We're laying in the solarium. It's snowing outside but the solarium is heated, so I can watch snow falling on glass above me while feeling like I'm back on a St. Barths beach. Jasper lays across a lounge chair lazily, staring up at the ceiling. I'm splayed out similarly across another lounge chair. We've discarded our winter coats and sweaters. Funnily enough, both of us are wearing the dress shirts that are part of the Arbourne uniform, even if it's a weekend.
"What are we?" I ask, staring up at the falling snow. It's piling onto the glass thickly, like powdered sugar.
"Anything," Jasper says. "I could be your boyfriend if you want. Though I don't know how much that's worth at this point."
"Let's just be us," I tell him.
"What's us?" Jasper asks, his voice amused.
I turn around so I'm facing him. "Don't make me answer that question."
"Sure."
There's silence. I have a magazine, but I'm not particularly interested in it. I'm more interested in the way the light catches on Jasper's hair, the slant of his cheekbones.
"What's this?" I ask, reaching out. I push aside Jasper's collar, touching the little scar I've always wondered about.
Jasper sucks in a breath slightly, shivering under my touch. His skin is warm. "A scar," he says.
"I'm not blind, dumbass."
"You want to know how I got it?"
"I want to know everything about you."
He cracks a smile. "First time I got drunk, I fell across the deck of Seung-jun's yacht and the bottle I was holding broke. I don't think I ever drank after that. I was so drunk that I don't even remember that happening—Seung-jun had to tell me about it."
"He owns a yacht?"
"Oh, that's what you focus on?"
I laugh, pushing him away. "I shouldn't be surprised. Don't you own a yacht?"
"We live in England. When are we going to use a yacht?"
"Fine, fine. What about your ring? Are you secretly married?" I tease.
I don't touch his hand, but he reaches out to pick up mine instead. The golden ring in question glints in the low light. "Signet ring," he says, lowering his head to press his lips to my knuckles. I fight a flush from coming to my cheeks.
"There's no seal."
He lets go of my hand and pulls his ring off, handing it to me. I can see a slight engraving of a seal on the inside of the ring. "I don't get a real one until I graduate from Oxford. Only way my parents are going to get me to go to school."
I slip the ring on my index finger, holding it up to the light. It looks like a wedding band, but it's a little thicker than a wedding ring. Stronger, more powerful. "Does it matter that much?" I ask, returning the ring to him.
"Probably not," he admits, "but I want it all the same. Don't you want things like that?"
I lean across my chair, stretching. "The only thing I've ever wanted is diamonds and private flights to Ibiza."
Jasper runs a hand through his hair, looking away with a smile. "Forget I ever said that."
"What if I meant it?" I ask, half-teasing and half-serious.
"I know you don't mean it. Hey, this is boring. Do you want to play pool?"
"You're boring," I tell him, but I do stand up and go play pool with him. I remember seeing Teddy play at this pool table. It's in a billiards room upstairs, just as fancy as you would expect from a house that has a room selectively for billiards. "We should play for forfeits. Just to make things fun."
"What forfeits?"
"Diamonds and—"
"No fucking private flights to Ibiza," he says, glaring at me.
I smirk, leaning on the table. "You lose, you jump in the pool." I'd seen the pool when I came in. It was freezing outside right now.
"Alright," Jasper says, with a devilish grin. "Same for you."
I'm a woman of many talents, but pool is not among them. I shouldn't even have bet in the first place. I always play to win, but Jasper makes me take leave of my senses. Maybe I would've played better if I wasn't tempted to watch him so much. But I cave into my temptations easily. I'm bad like that.
"Seriously?" I exclaim, throwing my hands in the air as Jasper knocks the 8-ball into a pocket.
Jasper lends me a swimsuit one of his girlfriends bought and never wore. It's a terribly ugly yellow one-piece, but the alternative is jumping in the pool in my underwear, which I'm not looking forward to.
"You know," I say, looking out at the snowy porch from the doorway, "if you like me so much, you shouldn't—"
I feel his hands on my back and thighs and suddenly I'm weightless. I scream, Jasper cackling as he steps out into the snow. It's freezing. Before I can even tell him to stop, he swings me back and hurls me towards the pool. He's evil, I think, just as I hit the ice-cold water.
꧁꧂
"No."
"Yes," I say.
"No!" Es exclaims, her expression incredulous. "When—how—I thought you hated him!"
"Keep it down!" I hiss.
The weather is getting warmer. It's still freezing, but not snowy. Es has taken advantage of the dry tennis courts to teach me how to properly serve. I can't get it in the box for the life of me, but she's understanding. I don't know why I want her to keep quiet; there's no one around. Maybe it's just because I'm used to being paranoid.
"So you don't hate Jasper? When did this happen?" Es whispers, looking so excited she might burst.
