Disclaimer: this chapter includes mature romantic detail – from this point forward, I'll mark the beginning and end of mature scenes with a peach emoji (😉), so that you can skip them without missing too much of the story! So, with that being said...

🍑 (beginning of mature scene) 🍑

God, there's something so magical about this place; about him. The second we step behind the red door, it's like we're in another dimension. Everything's wild and out loud and I'm not afraid of anything or anyone. He always holds the door for me, and when he does, he welcomes me into this world on the hill, where I can be as free as I want to be.

Things are fast and slow all at once - I intertwine my hand with his and, holding his face, I press my lips against his and my back against the door. Our tongues dance, sensual, and I feel him smile against my lips, saying I missed you without saying a word. I reach up and grab a handful of his hair, saying it back, and I'm rewarded with a feverish moan.

"Evie..." Caught up in ecstasy, he says my name like a song, and together, in our perfect rhythm, we're in harmony. He lifts me up; I wrap my legs around his waist and cling to his strong arms and God, I love his strong arms, and my skirt hikes up.

I laugh, breathless, "Eric..." I match his tone, wanton, soft and breathy in between intertwining our tongues, and its enough to grab his attention. He pulls away, and though I whine as he breaks the rhythm, he looks at me with burning intensity, like everything he needs in this moment is beneath my clothes, in my eyes, in me. I'm still wrapped around him, literally and figuratively, and I wonder what we look like from above as he spins me around, making me laugh, and runs as well as he can over to the the little green couch.

He makes me feel like every day is summer, and every moment takes place on a light, sparkling evening. Does that even make sense? He falls, back first, onto the couch, and I love this. He'll never say it, but he likes it when I'm control; when he gives me so much space, so much power, that I have to believe my beauty, believe myself as I make him mine.

The couch is in the centre of the room, under the glass hatch to the rooftop. Under the afternoon, I feel like a seductress. I'm straddling him as he looks up at me, heaving and in love, and I can't remember the last time I felt this alive. I leave a lingering kiss on the bottom of his neck, and pin his hands on either side of his head, all at once playful and serious as a heart attack. He's impatient, and I love that about him. He growls my name now, and I realise neither of us have said a real word yet apart from each other's names. I like it that way. I trail wet kisses down his torso, looking up at my panting boy, saying be patient, baby. I sit up on his lap, and he almost whines, until my hands reach for my blouse. I unbutton it slowly, never breaking his eye contact, because I love to watch him like this - totally at my mercy, willing to wait, like every inch of my body is something special.

My boy, my gentleman, still has his hands where I placed them, on either side of his head, and so I take the lead like he likes, and place them on my hips. As I'm shimmying out of my shirt, I grind my hips on his and I feel a little mean. I grin at him devilishly, and he chuckles, and through the desperation and lust, it sounds like a threat and promise. He doesn't meet my eyes straight away; his gaze is fixed on our hips, moving together, and the sensation drives me crazy and makes him crazy. When he looks at me, his eyes snap up towards mine, and they're a dark, dark blue like a storm.

He sits up, with a firm hand on the small of my back and now he's hovering over me. The cold of his dog tag makes me moan aloud, and pull his hips back on mine as I lift my legs around him again. Now we're intertwined in the most intimate way, and as we move together the atmosphere is transformed. We're not on in a studio apartment on a hill in central London. We're somewhere beautiful, where all that matters is the two of us. As I hold his face and cry out, he peppers kisses on my neck, of course, he never plays fair. His kisses are slow and innocent, all whilst he's making me his; I tug on his hair again, bite his lip, I'm desperate. I can tell he is too, by the way he needs me but won't let himself have all of me; he opens his eyes, and we gaze, before he shuts them again, panting in throes of ecstasy, cursing, as I claw at his back and he rocks his hips against mine.

"I love you, Evie, I love you..." He says like a prayer, like an incantation, and when I feel him twitch, I say it back, softly, whispering it in his ear and I nip at it,

"I love you, Eric." And like that, he's over the edge, calling my name, continuing to thrust until I join him, throwing my head back and reciting his name. When I come back down and open my eyes, he's breathless, looking at me like I'm so beautiful that he can't fathom it... and that's how he makes me feel.

"Hi," I laugh softly, staring into his eyes. I'm a little embarrassed; I want to look away, but he never lets me. He grins - he knows that I know.

"Hi, beautiful."

