Ithaca, New York

2019

Finishing Felix's reply, I glanced over at Hale. He was bent over his phone, scrolling on it with his thumb. I was surprised that he wasn't hanging onto every word that Felix had written, especially considering that we were still trying to figure out if the British aristocrat was related to me.

Without looking up at me, Hale muttered, "I was just double-checking what I knew about the Tremont Hotel."

"You know things about the Tremont Hotel?"

"Of course." Hale glanced at me like I had asked a stupid question. "The Tremont Hotel was the first hotel in America."

"Alright," I said tentatively. "I know that you're supposed to be the history buff, but I'm pretty sure that there were hotels before 1867."

Hale finally put his phone down, locking it with a click. He sighed before smirking and saying, "Yeah, you're right. What I meant to say was that the Tremont Hotel was the first modern hotel in America. Like the first one with running water and electricity and all that stuff."

"Ah, that makes more sense," I replied, returning his smirk. "I was a little concerned about your fact-checking at first."

Hale gave his head a little shake as if to clear it. "Sorry about that. Yeah, the Tremont Hotel was built in 1829, according to Google. Some pretty famous people have stayed there, too."

"Like who?" I asked, curious.

"Charles Dickens. And Lord Felix Graham, of course." He winked.

"I don't think that my great-great-grandpops is considered famous, Hale," I laughed.

Hale chuckled and smiled widely. He seemed thoroughly entertained by this entire conversation, and I realized that I should talk to him about history more often. I mean, he never complained about listening to me babble on about my tedious accounting job and the latest episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Actually, he was always happy to lend an ear whenever I had something I wanted to talk about. But it was nothing compared to his expression today.

Not wanting his smile to fade, I continued the conversation on the Tremont Hotel. Admittedly, I was moderately intrigued by it, too. "Alright, so I lived in Boston for over four years, and I'd never heard of this place. Why is that?" 

"Well, it burned down in the 1890s," Hale pointed out. He paused for a moment before adding, "Also, sometimes it was referred to as the Tremont House."

"Oh, wait!" I exclaimed, a light bulb going on in my head. "Like the pizza place?" There was a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria that had been about twenty minutes from campus in Boston. Hale and I went there once or twice during our freshman year of college.

"Exactly like the pizza place." He had a look on his face that told me he'd been waiting for me to make the connection.

"Tremont House of Pizza sounds so good right now," I moaned, my mind getting distracted at the mention of food.

"Well, we can order some if you want," Hale offered. "I mean, I don't think that Tremont House of Pizza will deliver to Ithaca, but we can order from somewhere else."

"Hm," I considered. "Are you hungry?"

"I am now that we keep talking about food." He unlocked his phone again, presumably to look for delivery places. "I vote we order pizza," he said decidedly.

"I will second that vote," I agreed and kicked back while Hale took care of ordering the food. I had very few preferences when it came to pizza—only that I wasn't a fan of olives, which Hale already knew. Other than that, I didn't really care what we ordered. I didn't mind if it came in squares or triangles, thick crust or thin crust. Pizza was pizza.

I realized I wasn't sure how much cash I had, so I got up and walked over to check my wallet. Grabbing the money that was inside it, I said to Hale, "I just have a twenty. Otherwise, we can use my credit card."

Without looking up, Hale waved a hand at me. "You paid last time. I got it."

I shrugged and tucked the money back into my wallet. I couldn't precisely remember if that was true or not, but I wasn't going to argue with him about it. I would just make sure that I paid the bill the next time.

Picking up my phone from the countertop, I searched for a Christmas playlist to put on in the background while Hale finished our order. Soon, the sounds of Let it Snow were streaming through my Bluetooth speakers.

As I made my way back toward the couch, I noticed a slip of paper on the ground beneath Hale's legs. It had the same worn and tattered appearance as the rest of the letters they'd been reading, but it only appeared to be half the size.

Curious, I bent down to pick it up, reaching underneath Hale in the process. Standing straight again with the note within my hand, I unfolded it to see a short message scrawled diagonally across the parchment. Hale's head popped up.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," I said, frowning.

"Well, what does it say?"

"Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you," I read aloud. "Especially when you are near me as you are now. It feels as though I had a string tied here under my left rib where my heart is, tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go--"

"And when you go, I am afraid that this cord will be snapped, and I shall bleed inwardly." Hale had cut me off, softly reciting the words that were before me on the slip of paper. Only he couldn't see them from where he was. I gaped down at him on the couch.

"How did you know that was what it said?"

His eyes were luminous as they flicked between the parchment in my hands and my baffled expression. One corner of his mouth curved upward in a smile. "It's Bronte," his voice came out gravelly, and he paused to clear it. "A quote from Jane Eyre."

I was still gaping. "Was it a requirement to memorize all the classic novels in college or just some?"

"Just some."

Smiling lightly, I nodded and sat back down. After I settled back into the cushions, I looked at Hale, and he added, "I memorized the other ones for fun."

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the fuzzy, white throw pillow from behind me and threw it at him. He wasn't able to catch it before it hit him square in the face. I suppose athletics were never his thing.

"I was just kidding," he protested, picking up the pillow from where it had fallen in his lap and throwing it back at me. I was prepared for it and caught the offending stuffed weapon before it could hit me. "I only memorized the good parts."

Putting the pillow back in my lap, I asked, "Was that a good part?"

He shrugged and looked away. "Don't you think so?"

I pondered that. The words were undoubtedly beautiful. "I suppose I would have to read the rest of the novel to be able to determine if that was one of the better parts."

"Let me give you a run down then," Hale said, running a hand through his hair and leaning forward with a grin on his face. "Jane Eyre is an orphan who lives with her shitty aunt and uncle. They send her to a boarding school, which is even shittier than living with her family. One day, Jane finds a friend named Helen. But then, well, Helen dies of consumption--"

"Yeah, definitely think that it was one of the better parts," I mumbled.

"--and Jane leaves boarding school to become a governess to a child named Adele. She falls in love with the guardian of the child, Mr. Rochester. On the day they are going to be wed, it is announced that he is already married. Jane leaves Rochester, but then he loses an eye and a hand, wins her back, and they live happily ever after."

When I just stared at him, a little dumbfounded, he asked, "Where did you find that note anyway?"

Clearing my throat, I replied, "It was just lying on the floor beneath the couch. It must have slipped out of one of the other ones."

"Which one of them wrote it, do you think? What does the handwriting look like?"

Hale reached out to take the slip of paper from me. But before he had a chance to examine it, I said, "Felix. Definitely, Felix."

"I should have known," Hale nodded, agreeing with me as he looked at the quote. "That dude played every card he had."

"Nora has got to give in soon, though."

"You think?" Hale questioned with a singular raised brow.

God, he was adorable.

"Oh yeah," I said, nodding my head.

"Well, let's see what she says next while we are waiting for the pizza to get here." Hale pointed to the stack of old parchment on the coffee table.

"Sounds good."

I reached for the next letter.