Writer's Note: Thank you for sticking with this story! An even bigger thank you if you've left a comment/review. It is much appreciated. : )

He cooked for her in November.

One date turned into two, into three, into four. Henry had lost count of the number of times he had seen Elizabeth and Josh together over the past seven weeks or so—walking side by side with Josh gripping her hip, while Henry watched on through the coffee shop window; skipping the queue outside that new Italian restaurant with the flick of a twenty dollar bill 'tip', while Henry carried home another Chinese takeout for one; Josh pressing Elizabeth up against a wall and shoving his tongue so far down her throat it was a surprise she didn't choke, while Henry strode quickly on.

That same gnaw of jealousy hardened the pit of his stomach every time.

But maybe it was for the best. It would be unethical for him to ask her out, anyway. And even if it wasn't, she'd never given him any kind of indication that that was something she would want. And even if she did, it wasn't like he could afford to take her out on fancy dates or buy her expensive stuff. And above all else, she seemed happy with Josh. So, in turn, he should be happy for her. He should be happy with the way things stood between them now—with academic discussions in the coffee shop, with chatting to her after class, with 'accidentally' running into her in the library and taking the desk next to hers so that he could steal the occasional glance. He just needed to wait for this fleeting attraction to pass. Because that's all it was. It didn't mean anything. It would pass.

Elizabeth hitched up the strap of her satchel and wandered over to the desk at the front of the classroom, her latest essay in hand.

The other students had grabbed their notebooks the moment the clock struck six—heralding the belated start of the Thanksgiving recess—and had surged out of the room, thrusting their essays in Henry's general direction and snatching up their returned papers as they passed.

Henry held out the final essay across the desk. "I enjoyed reading your thoughts."

"Not too one-sided?" Elizabeth took the essay from him and gave him the new one in return. She scanned down the comments in the margin, and then looked up at him.

"Peterson likes it when students take a stance, so long as they can back it up, and you used the sources well." He added her essay to the top of the pile, and then jostled all the pages together and stuffed them into his messenger bag where it balanced atop the desk. "Though you might want to consider spending longer exploring the counterarguments, so it's clear that you're aware of them and you're not dismissing them out of hand."

"I'll bear that in mind."

He lifted the strap of the bag over his head and settled it across his body, and then followed her towards the door. While he flicked off the light switch, casting the room into blue-black shadow, and pulled the door to, she waited for him in the hall. Then they ambled together along the corridor. The darkness outside hung like a black veil just beyond the reflections in the row of windows, and the silence that drifted into place between the two of them was comfortable. Perhaps one of the advantages of knowing that she wasn't interested in him was that he didn't feel the need to impress her, and so he didn't end up embarrassing himself as he tried to fill each pause.

The prickle of her gaze grazed his cheek a couple of times before she spoke. "I know you didn't set an assignment this week, what with the recess, but would you mind giving me a list of topics anyway? I've got five days to kill on my own in a dorm that's probably already turned into a ghost town, and if I don't keep busy I'll be climbing the walls by day two."

He twisted to face her. "You not going home for Thanksgiving?"

With her gaze fixed on the stretch of floor in front of them, she shook her head, and her hair caught a shimmer from the fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling. "Family's away on business, brother's staying with a school friend."

"And Josh?"

"Aspen. With his family."

"You didn't want to join them?" The question was cautious. Perhaps a touch optimistic, too.

She turned to him with a smile. It looked forced. "It's not like we've been going out long, so it probably would've been odd for me to go." She held his gaze for a moment, a fraction of a second too long, and then looked away again. Her smile faded, she swallowed and then cleared her throat.

From the shadow of disappointment that dimmed her expression and the way she kept her gaze low, he got the sense that she had wanted to go, and maybe the reason she had just given for not joining Josh and his family was the excuse Josh had given for not inviting her. It would be a lie to say that part of him wasn't glad, as though any distance in her relationship with Josh enabled him to ease a step closer to her, and a certain lightness spread through his chest at the thought. It quickly faded, though, as her disappointment cast a shadow over him too. He didn't want her to be upset or lonely, even if the alternative meant having to see her with Josh.