🍑 (end of mature scene) 🍑

I love this part, too, and I realise I love a lot of things when I'm around him. We're tangled together now, and thought I'm back in my skirt, with his shirt on, it's no less intimate. He's lit a cigarette, and I'm lying with my head on his lap. With his other hand, he's playing with my hand. With my other hand, I'm reading something well-worn and Shakespearean. Every time I'm here and I pick up a book, he says I can take it home, and I always say I will but I won't, ever. It's special because it's here; it's special because he says I can have it. I know he's watching me whilst he hums The Most Beautiful Girl; smoking a cigarette isn't all-consuming . I don't mind, though. I watch him when he falls asleep - it's only fair.

The first time I came here, I told him how much of a cliché we must have looked like, especially with my hair sprawled across his lap, and the winding smoke of his cigarette roaming. He said he didn't mind, and neither do I.

"What are you thinking about?" He says, pressing a kiss to my forehead, and asking next to my ear.

"Hm?" I say, although I know exactly what he means.

"I can see your mind ticking. What's going on in there?" His voice is both gruff and kind, and he caresses my mind with his words.

"Ophelia," I sigh, letting the book fall onto my chest, "she's hardly a person. She's conflicted and then she dies, and all anyone gives a shit about is Hamlet's crappy existential question."

He laughs, so I close my eyes - it's part of our rhythm - I love the deep throaty sound that comes before he says it,

"My sensitive Evie." He's the only one that calls me Evie, and that's how I like it. He's the only one that calls me his. I tilt my neck to look up at him, and he places a soft kiss on my lips.

I break the cliché when a phone buzzes and it's my little sister, August, instead of a loyal wife or a doting boyfriend.

mom's otw, ditch ur boy ;)

I sigh deeply,

"It seems I must love you and leave you."

"As long as you love me." He says, and I hate that I have to go to my house now when I'm at home. Still, I kiss him on his knuckles, and start to grab my things, putting Hamlet face down on the coffee table.

*********************

On Eric's first day at our school, I was inclined to dislike him. Alone, he was the kind of cliché I didn't like. Tall, strapping, the object of all my classmate's desires, boys and girls alike. It was like he changed the air of a corridor just by walking through it; the girls melted, and wanted him, the boys muttered, and wanted to be him. The stereotype went on: he had a girlfriend. Sometimes, when she'd pick him up from the school gates, the boys would cheer and whistle - with her flawless, flaxen hair, she was the kind of woman that warranted praise just by existing, and being with Eric cemented her existence, her perfection.

He'd always come in last to assembly. He'd have some excuse and mass of files to corroborate it, but my girls and I always thought he did it on purpose, because he enjoyed everyone's gawking at the beautiful new literature assistant.

My year group was supposed to go to him with all our English Literature related concerns - 'think of me as your in-house John Keating', he'd said when our teacher introduced him to us. Half the class didn't know what he was talking about but laughed and batted their eyelashes anyway. That made me like him a little more. But when I found out that he was 24, and most of the 'English Literature related concerns' he was getting were thinly-veiled seduction attempts, I passed. And that was it, for a while. I'd listen when he covered a lesson, and smile for a millisecond if we crossed paths, but, if I could help it, when I smelt cigarettes and sandalwood, I'd head the other way.

Until the first of a thousand Thursdays. Cara had cotillion, Barbara had band practice, and I was alone on the early train. He'd caught my attention with the racket he made stuffing his bike into the overhead hold, lifting it just high enough that his sweater rose slightly. Then, I'd looked away. But when the racket went on, I left my seat and offered a hand.

'Need some help, Mr. Macklin?' I'd said softly, from behind him. He let out an embarrassed laugh, and didn't get to answer before I reached up. Feeling the cool air on the back of my thighs, I knew I'd exposed some innocent part of myself to him, too. I nodded with a small smile.

'I guess sometimes big jobs need small hands', he laughed, and it was awkward but I liked it.

'Such small hands', I smiled. It was a quote from an E.E. Cummings poem he made us read.

I headed back to my seat, adjacent to his, and as the journey went on I felt drawn to him. I kept raising my eyes from my book, just to sneak a look at him - yawning, reading, writing. It felt like he was looking at me, too. Whenever we passed through a tunnel I'd sense his eyes on me, curious and intent, but as soon as the afternoon light fell on us again, his eyes were back in his book, or on his laptop.

By Aldwych I thought I'd moved on, until I heard his bike rattle - this time it came right down - and he looked at me, right at me. 'Getting off here?'

