford,' he replies. 'Jane Austen's editor. An Oxford academic who compared her original drafts with the final manuscripts has argued a lot of credit for the final work should be given to Giff–'
'Jesus Christ, okay, I'm coming,' I reply, then mutter, 'before you bore me to death.'
If I've learned anything in the short amount of time I've lived here, it's that Preston and Margot's place is the social hub of Clapham. Ironic, really, given Margot's made it clear Preston has next to no part in that. He apparently spends most of their parties either locked away in his room, or doing his own thing in the middle of it all–reading on staircases being one of his more popular hobbies, if the last party I attended is anything to go by.
It therefore doesn't faze me when I find him reading at the bottom of the ground floor staircase when Margot welcomes me inside that night.
'You're literally a caricature of yourself. You realise that, right?' I comment to him as I'm kicking my shoes off.
