Dear Readers: Sooo who was that gorgeous man of mystery by Cloe's garden?? Here we go back to Commencement Day at Veriton...

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Scene 6: Victory

A.D. 2015

Not anymore?

What the hell was that supposed to mean? And where in heaven was he from?

Cloe softly cleared her throat. At least she hoped it had been softly.

A subtle twitch rippled the marble statue's lips. Was that silent laughter? Cloe wondered. She swallowed again, blinked again. Bells were ringing. The damn bells of the campus church just wouldn't stop. Wait, were those flowers in his chiseled hands? Why was he holding a bouquet?

Oh, right-commencement, she remembered. Flowers would be appropriate today.

Her stupefied silence, on the other hand, was not so appropriate.

He spoke; she was saved. "Locked out," he uttered simply.

They were standing in front of a wrought iron gate. She'd not noticed till now, naturally.

To the side of the garden opposite the little library, a far taller building towered, offering welcome shade. Some sort of university administrative building. This gate opened toward it, though the little red light by the latch indicated authorized Veriton access only.

"Hoping to be let in," he added.

In a moment of stark clarity, Cloe saw that she could be of help to him. Something about that fact brought her breathing back to semi-normal, her blood simmering down from the boil.

"Oh, how long have you been waiting?" she questioned calmly, reaching for her keys.

Was that his lip twitching again, or just her field of vision twitching in his presence? Probably both.

He raised his stately shoulders in a sportive shrug. "Only..." he breathed a shallow pause, "...forever."

Cloe wondered if he'd paused for reasons parallel to those that made her melt beneath his bay-blue gaze. How silly. He looked at least in his late twenties, far too mature to be aflutter.

"Well," she sighed, swiping her college key fob by the little red light, "today the gates open for you."

His smile widened, as did hers.

"Then today is a victory," he declared.

The red light turned promptly to green, the lock giving way with a click and a beep.

His left arm swept forward to swing the gate open. Her gaze was transfixed for a minute on the lean bulge of his bicep.

She watched it flex, firmly yet fluidly, as he plucked a pink flower from the bouquet. She watched as he extended the flower to her. Luckily, her body was more graceful and more gracious than her mind and knew to lift her hand toward him to accept it.

As the frail stem passed through their momentarily twined fingers, she raised her eyes up toward his face. She could have sworn that all the blush rushed from his cheek, down through his arm, and up her own into her soul. As if the flower were the vessel of that precious pink.

Holy fuck. This had to stop.

But the poet in her was inspired, on fire today.

He spoke again and stoked the fire, his voice of harp strings soaked in honey. More resonant than the bells ringing close by. "They crowned victors with these in Ancient Greece."

A breeze ruffled his trim dark brown curls. His smile somehow became even more perfect. "Campion," he told her, nodding toward the precious blossom in her palm.

The bells wouldn't stop ringing. Close, too close... inside her bag...

Oh-the damn phone. That was enough to snap her out of it. She had been summoned to the garden, after all, and not by Mr. Campion.

She tore her eyes away from his beguiling bay-blues, to attend to real life.

A new text: "Take your time ;)" from the same unknown number.

Cloe looked up and scanned the garden quizzically. Then, at the far end out of earshot, by the bench on which they'd always used to sit, she saw her closest college friend. He winked across the shrubbery between them, and she couldn't help but grin.

She heard the honeyed voice again. "Thank you," the man of marble murmured.

There was no time for her to take. He had brushed past her through the gateway, and the bay-blue eyes were gone.

Well and good, she mused as she turned to traverse the garden toward her waiting friend. That'd been a visit to a bygone world. Of which the campion in her hand alone remained.

Had she looked back, she would have met the deep blue gaze again. She would have seen it deepen, darken, as he watched her running gladly toward the man across the garden.

But instead, she tucked the flower away and forced herself to shake off everything it stood for. Just to function for today.

"Tom!" she greeted her surprise visitor, her voice alive with heartfelt happiness to see him.

"Hey there," he replied through a lopsided smile.

Cloe had always adored that smile-there was something so honest about the way it never failed to reach his eyes. At all seasons his eyes were the color of springtime, light robin's egg blue.

She reached him by the bench and would have dove in for a hug, had there not been a ball of white fluff in the way.

"Ohhh," she effused as he plopped the oversized teddy in her open arms. She buried her face in its soft fur for a second, smiling past her ears. "I can't believe you got him!"

Tom laughed bashfully. "I had to try. Promised myself not to spend more than fifty bucks."

"Please tell me you didn't!"

"No worries. I hit the bullseye on my third shot, believe it or not. Either my aim has gotten a lot better, or this little guy just really wanted to come home with you."

