For Rachel. For Lorna. For all of you.
"You know," Mara whispered, sat in the library on a plush red cushioned chair, as Jerome sat opposite her. It made her smile now, made her face heat up to know that in the past, she would have sat in this sanctuary alone, but now, she didn't have too. "Sometimes I think about not becoming a doctor. Sometimes I think about...not going to university. I think about going to Paris, and becoming a waitress, and living in a small apartment in a small town, writing poetry on the side."
Jerome twirled his thick, shining ink pen in his long nimble fingers and shot her a half grin "Little Mara in an apartment in Paris? Why, the world might implode. You could be in the great halls of Oxford, or Cambridge, in a lab with a smart white coat, putting things into test tubes."
"Yes," Mara sighed with a smile "Because that's what medicine is all about. Putting things into test tubes."
Jerome became serious, which she noted by a change in his posture, the flickering of those ocean blue eyes. He leaned forward, think but strong arms crossing over his chest, a few blond strands falling into his forehead "Why are you just thinking about that, Jaffray? If you want it, do it. You'd be a great poet. Hell, the best, if your poetry is half as good as your journalistic stuff."
She picked at the strands of her blazer. "Anyone could be a poet in Paris."
Jerome smiled again, not a smirk, she noted, but a smile. "Yes, anyone could be," he agreed, setting down his pen with a finality that suggested he'd won the conversation, though Mara didn't quite see if he had or not. "I'm heading back to the House, coming?"
"I think I'll finish this page."
"Jaffray," the way he said her name made her look up, brown glittering eyes in the poor lighting of the library meeting Jerome's. "Let me be a gentlemen for once and walk you back to the house. Jeez, the way you go out of your lengths to avoid me sometimes is insulting."
"Jerome," Mara scalded, packing up her stuff hurriedly, sliding everything into her satchel (a satchel Jerome had bought for her on her birthday, and she had noticed, rather blushingly that it matched Jerome's) "I never avoid you. You just don't study for as long as I do." She walked behind him as they headed for the library door, and he held it open for her, long body arching upwards as she didn't need to duck beneath the crook of his arm. She had needed to duck with Mick.
"Nobody studies as much as you." He smiles again, and Mara's a little struck, his satchel strap is across his chest, bag hidden and behind him, with his grey cardigan that Amber insists is much too feminine for Alfie to wear, but looks just fine on Jerome to Mara, his hair, swept off to the side, and how it manages to stay that way all day, Mara doesn't know. He arches a delicate eyebrow at her "Something on my face?" He teases.
"Just your eyes."
"Caught your attention did they?" He chuckles teasingly "Yeah, they do that."
It's cold outside, and instantly, Mara misses the warm cocoon of the library. The lanky blond seems to sense her reluctance, because his arm is around her, tight and secure and safe, and he's guiding her across the long grass. It's over far too quickly for Mara, being wrapped up in Jerome's embrace is not something she's getting used too- though it's happening more and more. Jerome's hugging her before she goes to bed, wrapping his arm around her as he tells a story, pushing her back, acting as a shield for her body as Poppy comes to say hello.
"Once," he says, trying a little bit too hard to sound non-committal, and Mara wonders when she suddenly learned to read Jerome as easily as she reads one of her biology text books "I told Alfie you were the ice queen. The icy queen of ice."
Mara scrunches up her nose curiously "You also called Amber the Queen of Cruelty once. Are all women queens to you, Jerome?"
"But you're not." He ignores her "I didn't mean it."
"...Oh."
They reach the house, and Jerome removes his arm. He bows, sweepingly "Till tomorrow, your highness,"
Mara laughs despite herself "You're weird, Jerome."
He leans forward with a gust of wind, and kisses her cheek. Before pulling back, and winking "Don't tell anyone?" And then he's inside.
Mara wonders if he means about the kiss.
Then she catches Alfie slapping Jerome on the back proudly, whilst colour tints Jerome's cheeks.
And she smiles, the library's cocoon of safety wrapping around her, burning where Jerome brushed her.
She wonders when Jerome started to read her. "Poetry in Paris," she murmurs, heading inside finally "I could do it."