"Chauffeurs just messaged me, he's fifteen minutes away," Lyssa sighed as she sat cross-legged on Felix's bed, shutting off her phone.
"-Hurry up and complete this question so I can help you on the next!"
Felix, who was propped up against the headboard of his bed, twisted a biro pen that he was holding against his lips in concentration as he studied the textbook in his lap.
"I don't understand." He flatly concluded, slamming the book dramatically shut and looking upwards to Lyssa, who huffed hopelessly at his short-fused reaction.
"It's not that difficult, Fe." She reassured, shuffling closer beside him to reach the book discarded in his lap.
"I'm feeling pretty stupid for an Oxford student." Felix chuckled, dragging an exasperated hand over his face as Lyssa skimmed over the glossary in hopes it'd inform him better.
"-Maybe I should ask Ollie for help?,"
Lyssa swallowed so hard she could've sworn she felt her oesophagus sprain at the sheer amount of force.
"What? What's wrong?,"
Felix read her expression immediately, sitting up to provide an aid.
He placed a supportive hand on the small of Lyssa's back, adjusting his body to face opposite her instead of beside her on the large king sized poster bed.
"Nothing."
Lyssa cleared her throat dismissively, continuing to flick through the pages of the textbook, hoping Felix would withdraw his frantic concern.
"No, Lyss." He asserted, "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"It's just-,"
Lyssa couldn't quite find an appropriate way to phrase her concerns, but she thought Felix was entitled to know the truth about his guest of honour.
"I think Oliver's been watching us, Fe." Lyssa lowered her voice cautiously, even glancing towards the shared bathroom the boys had, as if she were expecting Oliver be there.
"What? Lyssa-," Felix let out a bitter chuckle of disbelief, "That's insane."
"Why-," He stammered at the shocking allegation she'd pinned against his friend, a hand frantically combing through his hair.
"Why would he do such a thing?"
"I don't know, Felix!"
Lyssa raised her voice - sitting up abruptly from his bed, starting to pace in short lengths repeatedly in the middle of his room.
"He's your mate!"
"Lyssa, calm down." Felix descended his voice a great handful of octaves lower, "I'm sure that's not what he's been doing."
"I know that's what he's being doing."
Lyssa retorted in a now defensive, prickled tone - for Oliver's sweetheart demeanour had fooled Felix, but it had never fooled her.
"And how do you know this?" He sighed, also sitting up from his bed to meet her where she had stopped pacing, and stood.
He placed a hand comfortingly on each of her shoulder blades, as if he were grounding her.
"He-," She hesitated, her teeth beginning to peel away the flesh on the inside of her cheek from the anxiousness this situation bestowed upon her.
"He told me."
An agonising silence bestowed itself upon the room - the distance between the two, now more unnerved - teenagers was filled with a shared feeling of nausea.
Felix scoffed as an act of denial, his hand reaching to pinch the bridge of his nose.
"He-," Felix staggered, trying to make sense of Lyssa's confession, "He told you?"
"Yes, Fe!" Lyssa struggled immensely to keep her voice below a whisper, for she was still intimidated by his supposed presence.
For since Oliver had nonchalantly told Lyssa what he'd seen, she had as if she were being watched closely every waking second she spent inside the Saltburn estate.
"Lyss-, this doesn't make any sense-,"
"I know! He's a creep, Felix!," She turned her back to face him, pacing over to the large window that overlooked the garden Labyrinth in its entirety.
For in that moment Lyssa hoped the luscious walls of twisting and bending greenery would provide a momentary comfort.
But instead, it just reminded her of her compromising situation that she'd just dubbed Felix in on, and how things could go south very fast.
Lyssa had a suspicion that Oliver had deviating intentions beside being a troubled, studious and reserved boy that just wanted to have a six-week long sleepover with a new mate.
She didn't know what, exactly, but she knew that his motive for being here and so close to such a wealthy family was ill-endowed, and that made him untrustworthy in her eyes.
Napoleon Syndrome - never trust a man lacking in general height.
Lyssa had been repeatedly making mental reminders of this fact every time she stepped into the pub on a bustling Friday evening.
"What can we do?,"
He asked hopelessly, walking over to where Lyssa was stood stilly staring out of the window.
He reached over to the side of the window, his hand reaching to tug the curtains shut.
"We need..," Lyssa trailed off, now lost in her own labyrinth of thought, "We need to stop."
"Stop?," Felix let out a confused, bitter chuckle.
"Lyssa, we haven't even begun."
His remark made her turn to face him, boring her eyes into his own, for his shift in tone infuriated her.
"What?," She provoked, narrowing her eyes.
"He saw us once. One time." He justified, raising his hands to place them on each of her shoulders, his thumbs massaging small circles into the flesh.
"And what if he keeps watching us, Fe?" Lyssa shrugged off his touch, visibly disturbed, "What will happen then?,"
"We-, We just let him perv on us?" She exasperated, throwing her arms dramatically in the air.
