Page 152 of A Dead Man's B-Side
Alexandr Miroslav
1982
“Sasha!” I was too busy crushing the cigarette under my shoes to lift my head in time and properly catch Paris as she barrels towards me, only a few feet away from the town car taking me and Wolf to the airport. It was, if I hadn’t been too anxious to notice, very unlike Paris to be anything but graceful anywhere public.
It was close to dusk, and the campus resembled a haunted manor, most of the students having already taken their leave to enjoy a holiday free of looming deadlines.
I let out a rush of breath at the impact before righting us, thankful that her momentum hadn’t been enough to send us both down tumbling. Before I could lean back and ask what had compelled her to come at me with such force, the answer had found me on its own.
She pulled away and delivered a strong punch to my arm. The sudden action had been so, well, sudden that it took a moment for the pain to settle into my bones, but I was shouting before that, “Ow! What was that for?”
I stepped away and rubbed my arm, glaring, as she crossed her own, looking the least bit perturbed. “You arse! You were going to leave without so much as a goodbye?”
Ah.
I shuffled my feet, unfamiliar with the notion of farewells. “Oh.” I scratched a supposed itch at the back of my neck, muttering sheepishly, “I didn’t think–... Sorry.”
She huffed and waved me off. “You should be.”
“Yeah,” I replied, no excuse coming to mind.
I felt strangely off kilter. Like I’d been nudged somewhere I didn’t know was tender. It shouldn’t have mattered–her disappointment–but it did, in some crooked, unexplainable way I wasn’t equipped to name.
“So, you’ll be spending your break in the reserved Kingsley manor, eh? You know what they say, nothing goes in that ever comes out.”
I had half a mind to believe her if I didn’t already catch the amusement in her eyes. “Well then, I’ll be sure to have Wolf invite the lot of you.”
Paris quipped a brow and pursed her lips to suppress a smile. “Lot? Where’d you learn that?”
I leaned back against the car, Wolf’s driver most likely waiting for his last passenger with renewed impatience. “A girl I know taught it to me. She has the poshest accent and yet she speaks like she’s been raised in the projects.”
I was sure she didn’t know what the projects were, but she hummed nonetheless, using context clues. Her damned smile stretched wide and unguarded, utterly different from her practiced poise, and yet even more disarming.
Paris wasn’t someone I often encountered in her public persona, but this smile, as opposed to the others, was different. She was… doing something unconventional, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what.
She jutted out her chin and let her eyelids close in a slow blink. “Well, I hope she’s able to convert you to the English way of things.”
A disbelieving snort made its way out before I could stop it, not that I intended to, as I tilted my head to her. “You’re not English yourself.”
She lifted a shoulder ever so gracefully. “Semantics.”
There was a gentle silence that followed, which was filled with the scrape of the dry winter leaves on the pavement.
A weak gust of wind swept by, and partnered with the icy air, Paris tightened her coat around herself. I reached over and flicked the fur lining of her round hat. “So, are you going home yet?”
She nodded with a soft hum. “Later this evening. I have a few more important matters to attend to.”
I wouldn’t exactly call myself a caring person, but I was a nosy person. Strangely, more so in matters of Paris. “What’s so important?”
I raised a brow when she smiled, the one that hinted at evasion. “Ehh, you know how busy a child of the wealthy is.”
“Hmm,” I let out. “What are your plans for the break?”
Her eyes dimmed only slightly, but it was enough to notice. “Dinners. Family. Shopping.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you were talking to another idiot, sure.”
Paris gaped dramatically. “What–I’m not exactly lying.”
