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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I spend the night at Preston's house, and the next one, and the one after that. In fact, at no point do I go home, nor plan to, and Preston's not exactly pushy about it. I only return to my place briefly to grab some fresh clothes, and it's a passing visit; I'm back at his within the hour. None of Preston's other housemates are due to return any earlier than Margot, so we've got the place to ourselves for the whole two weeks or so.
We've both got exams to grapple with shortly after the Easter holidays, so we spend most days revising at cafes and campus libraries. We tried studying from Preston's place but wound up getting distracted by each other and the potential that comes with an empty house, so the libraries and occasional cafe visits were a compromise.
It was during one of these cafe visits that we temporarily returned to the world outside the private one we'd curated together. We were taking a break from revising, which in Preston terms, equated to reading a textbook on Russian history because as well-established by now, he's certified deranged. His arm was around my waist, his hand on my thigh, and I was absentmindedly playing with it as I rested my head on his shoulder. I wasn't really doing anything beyond that, just watching him turn the pages of his book with his free hand.
Then suddenly, Preston's back stiffened as he sat upright, pulling his arm from around me and forcing me to lift my head, at which point I spotted Damien, Typewriter Magazine's poetry contributor, entering the cafe. Within seconds of Preston's posture switch, Damien glanced in our direction with a double-take. He smiled, then started ambling towards us.
'Hey!' he said cheerily, and with what I hoped was total ignorance, as he stopped at our table. 'I didn't realise you guys were still around.'
'We spent the first week or so at home,' I reply, maybe a little too quickly. 'So yeah, back now. For good!'
He was nodding, a grin still on his face. 'Nice. I'm heading home in a few days. We should do something before then!'
I nodded back with matching enthusiasm, despite my niggling sense of irritation over an arbitrary feeling that Damien was infringing on us, interrupting mine and Preston's imaginary world. I didn't need to worry; Damien didn't end up messaging either of us to do anything, I definitely didn't message him, and I doubt Preston made any efforts to either.
Damien's cafe appearance was the first shock to our system. We both knew that what we were doing wasn't our forever, but I think it was the first time we consciously acknowledged it. For the rest of the day, Preston pulled back. He gently nudged me off his shoulder when I tried returning my head to it, moved to sit opposite instead of beside me, stayed at the cafe for a few hours after I left. Slept on his sofa that night.
By nine o'clock the next morning, though, we were back in bed together.
We stay up for hours some nights, often just talking about nothing but somehow everything. I don't think there's a topic we don't cover, at least excluding what it is we're doing; we never talk about that. For the first few days, I kept count of how often we had sex, but I gave up pretty quickly. At no point is there a repeat of what happened after we slept together on my birthday, and every time we do, I assure him we can stop at any time. He never asks to.