She cast him another glance. "What about you? You heading home?"

It was his turn to look to the floor ahead of them and avoid her gaze. "No."

"Why not?"

When he didn't reply and her eyebrows had arched as high as they would go, she nudged his elbow—but only gently, as though to say if he really didn't want to answer, she wouldn't push.

With one hand gripping the strap of his bag where it rested over his hip, he gave a shimmy of a shrug—the tightness that sat at the top of his chest made it feel like he had to wrest the words out. "Things with my dad can be a little tense. He wasn't keen on me going to college, he wasn't keen on me joining ROTC, he's definitely not keen on me being at grad school. I thought I'd save the lectures for Christmas, get them all over with in one go. And besides…I have papers to write and there's a lot of marking to catch up on."

She continued to study him, her gaze hot against his cheek, and then after a moment or two, she turned away with a shake of the head. Their amble had slowed so much that her body swayed with each step, and her upper arm bumped against his. "Sure sounds like a lot of excuses."

He shot her a sharp look, one that matched his tone. "Not excuses. Rational reasons."

"Uh huh." That teasing glint lit her eyes again and caused the corners of her lips to curl.

It irked him, but at the same time he couldn't deny that it pleased him to see her expression brighten once more. He thought about telling her, If you met my dad, you'd understand, but the two of them never would meet—and God help them all if they ever did—so he let it go.

Perhaps that was another reason why he should be grateful that she had no interest in him: he would never be able to take her home to meet his parents anyway, not without a fight about class privilege ensuing, and he doubted her parents would think him fit to date their daughter either. They'd probably prefer someone like Josh, even if Josh left her to spend Thanksgiving on her own.

They came to a stop in front of the double doors at the end of the hallway and turned to face one another. A chill breeze ruffled through the gaps of the doorframe and around the inset windows, and it prickled up the back of his neck. This would usually be their cue to part, unless an ongoing discussion carried them on to the coffee shop; today, their conversation had wended its way to a natural pause, so he ought to have given her a list of paper topics and then said, Maybe I'll see you around, or something equally noncommittal. But he couldn't help but think of how she would be spending the next five days alone in her dorm, and of how he would be spending the next five days alone in his apartment, and of how—with no company and no classes—the next five days felt like an abyss that he was about to fall into. So he gave a shrug—one nonchalant enough that he could brush it off when she politely refused—and said, "Why don't you join me on Thursday? I mean, I don't have any plans, just cooking for one, which means I'll probably have about a week's worth of leftovers, but if you wanted some company to stop you from going stir-crazy in your room or to give you a break from the library, or maybe we could just—"

"Sure." She smiled up at him. "I'd like that."

He stopped. A frown worked its way across his brow. "Really?"

She leant in, her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. "You had me at food."

oOoOo

Henry lifted the lid on the casserole pan, releasing a billow of steam along with the aroma of sautéed garlic, slow-simmered tomatoes, oregano, basil and thyme. He gave the bolognese sauce one last stir and then dialled down the knob on the stove until the licks of blue flame flared and then disappeared. He glanced at the clock—again. Five fifty-nine. When they'd agreed to eat at six, he'd imagined that Elizabeth would turn up earlier, maybe half past five—quarter to six at the latest. But despite him checking the clock every minute since five fifteen, and every half-minute since five forty-five, she'd yet to show. At first he'd thought maybe she was just running late, that she'd miscalculated the time it would take her to walk from her dorm to his apartment off-campus. Then he'd considered that maybe she'd lost track of time in the library, or maybe she'd thought six was the time they were supposed to meet, not sit down to dinner. Then he'd had a flash of worry that something might have happened to her alone in her dorm—what if she'd slipped and was lying in a heap at the bottom of a stairwell or unconscious on the floor of the shower? Now, the far more likely and—in some ways—far less desirable reality confronted him: He was worrying over nothing. She'd simply decided not to join him.