I hit a serve halfheartedly. It goes straight into the net. "I don't know. Over break. He was my New Years kiss and—"
"What?!"
I glance at Es. She looks mindblown. "What?" I ask.
Es feigns swooning. "I—that's so romantic! Aww! I always thought you guys would be a power couple if you didn't hate each others' guts."
I scoff, bouncing another tennis ball up and down. "We are far from a power couple. He threw me in a below-freezing pool yesterday."
"Where?!"
"His house?"
"You were at his house?!"
I end up caving and spilling everything to Es. She's just so nice and excitable that it's hard not to. She reminds me of a hamster. By the time we have to head to breakfast, she's bouncing up and down from excitement.
I feel giddy the rest of the day. Nobody but Es knows, but even that feels like a dangerous person to be keeping my secret. Es is kind of an open book. Then again, telling Seung-jun would've been worse.
I'm still a little nervous about Jasper. I know he likes me and I sure as hell like him, but it's just ... honestly, I was kind of hoping for an answer to my what-are-we question. I guess every girl does. It seems dumb to me now that I didn't press him. I should've asked for us to be exclusive at least. Or is that too much?
I stare at my mirror in the middle of putting my hair in socks for overnight curls. What the hell is wrong with me?
Or is that too much? I mimic in my head, feeling stupid. When did I ever think I was asking for too much?
I text him. You're not dating anyone else, are you?
He responds quickly. As long as you're not.
I laugh, turning off my phone and finishing up my curls. It's better for my hair than using an iron. Jasper is so ... well, I never really know with him. I guess that's what I like about him. I only play games to win, but Jasper makes me feel like I really might lose.
When I wake up in the morning, I realise that I've missed a text from him, sent right after I went to bed. Do you want others to know about us?
I haven't thought much about it. Honestly, I could care less what people think of me, because I know whose opinions really matter and I doubt they'd care about me dating Jasper. In fact, I think Sparky would approve of me making up so brilliantly with him.
What do you want? I ask him.
He doesn't respond. I don't see him before lunch, and when I do go to lunch, I'm accosted by Seung-jun. He's wearing a ridiculous pair of pink heart-shaped sunglasses. "Valentine's gram?" he asks, holding out a basket of blank papers. "They're two dollars each. Write what colour of rose you want on the paper and who it's for."
I look at him, raising an eyebrow. "Who coerced you into doing this?"
"Manon," Seung-jun sighs. "I owed her. So ... please buy a gram?"
I laugh, shaking my head. "I'm good." I've seen Jasper throw out every single gift girls get him. Would I be different? Well, if he bothered to read the note first. Which he probably wouldn't.
Seung-jun yells some Korean proverb about me being unreasonably stingy as I leave him to his duties.
As I walk away, I feel my phone buzz. I pull it out. It's a text from Jasper. You'll see.
I'll see?
That feels ominous, I think, looking at the text. What, exactly, will I see?
"What did you mean, you'll see?" I demand from Jasper the next day, after he's thoroughly ruined my lipstick.
He laughs, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. "Just wait."
So I wait. I'm unused to waiting, but it's nice to be waiting on someone else, to have something to wait for. Even though I don't know what I'm waiting for. A public announcement that Jasper's dating a girl from Courtney House? A dramatic confession of adoration? I just don't know.
Maybe it has something to do with Valentines day, I reflect. It's tomorrow, after all. But I don't want to get my hopes up. I'm normally practical, and Jasper's just turned all that on its head.
Be practical, I tell myself. Be professional. That doesn't stop me from daydreaming.
"Valentines grams!" Seung-jun announces as he strides into our language and literature class. Everyone bursts into laughter. He's wearing angel wings that have clearly been stolen from Jasper's halloween costume, and carrying a basket chock-full of different coloured roses. Strangely enough, most of them are red.
"One for you, and one for you, and one for you ..."
I glance down at the reading we're doing as Seung-jun takes his sweet time distributing all the roses. And then—
"And Jasper told me to give these to you," Seung-jun says, loudly enough for the entire class to hear.
I look up. Seung-jun, very dramatically, proffers an enormous bouquet of deep red roses.
Oh. So this is what I'll see.
The entire class is looking at me now. I try not to blush, but I'm sure my face has gone as red as the roses. Be professional. Be professional. It's so damn hard to be professional when Jasper goes and pulls something like this. He's absolutely crazy and I love him.
"So romantic," I say slyly, taking the bouquet with a concerted effort to make it look like I was expecting this.
"We're going to have a talk about this after class," Seung-jun whispers in my ear as he passes, with a look of melodramatic betrayal.
I laugh, breathing in the scent of the roses. Jasper must have been insane to spend this much money on roses. Well maybe I'm insane too, because I like it.
꧁꧂