"Felix, i don't think I'll ever be able to touch you again without thinking that he's watching us from somewhere."
"I'm sure it was an accident," He tried to deescalate the situation,
This may have also been a lousy attempt to protect his friends innocence, in which had tricked his brain into thinking Oliver had.
"-He probably just accidentally stumbled upon us while going to get some water, or something."
Lyssa rolled her eyes in complete disbelief of his ignorance to the distressing nature of their situation, yet it was obvious of his naivety towards Oliver's behaviour.
"I mean," He continued, "We were making out on the landing, where anyone could've seen."
Lyssa shook her head slowly, looking away from Felix and his poor act of reassurance.
"No, Fe.." She muttered, feeling her oesophagus begin to strain again as she rolled on the events of last night in her shaken brain.
For every time she replayed what happened, it felt as though another knot had been tied in her throat, and her words began to get caught amongst them.
"The way he said it.. it-,"
She raised a hand to her forehead, where a sheer layer of sweat had formed - lactated panic that glistened upon her skin in the dewy morning sunlight that seeped through a narrow gap in-between the curtains.
"It was spoken so smugly, the way he said it." She repeated, now massaging her temples, "He knew, Felix."
"-It wasn't an accident."
She whispered, his embrace cocooning her from this now constant watchful, yet invisible sense of surveillance she'd been feeling since she endured last nights play of events.
"It's so gross, Felix." She sighed into his chest, "So fucking disgusting."
"I know, Lyss." He muttered, the decibels of his voice muffled by her hair masking his lips, as he placed a gentle kiss to the top of her head.
"I can talk to him tomorrow," Felix suggested,
"Tell him to leave."
Lyssa shrugged, for she was unsure of what to do next.
Frankly, she'd never been in a situation like this before, and she hadn't ever thought about what the precautions would be if she were to experience one.
"I know he's your mate, Fe.." She stepped out of his embrace backwards, a nimble hand combing back her hair out of her face, "I just-, I really don't have a good feeling about him."
"Leave it, Lyssa."
Felix grabbed her free hand that had fallen limp to her side - in which she had begun to scratch excessively at her upper thigh where it was level - each anxious scratch leaving a deeper pink streak of irritation upon her skin.
"-I'll sort it, alright?"
Lyssa, who wanted to reunite herself with her bed more than anything in this moment, hesitatingly nodded at his proposal - for at this point, she just wanted a break.
Even a minuscule slather of some peace of mind.
Luckily the guest room bed was comfortable - and most definitely infused with some remedy that sent her into a hefty state of sleep - otherwise she was certain she wouldn't have endured an ounce of sleep that night.
And her state of mind definitely would've been much worse.
Felix, who'd still maintained a grip on Lyssa's hand that had been tearing at the surface of her upper thigh - an anxious habit she was oblivious in which she had - placed a kiss upon her knuckles.
"Fine." She nodded, "I have to leave now, I think."
She walked back over towards the bed to retrieve her phone, greeted by a blunt message from the chauffeur stating that he was parked outside.
"Thank you, for having me." Lyssa curtly exclaimed, "Sorry if I was of any trouble."
"Oh, Lyssa." Felix groaned, fed up of watching his favourite girl act as if she were nothing but a burden, "Shut up,"
"-I-, we love you being here." He confessed, "Elspeth says she's missed you, and that it was lovely to see you again."
"Tell her thank you, also." Lyssa smirked appreciatively at his kind words, "I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah." He nodded, smiling.
Lyssa returned a short smile back, before heading towards the door to exit his room.
"Lyss, wait."
"What is it, Catton?" She shook her head, tutting at the tardiness of his communication, for he could've spoken sooner rather than when she were about to leave.
"I-," He looked away from her for a breif moment, as if he were trying to mellow his thoughts by distracting himself from what caused them to typically uproar.
"I don't want us to stop. Anything."
"...Is this you confessing your undying love for me now, Catton?" She joked, chuckling at his genuine struggle to admit to having genuine feelings towards the girl.
For as much as she was unaware of the intensity of these feelings, she knew that there was too much raw passion for it to all be a horny facade.
And it proved a comfort to Lyssa, to think that in a world of hers where love is neglected and intimacy of any kind is martian and disconnected, that somebody wanted her.
Plus, she had the entirety of summer left to her own devices, so playing into a ditsy summer crush of a sort, she thought, wouldn't do much harm.
Seeing Felix's smile at her humorous prod falter as he was serious with his word, Lyssa softened her gaze toward him.
"In all honesty, Fe, me either."
"-But, we can't risk doing anything while Oliver is around, okay?"
Felix muttered in agreement, more distracted by the fact that Lyssa Sol had reciprocated, essentially, what were his romantic feelings.
"This is fucking horrible, but I just can't-," She closed her eyes shut, craning her head towards the floor as she grimaced at the thought.
"-Not with him here."
"He makes my fucking blood run cold."