Given that he'd spent the last forty-eight hours preparing for her coming over—even though it was just a casual, friendly dinner borne out of mutual circumstance, nothing more—he probably ought to feel disappointed. Perhaps a little annoyed too: she had his number, so she easily could have called and offered some excuse. But maybe it was for the best. This fleeting attraction would be far less fleeting if he kept spending time with her. He needed to let it go.

He grabbed the bowl of roughly-chopped lettuce, cucumber and cherry tomatoes and carried it over to the table. The apartment was small—cosy on a good day, claustrophobic on a bad one—and the dining table (or desk, as it was known outside of mealtimes) took up most of the space between the open-plan kitchen and the area around the couch that he had designated as the lounge. He placed the bowl down in the middle of the table, and was about to clear away the second place setting, when there came a sharp rap-tap-tap of knuckles against the door.

He twisted around and froze.

In the pause, the silence echoed.

He put the knife and fork down and strode across the room. No sooner had he lifted the latch and eased the door open than that familiar blur of blonde barrelled inside.

"Hey, sorry I'm late." Elizabeth dumped a carrier bag against the foot of the couch and wrestled off her overcoat, revealing a form-hugging black turtleneck sweater. "I got caught up on the phone to my brother. God only knows why, but he's got it into his head that he's going to apply to schools in England next year, and I'm telling you now—" She flung the coat over the back of the couch and then turned to him with eyebrows arched, hands on hips. "—not happening. Then I was searching my room for this—" She stooped down and pulled a Scrabble set out of the plastic bag. "—and I lost track of time. I thought we could play after dinner. Though, not if you'd rather not get beaten, because I'm not in the habit of losing, and don't think I'm going to go easy on you just because you cooked." She craned her neck and peered at the pans on the stovetop. "When are we eating, by the way? Because that smells incredible and I'm starving." She looked at him, expectant.

He stared at her. Had a whirlwind ripped through his apartment, it would have been subtler.

Her lips curled into a smile. "You thought I wasn't going to show up, didn't you?"

"I…" he began and then faltered. It felt like to admit that the thought had crossed his mind would be to accuse her of poor manners, but to deny it would only invite her to call him out for lying—somehow he got the feeling she'd be able to tell that he was lying.

His chin dipped and he gave a shaky chuckle. Then he looked up at her with a small but genuine smile. "I'm glad you made it." And he was glad, despite having told himself it would be best to maintain a little distance.

He pushed the door to and motioned to the table as he strode past her. "Dinner's ready when you are."

She pivoted after him, her gaze tracking him as he headed into the kitchen area. He swore he could feel her grin following him too, like some kind of Cheshire Cat meets the Mona Lisa.

"Nice save."

With a dish towel covering his hand to protect his fingers from the heat, he took the warmed plates out of the oven, causing the shelf to clatter as he jostled it, and then slid the plates onto the side. "High praise coming from the master of deflection."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." A clunk echoed out behind him, followed by the sound of chair legs dragging across the carpet. "And shouldn't that be mistress?"

He shot her a look, and then did a double take.

She had taken a seat at the table and was pulling the foil capsule off a bottle of red wine—a bottle of red wine that he definitely hadn't provided, seeing as she was a freshman and couldn't be more than eighteen, maybe nineteen years old, not to mention his student.

"Hey."

She looked up at him. "What?"

He raised his eyebrows at the wine. "Underage drinking?"

"Oh, like you never had a drink before you turned twenty-one."

He hesitated. Then his gaze flinched away and he turned back to the counter.

The seconds stretched.

A prickle ran up the back of his neck, like a sixth sense attuned to the way her expression morphed into a different kind of disbelief—one evident in her tone.

"Seriously…? Not a single drink until you were twenty-one?"

He freed a pair of tongs from the utensil holder in the corner and busied himself with lifting tangles of spaghetti from the strainer and twizzling them into nests on the plates. "You said it before. Scholarship kid with a lot to prove and a lot to lose." He nestled a scoop of bolognese sauce onto each portion of pasta, then rested the serving spoon on a side plate next to the stove and placed the lid on the casserole pan. The metal clanged and then settled. "Though, I'll cop to the occasional over-generous sip of wine at Communion."