Cloe could not stop smiling. This ball of white fluff meant so much. "Let's say both," she decided. "Aw, you even got him a grad cap!" She straightened the crimson tassel on the toy hat.

"Yep. He's graduating with you," Tom pronounced. "I remember when you saw this stupid bear and said that if you finished college with him as your only friend, you'd be okay."

She shook her head and chuckled at her past self. That had been so long ago. She'd been a freshman, he a sophomore. They had each ventured to escape the Veriton bubble for a night, and happened to run into one another at a carnival off campus. She had seen the stupid bear, staring back at her as the prime prize in a game of moving targets. Each target taunting her, standing for something that, at that point in her life, she thought she'd never have.

Tom was right-as he'd joined her in the game that night, she'd told him that if this teddy were her only college friend, she'd be okay.

She reached out to engulf him and the bear both in a big hug. "Yeah. Yeah, I would've been," she sighed. "But I am really glad he's not the only one."

His arm curved around her a little more closely, at that. Just a little, and in just the right way. It was the most perfect feeling of platonic affection that she thought humanly possible.

"Thank you so much, Tom."

He was a haven-his forearms sturdy, biceps steady as an anchor on her shoulder. Biceps. Biceps...

Her mind was drifting toward a different set of biceps, which she'd seen but hadn't felt today. And she was filled with sudden worry that the flower in her bag was getting crushed.

Ugh. She disengaged gingerly from both the hug and her wandering thoughts.

As if he had been reading them, Tom took the conversation there. "So why didn't you take your time, like I told you?"

Cloe shrugged, feigning indifference. "Oh, you know..."

His sideways smile showed he saw straight through the facade.

She blinked, a couple times too quickly and self-consciously. "He had somewhere to be. He had flowers and everything."

"And gave one to you."

"So?"

He mimicked her earlier shrug. "So nothing. Just saying."

She rolled her eyes, good-humoredly but with a touch of true exasperation.

Tom grinned. "Okay, okay... I'll stop teasing," he relented. "Though I only sent that text because you looked like you were about to combust, unless something broke your trance."

Cloe laughed and slapped his arm in friendly protest, against what she knew was true, and rushed to change the subject.

In her rush, she may have said and asked too many things at once. "So what brings you to Boston, other than to give the greatest graduation present ever? This is such a sweet surprise, seeing you today! I guess you're here for Rina?" she inferred. Rina Khan was Tom's college sweetheart and long-time girlfriend, also graduating today. "And hey-what's the deal with your cell?"

He cocked his head, confused.

"Did your number change?"

Realization washed over him. "Ohh, it did," he admitted. "I got a new phone a while back, and a new number. But I could've sworn we'd spoken since then, so I thought you had it."

"I see... well, it made for a really interesting morning, on my end! Especially since the reception was so bad-I kept asking who you were, and it just wouldn't send."

"Agh, I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed. "Yeah, this new phone turned out to have terrible service. I should never have switched."

Cloe was about to echo that he shouldn't have, but she paused in that thought. Had Tom had his old phone, she would've recognized the number right away and hurried to the garden. Rather than spending such a while in her room before she left. Someone may or may not have been at the gate, had she arrived here any earlier...

She stopped right there and could have smacked herself. This kind of thinking would not do. What, she'd been destined to meet the man of marble, the majestic Mr. Campion, in that moment? So it had been fate?

"Yeah, I guess," she finally chimed in agreement with Tom, hoping he hadn't noticed an awkward delay.

If he had, he made nothing of it. "So are you excited about Sterling Law?" he inquired. Sterling was the selective law school in New Haven that Cloe was set to attend in the fall. "Congrats again, by the way."

She thanked him, but she wasn't sure how to reply to his question. 'Excited' wasn't quite the right word.

Bells again, ringing somewhere close by.

"Oh-" she muttered, reaching into her bag for her phone. It had not rung or vibrated this time, but the church tower bells had reminded her that she had somewhere to be by midmorning.

Her knuckle brushed against a campion petal as she fumbled through her things. Sigh. "Will you be around campus awhile?" she asked hopefully. "I have to run, but let's please meet up later today?"

"For sure! How about instead of trying to text, I'll just chill at Pampelune from noon to two," he proposed, referring to their favorite cafe on campus, "in case you're able to come then."

"Perfect! I will be," she promised. "Okay, see you soon."

They waved goodbye. Then with her precious white teddy in tow, precious pink flower tucked in her tote, she hastened toward the next beloved face that she was set to greet today.

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Thanks so much for reading, m'dears! I hope you liked the soundtrack too... a favorite song of mine, relating to my muse and real-life Mr. Campion ;)

For any myth-lovers craving another visit to B.C.-next scene takes us back to the Cave! :D

And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)