Page 59 of Spearcrest Knight

“What stuff? I’ve got my suitcase and my backpack.”

“That’s all?”

“It’s not like I’m going to Paris Fashion Week. I’m going to be working most of the time.”

“Oh.” He stares at me for a moment, his smile wavering. I expected him to be cocky or obnoxious, but he’s not. In fact, he seems almost nervous. “Come on then, let me show you around.”

I nod and follow him on a tour of the house. It’s beautiful throughout: the dining room is simple yet tastefully decorated, the corridors upstairs all feature vases of flowers, paintings, plush rugs. Velvet curtains frame the tall windows and plant baskets hang in little nooks over armchairs. Even the bathrooms look amazing, with their marble flooring, lion-clawed bathtubs and enormous plants.

“This is my room,” Evan says, stopping in one corridor with his hand on a door handle. He gives me a sheepish look, and colour clouds the sharp plains of his cheeks. “Nothing much to see, I guess. Um, let me show you the guest room.”

He takes me to a room down the corridor. There, Chinese silk wallpaper in pale shades of green and gold adorns one wall, and the large French window gives way to a small balcony overlooking an enormous garden. A large bed with a headboard of padded green velvet dominates the room, complemented by sparse, tidy furniture.

“Uh, so this is your guest room,” Evan says, ruffling the back of his hair in a sheepish gesture. “There’s an en-suite, but it’s only got a shower, so if you fancy a bath, you have to use the big bathroom down the hall. And I think that’s everything.”

He stares at me while I take in my surroundings, and I realise my mouth has been wide open this whole time. I close it quickly and put my backpack down on the ottoman at the foot of the bed. Evan props my suitcase next to it and points to the wardrobe on the other side of the room.

“That’s the wardrobe,” he says uselessly. “So… yeah.”

We stare at each other for a moment, and I’m suddenly aware of the strange intimacy of the situation. And with our disastrous and messy peace garden kiss hanging between us like a spectre, the situation is quickly becoming too tense to bear.

I clear my throat and say, “Thank you for letting me stay.”

“It’s my pleasure,” he replies with a grin. “I’m gonna go check on the cookies if you want to get settled in or whatever?”

“I’m working later, so I’m just going to get ready and set off.”

“Oh.” Again, his disappointment is obvious. “Well, do you want a lift?”

Sitting alone in a car with Evan after everything that happened? Nowthatwould really be a stupid thing to do.

“No, I have plenty of time to walk.”

“Right,” he says. “Right, right. Alright. Well, grab a cookie before you go.”

“Yes,” I nod. I’m blushing, and I don’t even know why. “I will. Thanks.”

“Right,” he repeats. “I’ll be downstairs, then.”

“Okay.”

Even though he’s so tall and broad-shouldered, there’s something childlike in the way he shrugs and marches out of the room. I stare after him, shocked at the realisation that I’m finding him kind of endearing. Maybe it’s the cookies, or that mop of curls falling softly into his eyes, or the way he’s being so weirdly courteous.

Or maybe it’s just a dangerous lapse in self-preservation on my part.

After emptying my backpack of everything apart from my travel essentials—earphones, purse, a book and a case for tissues, lip balm and hand sanitiser—I head downstairs. My coat is waiting for me on the coat hanger and I put it on before going into the kitchen just in case I need to make a quick exit.

I enter the kitchen to a scene of chaos: bags of flour and broken eggshells litter the counters, trays of cookies propped precariously wherever Evan found space to put them. He’s standing by the kitchen island, a look of intense concentration on his face as he carefully pipes icing onto flat white biscuits.

The artwork is dubious, but there’s something incongruously adorable about the way his tongue is sticking out, looking like he's about to create the biscuit equivalent of the Sistine chapel.

“What did you make, then?” I ask, peering at the trays.

He looks up eagerly. “I’ve made chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies and snickerdoodles.”

Not exactly the kind of word I expected to come out of his mouth.

“Snickerdoodles?” I repeat, leaning over the tray. “I don’t think I’ve ever had those.”

---