This is an Ian Kabra/OC story
Sadie Anne Hawthorne was presently nineteen years of age and was running away from America and everything that came with it. Unfortunately, that included her full ride scholarship to the University of Maryland. That didn't matter though, this little life journey would make up for all of that loss.
Except, so far, it wasn't.
She'd managed to get quite a bit of money out of her parents, rented a nice little apartment - ahem, flat - and found a job selling dusty old books that smelled like her grandmother. She found a roommate, a quiet girl she met in the bookshop where she worked, and they each paid half of the overpriced rent. They found a third roommate soon after, a flamboyant boy who worked at a local museum, and soon they had enough to buy actual meals.
She wrote and called her mother as often as she could, telling her the wonders of London life and sending her pictures of a world beyond her mother's bigoted American-Christian-Confederate imagination (making her think London was a land of homosexuels and god forbidden anal sex was fun, and a little hard. Most of the time, Sadie ended up just staging her photos and abusing photoshop).
She was on her way to return some books she had let Emily - the female roommate - borrow from the shop when she ran into a very, very tall man.
Sadie herself wasn't short, she wasn't even average. She was 5 foot 9, but this guy was massive. 6 foot 5 at the shortest.
That was before she realized he was standing on stairs.
When he stepped down to be on the same level as her, being very gentlemanly in picking up the one book that slipped out of her grasp, she realized he was probably only 6 feet straight, but still.
"Thank you," she said as he handed her Persuasion, "I just moved in," a lie, "I think we're neighbors," she recognized him now, she'd seen him pick up mail in the box next to hers, which probably meant they were neighbors. Neighbors or not, she held her hand out for him to shake. "I'm Sadie Hawthorne."
He seemed to not understand her for a moment, then broke out in a large grin. Great, Sadie thought, I picked out a creep. He took her hand and shook with a strong grip. "Ian Kabra."
He didn't let go of her hand when he was supposed to, he just kind of held it. Sadie didn't know what to do. Would he kill her if she told him to let go? Kidnap her, rape her? God, this guy was starting to get creepy, why were all the handsome guys creepy?
He let go, finally, and gave her a small nod before heading back to his apartment. She turned and watched him, hoping to see a warning sign for a murderer - a torture rack maybe - but the door blocked her view.
She sort of ran on her way to work.
His name was Ian Kabra, just like he'd said, and apparently he was the most good looking guy in London.
No, Jess said, in the world.
Jess was the only other person, other than their boss, who worked at the little bookshop with Sadie. She was twenty-two and only worked part time, because she was still in school. Sadie wasn't sure if it was legal for a shop to only have three workers, even one as small as theirs, but she didn't question it. Clara paid them good money.
When Sadie had walked in that morning, shoes drenched from stomping in puddles (she'd forgotten her rain boots - or Wellingtons, here), she relayed the weird boy to Jess, who was chomping on her post-African History class gum.
"Indian?"
"I don't know." she put the books back on the shelf. "I guess?"
"Did he say his name?"
"Ian Kabra."
That was when she found out Ian Kabra was the most handsome boy in the entire omniverse (Jess was a believer in multiple universes, Sadie didn't care much).
Apparently he used to be some kind of art collector - or his parents were - but he did charity work now. He donated most of the paintings and sculptures he collected after his mother and sister died - causes of death unknown.
"He went total blue-screen when his sister died," Jess had said. Sadie wondered how she picked up the videogame slang when when all the girl could play was Monopoly. "Didn't come out for weeks, nearly killed himself three times in one year."
"How do you know all this?"
She sighed. "God I love him. I'd marry him."
Sadie's lip curled in disgust, but she didn't say anything.
A few moments later, while Sadie was rearranging the small travel section, the bell on the door tinkled, signalling a customer. She heard Jess's usual welcome speech, reciting it to herself in an annoyed tone in her head. Then she heard Jess gasp, which was most certainly not a part of the usual speech.