She grinned up at him as he carried the plates over. "Did you confess?"

"For a few drops of wine?" He placed her plate in front of her, and then set his own plate down and draped the dish towel over the back of his chair. His gaze flicked up to meet hers and he gave a mouth-shrug, resisting the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. "Yeah, I confessed."

She laughed. The sound was like an eruption of light, an auditory supernova. It ignited something inside his chest, and in that moment he felt certain he would accept any amount of her teasing, any level of embarrassment, so long as he got to hear that sound again.

Did Josh make her laugh like that?

The thought popped to mind, and as it did, both the feeling and his smile dimmed.

He should have put the bottle to one side and either confiscated it or politely returned it to her later, but for some reason—perhaps the thought of Josh and the knowledge that he certainly wouldn't stop her from drinking (after all, 'Minor in Consumption' wasn't an offence when you had a pocketful of lawyers to smooth away any charges and enough funds to convince the powers that be not to give you a fine)—he found himself striding back into the kitchen, pulling open the cutlery drawer until it hit the end of its runners, and rooting around in the top compartment of the cutlery tray. The corkscrew was hidden at the back, beneath the bottle opener, a flat grater and a cheese knife he couldn't remember ever having used.

He returned to the table with the corkscrew and two wine glasses, which he'd inherited from the previous occupant, in hand. When he picked up the wine bottle and set it in front of him, ready to open, Elizabeth rocked forward in her chair and slid her hand across the tabletop towards him.

She met him with a strained smile. "Henry…you don't have to. I mean, you can have some if you want, but if it makes you feel uncomfortable, then I won't have any."

He studied her for a second. Genuine concern weighed down her expression, making each line heavier; it was a look he hadn't seen in her before, one that bore sharp contrast to her usual unapologetic confidence. A twinge of regret tightened his chest. Somehow he had taken what she'd presumably intended to be a friendly gesture and had warped it into a source of concern—concern that was almost certainly unwarranted: no one was going to find out or even care if he'd let her have a glass of wine at his apartment, surely.

He returned his attention to the bottle, twisted the worm of the corkscrew into the cork, and then pulled and rocked the cork free with a pop. He poured a glass. The wine glugged out and sloshed and spiralled up the sides of the glass's bowl, releasing its blackberry-rich aroma.

He pushed the glass towards her. "I won't tell if you won't."

Her smile warmed and blossomed, and after a moment's hesitation—one last chance for him to retract the offer—she reached for the glass.

But he held it back, his fore- and middle fingers pinning the base to the table, and he gave her a firm look. "But I'm walking you back to your dorm. No arguments about archaic ideals of chivalry, male chauvinism, or you being perfectly capable of handling yourself."

She eyed him, that glint alight once more. Then she nodded. "Deal."

He released the glass, and she picked it up and cradled it to her chest. The round pendant that peeked out from the roll of her turtleneck rested just above the glass's rim, its gold sharp and warm in contrast to the black fabric beneath. She watched him as he poured himself a glass, took his seat and scooted the chair closer to the table, her gaze a palpable presence that brushed against his skin.

He closed his eyes, bowed his head and made the sign of the cross. His lips mumbled over the words of a silent grace. Then he made the sign of the cross again.

When he opened his eyes, she was still watching him, the pendant now gripped between the forefinger and thumb of her right hand, while a soft smile continued to curl the corners of her lips.

He gave her a questioning look, not sure what she was thinking about to make her stare at him like that.

But she dismissed it—whatever it was—with a shake of the head and then put down her glass of wine and picked up her fork.

She twisted the fork through the pasta, wrapping a generous portion of the sauce-stained strands around the tines, and then lifted the tangle to her mouth. She paused. Her gaze locked on his, and that glint in her eyes sharpened. "You think if you let me get mildly inebriated you'll stand a better chance of beating me at Scrabble. But I'm still gonna win."

He stared at her, his eyes wide. What on earth…?

