𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐘 • Neil Perry

Chapter 5

LONG before they arrived back at Henley Hall, the moon had risen and the night had wrapped around them like a blanket. They were both reluctant to leave the cave and return to rest of the world, but both of their curfews were rigid and indisputable.

Evelyn made Neil wait outside with the promise of returning. She had worn his coat for the past several hours and still had it, so he knew that she would be back, he just didn't know what she would be back with.

But once he heard the doors of the school open and a mousy-haired girl in a coat that swallowed her jogging over, he stood up straighter and prepared for anything. Her grin was wide with enough teeth on show to count, but it wasn't enough to call it smiling. She was gleaming.

In her last steps over, Neil noticed she had a pen and folded piece of paper in hand, the latter of which she held outwardly. "That's the number of the phone in our building."

He accepted it and asked, "When should I call it?"

"Whenever you want to. Just ask for me and you shall receive."

Neil felt as though he could hear his heart drumming in his ears, but he did everything in his power to ignore it. "I can give you the number of the Welton phone."

"Okay," Evelyn responded and extended the pen in her hand to him. She watched Neil write along the other side of the folded paper before tearing it in two. She accepted her piece from him along with the pen. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Neil replied.

"When do you want to meet again?"

Neil tried to hide his surprise. "You want to see me again?"

"Yeah," she answered softly. "I had a good time."

Neil blinked twice. "Me too."

There was a long pause—neither of them knowing what more there was to say. They knew they wanted to see each other again, they just needed to establish a means to. A where and a when.

"Maybe we could run lines together," Evelyn suggested.

"I'd like that."

"Here," she held her hand out for his sheet of paper, and once he gave it to her she turned it over and jotted down something on the back. Then she gave it to him again. "That's the address of my parent's house. We could meet there on Saturday and sit inside this time."

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

They were both equally pleased, but Neil couldn't shake the question he wanted to ask all afternoon. He couldn't bring himself to before but everything felt different now. He felt assured, he felt like he had made it over some kind of line.

"Evelyn, I gotta know something," he said.

"What is it?" she replied.

"Are you going to keep seeing him?" he asked tentatively, but Evelyn's cluelessness didn't subside.

"Who are you referring to?" she asked.

But Neil only looked at her as though to say, You know who.

And then she smiled in that same way she always did—small, slanted and knowing. "Convince me not to."

Neil knew what she was demanding, and he was more than happy to comply. So, he smacked his lips against hers. But in the contact, two moulded into one, and Neil brought his hand up to her cheek to draw her in, deepening their unhurried kiss. Her lips were as warm and as soft as they looked, and the very moment he pulled away, he missed the feeling of them against his own.