Walking down the avenue, he fake-reprimanded me for ditching assembly. His eyes widened when I chastised him back, before he laughed. Then he asked me what I thought about the poem, the one I'd quoted back there. I told him the truth: that I thought it was a beautiful and naive philosophy. He looked surprised again and I decided I liked surprising him, being more than he expected. We walked and we walked and I forgot to remember that I hated the hill, I forgot I was going home until I got there. 'You live here?' I asked when we reached a rose-bordered red door, only a few doors down from mine. He nodded and looked over my head. 'You live there? ' He asked with a grin. I turned, seeing my mother pretending to fiddle our gate as she gawked at us. I advised him to hurry inside before she caught him in her talons; he laughed, and told me he expected to see me at assembly the next day.

Once she was briefed to her satisfaction, my mother insisted I let her pop over to introduce herself. 'Angie, it would be rude if I didn't! I can... I can take this cactus, and call it a 'welcome to the neighbourhood gift!' By the time she returned, she was as smitten with him as anyone else at school, if not more. 'Oh, Angie, and he lives with this beautiful girlfriend of his! Stunning blonde hair, speaks the Queen's English... and he says he's happy to give you extra literature lessons after school! Are Thursdays okay? I told him you could do Thursdays. Oh, Ange, he's so lovely!'

The days seemed to soar by, like Thursday couldn't wait to arrive. And on that Thursday, when I got on the late train with Cara and Babe, trudged up the hill and walked into the home behind the little red door, I came alive.

— 'Return of the Native.'

— 'Bullshit! Jude the Obscure!'

— 'Oh, come on, The Return of the Native was like a drop in the ocean!'

— 'Jude the Obscure was literally based on the way we already see the world, and then it exposed it! Aw, is it just too close to home, Oxford boy?'

— 'Very fucking funny.'

I found myself speed-reading anything and everything I could, just so I could hold my own on Thursday afternoons. When I could hold my own, I could do things like tease him and make him die with laughter, ask him about his life. Thinking back on it now, Thursday afternoons were bound to be what they are now. We'd read on his couch, shout on his rooftop and smile until our cheeks hurt. Thursday afternoons were destined to become my favourite part.

Sometimes his girlfriend would be there, but only for a few minutes, just before I left. At first she cooed over me, like I was a little addendum to their perfection - the fiery-haired woman and the blooming professor, complete with a pretty, witty duckling. But once she'd ask us what was so funny and Eric would say nothing; once we started having the entire session on the rooftop, she stopped coming around so often. When she did, she looked me up and down coldly; peppered Eric with kisses before she left.

One Thursday, when he hadn't been at school or in assembly or on the early train, I found him alone on the roof, staring at nothing, with a mess of broken glass beside him. For a while, neither of us said anything. I shifted uncomfortably with my books in hand, until finally he said, 'she left. She's not coming back'. I looked down at my feet, then back at him, carefully considering what would be the right thing to say - the appropriate thing to say. 'Should I go? We don't have to do this this week, or even next week if y-'

'Stay'. He looked up, into my eyes. 'Stay, Evie'. I sat on the concrete next to him, knowing we were far gone; any lies we had fed ourselves about normal or appropriate were far, far gone.

That afternoon was the first time we held each other. He called me Evie, I called him Eric and everything in both of our universes shifted.

Since then, Thursdays have always been my favourite.

*********************

"Auggie!" I call up the stairs. "I'm home!"

"Angie!" My sister comes running down the stairs, leaping from the last step to hug me. "Have fun with your lover?" She laughs quietly, winking at me, and that's my queue to shove her off.

"Alright, alright, someone's been watching to much Riverdale." I start towards the kitchen. August, ever the faithful watchman, never asks too much. She doesn't know his name, or where we met, or what he looks like, but she sees that he makes me happy, and leaves it alone, "Mum home?"

August leans over the banister, and shakes her head, "Almost. But Mr. Rogers is." She grins, saying his name in a sing-song tone. I roll my eyes, and turn to head up the stairs with her.

"Thanks for the heads up."

"Evangeline! How was school?" Auggie and I share a look before I turn back around.

"Hi, Walt. School was good, thanks."

"Well, come on through, I've started making you girls some tea. Just a couple appetizers before your mom gets home. You too, Auggie!" I can't remember ever saying tea in the context he means, and before Walt moved in I hardly ate after 2, but he makes my mum happy, and I definitely can't hate him for that, or for his sandwich and scone spreads.

"Angie, can I borrow your scrunchie?" August asks. She's a messy eater, and her mane is frustrating her efforts to finish the entire platter of doughnuts in record time.

"Uh," my cheeks go hot as I recall how Eric pulled it out of my hair with his lips on my neck and my back against the door, "I think I left it at Babe's. Sorry." I smile to myself, and I think August's onto me, and when Mum gets home and she's still smirking at me, I'm certain she knows where my mind is, but I can't help it. I love my little secret.