He didn't have a clue where that had come from, if it was genuinely what she had been thinking about or if maybe it was just another deflection, but then she stuffed the fork into her mouth and slid it free so that her teeth and lips trapped the pasta inside, and her eyes slipped shut with a sound that was dangerously close to a moan—"God, that's good."—and he no longer cared.

Did Josh make her moan like that?

He hoped not.

He wanted to, though.

To make her moan like that.

And not just over pasta.

All the reasons why he needed to let this attraction go temporarily deserted him, and in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to hear that sound reverberate from the back of her throat again and again and again.

oOoOo

They made small talk while they ate: their studies, Professor Peterson's lectures, various rumours floating around campus. Or at least Henry tried to, but Elizabeth was too distracted by the pasta and he was too distracted by the little noises of appreciation that she made as she ate the pasta, so their conversation dissolved into short, disjointed bursts. Given her fondness for muffins at the coffee shop—though, come to think of it, she hadn't ordered one recently—her appetite really shouldn't have surprised him, yet he still couldn't help but watch her as she devoured mouthful after mouthful. Part of him was happy, proud even, that something he had made could give her pleasure like that, but then his mind would stray…the way her lips would wrap around the fork, the way her tongue would dart out to the corner of her lips to catch a fleck of sauce, the way she would miss a spot and he would say, You've got a little something, and she would smile back at him with a predatory look and a, Show me, and one thing would lead to another…and he found himself having to force his thoughts down a different path instead. His family and the dinner (and arguments) they would be having back in Pittsburgh proved an adequate anchor.

He was only halfway through his portion when Elizabeth swallowed her final mouthful, chased the last smear of sauce around her plate and then sucked the tines of the fork clean as though it were a lollipop. The action bordered on indecent, yet she seemed oblivious, just as she'd been oblivious to the noises she made while eating. When she caught his eye, and perhaps mistook his look for one of distaste, she laid the fork down on the plate and her hands retreated to her lap.

A second later, she started fiddling with the fork again.

"So, where did you learn to cook like that?"

He hurried to chew and swallow his mouthful. "My mother taught me a bit, and I helped out at home where I could. But necessity, mainly. Can't live on takeout, after all."

He twisted his fork through the spaghetti.

The silence that followed held a weight like damp air. At first it was so light he barely noticed it, a touch of mist, just enough to bristle against his skin, but as the seconds spun out, it turned to a thick swathe of coastal fog that increasingly pressed down upon him.

He stilled the fork and looked up at her. She wore a small smile, one that seemed to be prodding him towards some kind of realisation.

Then it hit him, along with a sinking feeling: "You live on takeout…don't you?"

"Well, not just takeout. Microwave popcorn and Cup O'Noodles too." She shot him a smile, one that said she didn't mind that he'd somehow managed to put his foot in it—again.

"Have you tried cooking?" He stuffed half a forkful into his mouth.

"Not since I got banned from Home Ec for setting fire to a saucepan."

He froze mid-chew and stared at her. His throat caught as he swallowed. "You what?"

"In my defence, the instructions didn't specify how long to heat the oil for."

Instructions…? He eyed her warily. "You mean the recipe?"

She dismissed the comment with a shake of the head. "Now you're just parsing words."

He resisted the urge to point out that at least five minutes of each seminar was devoted to her parsing words.

"Anyway, then I went to boarding school…" She dragged the tines of the fork across her plate, drawing idle patterns in the orange stain that the bolognese had left behind. "…and turns out you don't need to cook when you have chefs preparing all your meals for you, so…"

"You had chefs?"

The question leapt out before he had time to notice the inflection at the corners of her lips.

She was teasing him. Again.

"Well, they might have liked to've been referred to as that, but no. We had a regular canteen, with regular canteen staff, and regular canteen food. Just your staple classics…" She continued to trail the tines around the plate while her voice drifted into a drawl. "…oysters, caviar, foie gras…"

She let the words hang in the air for a moment. Then her gaze flicked up and she met him with a grin.