"I'm looking for a book on archaeology, someone recommended I come here."
It was Ian. Sadie had never in her life experienced the words her mother had shoved down her throat, but now she could say with certainty that if you spoke of the devil, he would appear.
Jess stuttered through a reply, telling him to check the back, that Sadie would help him. She was putting away a tattered donation of a guide to France when he popped his head in. He smiled and gave her a hello.
"Nice to see you again."
"Yeah," she checked the book in her hand before placing it on the shelf. "Twice in a day, what a coincidence."
"I'm not much of a believer in coincidences."
She was ten seconds away to telling this guy to stop being fucking creepy and find his damn book himself, but she didn't want to get fired. She was used to the harassment that came with having a god awful boyfriend who would just not let her go, but this guy was a different story. She wasn't about to let him walk right over her, she had had enough of that in America. One of the reasons she moved to a different country was to reinvent herself, and that included not letting people stop all over her.
So she took a deep breath, counted to ten, and asked him what sort of book her was looking for.
He scratched his nose, as if he were nervous. "I'm not sure, exactly. My friend's birthday is coming up, and she's going into archaeology." He shrugged his shoulders.
Sadie nearly rolled her eyes. "Why not get her a book on a place she loves," she gestured to the travel books in front of her. "I, for example, am going into criminology, and I absolutely adore crime novels and television shows." She picked out a book on South Korea. "Why not get her something like this? It doesn't have to be a book on archaeology. Don't give her a textbook."
Ian gave a small hum of thought and came over to the books Sadie was organising. He picked some out, asked her about them, and put them all back. He finally picked something out on the history of India and its religions, but Sadie figured that was so he didn't leave without anything because that book did not have anything to do with archaeology (she knew that for a fact, it used to belong to her).
The rest of the day was dull, they had their usual roar around noon (they were "associated" with a coffee shop across the street. Free coupons), helped some tourists, got awesome discounts for college students, and even got to read out loud to a few kids. It was an average day, nothing truly special except for that goddamn boy.
She got some dinner (Pizza Fridays), got the mail, and opened her door to the image of her boyfriend smoking a joint on the couch as he watched some British drama.
"Hey, Tosh," she sighed. "Still a vegetarian?"
"Yup." He offered her a drag. She declined. "Why?"
"I got a pepperoni pizza."
"Asshole."
She chuckled the junk mail at him, though didn't aim for his eye this time. "How was I supposed to know you'd find the spare key again?"
"I have a good memory."
"Yet you can't seem to remember how to fuck a girl right."
He snorted, but didn't say a word. Sadie thought about telling him to snuff out the joint, but she figured he'd been there for a while and was high enough to choke her if she mentioned it. Then again, if he'd been there for more than four hours, he'd probably make dessert for her to quench his munchies thirst. Maybe even clean out the stink for her.
She walked into the small kitchen, only to find poor little Luis huddled in the corner. He was sensitive to smells, the little guy, and Tosh's marijuana was apparently one of the worst.
Once she set the oven to preheat, she went into the fridge and got out a mango for Luis to mask the smell. He liked the smell of mangoes, not so much the taste. He said the taste and texture didn't match up, and that's also why he didn't like coconuts. Sometimes Sadie thinks Luis is just a little bit autistic (the truth is that his father had aspergers and his mother was barely around so his father raised him and he just picked up some of the weirder habits. Sadie didn't know that, though, but Emily did. Emily and Luis were old friends, that's how they got Luis to join their roommate ranks).
Now she had to figure out how to get rid of Tosh without him getting angry and beating her and possibly Luis up.
"Hey, Tosh," she called.
"Yeah?"
"How long you been here?"
"Dunno." At least two hours, then. It would be easily to get him out if he'd been smoking for that entire time. Of course, she had no way to determine if he'd been smoking the entire time, not even Luis could tell her considering he got off at three and it was now 3:10.
This was going to be a long day.