He frowned at her, unimpressed. Then, when she raised the fork to her lips and sucked the tines clean again, he forced his attention back to his plate. He couldn't help but think that things would be easier if only he found her annoying. Everyone else did. Except for Josh. Though, he couldn't imagine that Josh would appreciate her teasing. Maybe she didn't bother teasing him. In which case, what was she like around him? A different Elizabeth? 'Lizzie', perhaps?

In the periphery of his vision, she continued to fidget with the fork, swapping it from hand to hand and twizzling it between her fingers, her movements becoming more and more agitated with each second that passed. It was only when he lifted a thick tangle of spaghetti to his mouth and her gaze clung to the pasta's ascent that the fork in her hand stilled.

He paused, the spaghetti poised in front of his mouth, while she stared at it, so transfixed that he felt pretty sure if he were to wave the fork around, her eyes would track the pasta's every movement. He studied her for a few seconds. Then, when the tip of her tongue peeked out from her lips in a flash of tantalising pink, he offered, "There's plenty more if you're still hungry."

Her gaze dropped, she sank back in her chair and a faint blush rose through her cheeks. "No, I'm good." Then she looked up at him and added quickly, "I mean, don't get me wrong, I could eat a whole vat of it, but the problem is I probably would eat a whole vat of it, so…" Her smile stretched to the point that it strained and then threatened to sag, like a rubber band that had lost its tension.

He gave her a puzzled look as he tried to figure out how, exactly, that was a problem.

"I eat too much," she announced, that smile still fighting to stay in place. She gave a slight shake of the head, and the ends of her hair quivered where they hung level with her chest. "Josh is always telling me I ought to stick to salads."

His gaze darted to the salad bowl in the middle of the table—the salad bowl that she hadn't so much as touched—and then he looked to her again with a small frown. "Do you like salad?"

She rested her forearms against the edge of the table, the fork dangling from the fingers of one hand, and her gaze sailed away into the distance as though she were pondering the question. "Not really. But maybe he's got a point. If I keep on eating the way that I do, it's bound to catch up on me eventually."

His frown deepened. The thought was absurd: with her slender figure, Elizabeth was the last person who needed to worry about what she ate. Hell, if anything, she could probably do with gaining a few pounds. It struck him that perhaps Josh's comments were why she had stopped ordering muffins at the coffee shop. Then again, perhaps he was just looking for more reasons to dislike Josh, searching for flaws in their relationship. Either way, he got the sense that she was still hungry, and he wasn't going to have her holding back because of what Josh had said, not when Josh had left her on her own for five days—thought it okay to tell her what she should or shouldn't eat but couldn't be bothered to invite her to Thanksgiving.

He set his fork down so that it rested against the edge of his plate, and then pushed himself up from his seat and picked up the plate from in front of her. She gave him a mildly panicked look that seemed to ask him what on earth he was doing, and as he strode into the kitchen, her gaze followed him like a nudge at the back of his neck.

"Henry, what are you…" she began, but then as he tipped the remaining pasta from the strainer onto her plate, she said in a rush, "Henry, really, I'm okay."

He ignored her protest, lifted the lid on the casserole pan and loaded a heaped scoop of the bolognese sauce onto the bed of spaghetti. The portion was at least as big as the first.

"If you don't want it, then leave it, but otherwise—" He set the plate in front of her and locked gazes with her, hoping to impress the message on her mind. "—you should eat what you want."

He took his seat again, scooted the chair forward and began eating the rest of his meal.

Elizabeth hesitated for a moment, watching him with a certain amount of trepidation, and then she pulled her plate closer and nudged a bite of the meat sauce onto the fork. She ate quietly this time, but every few mouthfuls or so, she would sneak a glance at him—not so subtle that he didn't notice—and when on occasion he caught her eye, she offered him a small yet warm smile.

"Good?" he asked when she laid down her fork on the empty plate, leant back in her seat with her hands rested to a stomach that was barely even there, and chewed the final mouthful.

She nodded. "Good." Then she looked at him with such gratitude it felt like he'd given her something so precious that no amount of money could buy it, not just a plate of pasta. "Thank you."

Did Josh make her look at him like that?

Somehow he doubted it.

He jerked his head towards the kitchen behind him, his gaze never leaving hers. "There's ice cream in the freezer, if you want some."

That gratitude deepened, and she rewarded him with a grin.

oOoOo

"Here you go."

Henry strode over from the kitchen, dodged the toppled-over Chucks that Elizabeth had toed off at the end of the couch before tucking herself into the seat in the corner so that her back rested to the arm, her knees were bent towards her chest and her feet were planted on the cushion in front of her, and he handed her a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream. She'd asked for just a couple of scoops, had insisted that that would be plenty, so he'd dug out two large clumps with a tablespoon that he'd dipped in hot water, and then added a third clump for good measure.

Elizabeth gave him a warm smile. "Thank you." She drew the bowl close to her chest and cradled it in one palm.

Henry took a seat at the opposite end, his own bowl in hand. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she shaved away a sliver of the ice cream, forming a delicate curl on the spoon like the rolling crest of a wave fit to break, and then lifted it to her lips. With eyes closed, she savoured it, holding the spoon in her mouth long enough for the ice cream to melt. Then her eyelids fluttered open, she dipped the spoon back into the bowl, and she repeated the action again and again.

Henry chipped off a bite of his own ice cream. The tip of the spoon chinked against the bottom of the bowl. He prodded at the chunk, coaxing it into softening, and as he did, he shot her a sideways glance and tried to keep his tone nonchalant. "So…you and Josh…?"

Elizabeth saw straight through his attempt at tact. With a spark in her eyes, she sucked the spoon clean and then spoke around the ice cream that had melted into a puddle on her tongue. "You want to know what I see in him."

Henry paused, his lips parted. Was he really that easy to read?

Evidently.

He conceded her observation with a smile and a huff. "It might have crossed my mind."

He returned to chipping off pieces of ice cream and urged the words out with a shimmy of a shrug. "He just doesn't seem your type."

"Oh really…? So, tell me…what is my 'type'?"

With the arch in her eyebrows and the glint in her eyes, she reminded him of a tabby cat toying with a mouse—pinning it down by the tail, batting it with her paw, then releasing it, only to trap it again half a second later. It felt like she was daring him to say himself. Tall, dark and reasonably handsome. Might not be able to take you out for fancy dinners or buy you expensive stuff, but will play Scrabble with you on Thanksgiving and will cook you as much pasta as you like.

Part of him wanted to say it. Well, not that precisely, but to put it out there.

But she had no interest in him, not beyond teasing him, and perhaps one of the benefits of knowing that was that he realised it was safest to keep his mouth shut.

She continued to watch him, waiting for him to make the slip. Then that look faded away, her gaze dipped to her bowl and she dragged the tip of her spoon across the ice cream. "I know what you think of him, that he's arrogant and entitled and—"

"Hey, I never said—"

She shot him a pointed stare. "That he's got more dollars in his trust fund than cells in his brain, that he bought his way into college."

Henry's mouth hung open. An endless second passed. Then his lips pursed.

She shook her head and her voice softened again. "Sometimes it's nice to feel wanted."

"And he makes you feel wanted?"

With her gaze fixed on the bowl, she gave a small nod. "He does."

Even when he makes you feel self-conscious about what you eat? Even when he doesn't invite you to join him and his family in Aspen?

She chased a curl of ice cream onto the spoon, and lifted it to her mouth. But before it reached her lips, she paused. She pondered something for a few moments, and then she tilted her head to one side and shrugged. "Plus, he bought me a car." She slipped the spoon into her mouth.

Henry nearly choked on a bite of ice cream. He forced himself to swallow, but the chunk hadn't had time to thaw, so the frosty edges dragged down the back of his throat. "He bought you a—?"

But Elizabeth had turned the spoon over so that its back faced her palate, and around it, her lips stretched into an impish grin.

He scowled. "That's not funny."

Her smile only grew, and she giggled. "I beg to differ." Then, before he could ask any more about Josh, she slid her foot across the cushion between them as though to nudge his thigh with the tips of her toes, but stopped just shy of her mark. "What about you? Any girlfriends?"

"Girlfriends?" He raised his eyebrows at her. "Plural?"

She shrugged one shoulder, as though to say she wouldn't judge him if he did have more than one girl on the go.

He turned away from her and dug through the ice cream, distracting himself as he spoke. "I was seeing someone for a while—a long while—but we broke up almost a year ago."

"Why?"

The corner of his lips flinched. "Things didn't work out."

When the silence between them stretched and he said nothing more, Elizabeth prompted him with a look. How she could say so much with the tiniest of expressions, he didn't know.

He took a breath and braced himself. He didn't really want to venture into the minefield that was his relationship with Rochana, but he could hardly hold back after quizzing her about Josh. "She was smart and passionate and opinionated—"

"And what? You like them dumb and apathetic and subservient?"

He shot her a look. "I never felt needed."

And perhaps his expression had darkened, the sting of pain evident in his eyes, because her playful smile evaporated, replaced with something akin to remorse.

After a moment's pause, he shook his head and turned away again.

"It's not that I wanted her to be dependent on me in any way, but sometimes when someone is that independent, it makes you feel like you're not necessary, like you're holding them back. I wanted to support her, to be her partner, but she never let me."

"So you broke up with her?"

"I tried to make it work, for a long time I tried to make it work, but then it became just work, I no longer enjoyed spending time with her and I couldn't remember why we were together in the first place. Breaking up felt like the rational, and perhaps the kindest thing to do."

"How'd she take it?"

He thought for a moment. The raging arguments. The accusations. The day he'd gone to collect his books from her house-share only for his best friend to answer the door.

He gave a wry smile. "She moved on."

"And you?"

"I tried going on a few dates, but nothing ever clicked."

In the silence that followed, her gaze raked over him, the bowl of ice cream that she cradled in her palm temporarily forgotten.

"Maybe you've just not met the right person."

He looked at her, all of her. "Maybe."

She held his gaze for a long moment, just long enough for the air between them to bristle and thicken. Then she made a little sound like she was clearing her throat, withdrew the foot that rested on the cushion between them, and squirmed backwards in her seat, tucking herself further into the corner. She stirred her spoon through the ice cream. Her voice was a contemplative drawl. "Though, I suppose it must be hard for you when so many of the girls here come with a trust fund."

He gave a huff of a laugh. "You're not going to let that go, are you?"

"No." Her gaze flicked up again and she smiled at him. A second later, her expression softened. "Thank you for inviting me this evening."

He wrinkled his nose. "It's nothing."

"I mean it." She paused, giving the words time to sink in. Then her chin dipped and she gave a small shake of the head. "Coming here has been the only good thing in an otherwise crappy day."

He studied her, from the almost pained look that hid beneath the expression she had so carefully fixed in place, to how small she really was when that bold exterior was stripped away. He wanted to ask her what had happened to make her day so bad. He wanted to ask her who she was with Josh, and why 'Lizzie' let Josh treat her in a way that the Elizabeth he knew wouldn't tolerate. He wanted to ask her why she so often resorted to deflection, what she was avoiding, what made her use a sharp smile and a quick tongue to keep people at bay.

But he didn't.

And maybe it was for the best. After all, if he got to know her—really, truly got to know her—then he was at risk of this becoming more than just a fleeting physical attraction, more than just a gnaw of jealousy each time he saw her out on a date.

So he resorted to a deflection of his own instead.

"You won't be saying that once I've schooled you at Scrabble."

Her head snapped up, and she stared at him, her eyebrows two thin arches that reached higher than he ever thought possible. "Schooled me?"

She waited as though she expected him to make a hasty retraction.

When he didn't, she demanded, "Seriously?"

He gave a mouth-shrug and fought to rein back his smirk.

She gave him one last opportunity to take it back. Then she scrambled up from her seat, ditched the half-eaten bowl of ice cream on the coffee table with a heavy clunk of ceramic against wood, clambered over the back of the couch and reached for the Scrabble set.

"Schooled me?" she muttered. "In your dreams, McCord."