Lauren Willig by The Seduction of the Crimson Rose Page B
Authors: The Seduction of the Crimson Rose
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boyfriend anymore, but a real one. One with toffee blond hair and square, capable hands
The jolt of my bag bumping against my hip brought me abruptly back to my senses. No point in getting ahead of myself when we hadn’t even had our first date yet. Although I could imagine just how comfortable it would be to curl up together on the couch on a Sunday morning, matching coffee mugs perched on the coffee table, a half-eaten bagel sitting askew on a copy of the Sunday Times .
Hitching up the strap of my bag before it could bump me again, I got myself firmly in hand. I didn’t even have a coffee table. And I wasn’t sure if they sold bagels in London. In fact, I was pretty sure that the whole idyllic image came straight out of a New York Times commercial. Reality wasn’t like that. Reality was spilled coffee and newsprint on one’s fingersand being too comfortably snuggled up against a warm shoulder to care. I didn’t need the bagel or the coffee table. I didn’t need the paper. All I wanted was the man.
And if I kept this up, I was going to work myself up into a proper state of first-date nerves, the type where you can barely muster a hello, much less impress the other party with your wit, charm, and long-term entertainment potential. It would be lovely if one could just circumvent the whole process and skip straight to coupledom. No excessive grooming, no wardrobe panics, no blurting out idiotic things and praying the other person will be too busy agonizing over blurts of their own to notice. Of course, then, as my friend Alex (short for Alexa) is fond of pointing out, you miss half the fun of it.
Easy for Alex to say. She’s been with the same guy since freshman year of college. It only seems fun if you don’t have to do it.
Hurrying away from Belliston Square in what I hoped was the right direction, I found myself smack in front of an array of footware. Like a homing pigeon with expensive tastes, I had gone in precisely the wrong direction, landing myself on New Bond Street, directly in front of Jimmy Choo. Oh well, it wasn’t a disaster. At least, it wouldn’t be as long as I didn’t go in and buy anything. One shoe there could wipe out my stipend for the entire month. A pair would be completely out of the question.
Fortunately, I had made my way to Bond Street before. All I needed to do was follow New Bond Street all the way up past the glossy shop fronts until I hit the grotty hubbub of Oxford Street, and from there it was a straight twenty-minute walk back to Leinster Street and my basement flat. I wasn’t taken any chances on the tube. If it knew I had a date, it would be sure to break down.
I was just scurrying off in that direction, when two men stepped out into the street right in front of me. They were coming out of Russell & Bromley, that most veddy British of men’s shoe stores, and my first thought was, Ha! So men do go shopping together in pairs, too.
My second was much less coherent and involved ducking around or under or behind things, if only there had been anything to duck around or under or behind. Somehow, I had the feeling that crashing through the plate-glass window of Jimmy Choo would be far more conspicuous than staying put. The fight-or-flight instinct had taken hold, and flight was well on its way towards winning.
Because those weren’t just any two men.
The one carrying a shoe box, who looked as if someone had just shot his pet dog, I vaguely recognized from the night of my disastrous blind date with the man of Grandma’s choosing. But I wasn’t concerned with him. It was Colin who worried me; Colin, who was strolling blithely along beside him, right in my direction. My unshowered, ungroomed, decidedly unkempt, anything but seductive direction.
In the glow of light from the shop windows, cutting against the November dusk, Colin’s hair shone like tawny gold of an old coin, back before they
The jolt of my bag bumping against my hip brought me abruptly back to my senses. No point in getting ahead of myself when we hadn’t even had our first date yet. Although I could imagine just how comfortable it would be to curl up together on the couch on a Sunday morning, matching coffee mugs perched on the coffee table, a half-eaten bagel sitting askew on a copy of the Sunday Times .
Hitching up the strap of my bag before it could bump me again, I got myself firmly in hand. I didn’t even have a coffee table. And I wasn’t sure if they sold bagels in London. In fact, I was pretty sure that the whole idyllic image came straight out of a New York Times commercial. Reality wasn’t like that. Reality was spilled coffee and newsprint on one’s fingersand being too comfortably snuggled up against a warm shoulder to care. I didn’t need the bagel or the coffee table. I didn’t need the paper. All I wanted was the man.
And if I kept this up, I was going to work myself up into a proper state of first-date nerves, the type where you can barely muster a hello, much less impress the other party with your wit, charm, and long-term entertainment potential. It would be lovely if one could just circumvent the whole process and skip straight to coupledom. No excessive grooming, no wardrobe panics, no blurting out idiotic things and praying the other person will be too busy agonizing over blurts of their own to notice. Of course, then, as my friend Alex (short for Alexa) is fond of pointing out, you miss half the fun of it.
Easy for Alex to say. She’s been with the same guy since freshman year of college. It only seems fun if you don’t have to do it.
Hurrying away from Belliston Square in what I hoped was the right direction, I found myself smack in front of an array of footware. Like a homing pigeon with expensive tastes, I had gone in precisely the wrong direction, landing myself on New Bond Street, directly in front of Jimmy Choo. Oh well, it wasn’t a disaster. At least, it wouldn’t be as long as I didn’t go in and buy anything. One shoe there could wipe out my stipend for the entire month. A pair would be completely out of the question.
Fortunately, I had made my way to Bond Street before. All I needed to do was follow New Bond Street all the way up past the glossy shop fronts until I hit the grotty hubbub of Oxford Street, and from there it was a straight twenty-minute walk back to Leinster Street and my basement flat. I wasn’t taken any chances on the tube. If it knew I had a date, it would be sure to break down.
I was just scurrying off in that direction, when two men stepped out into the street right in front of me. They were coming out of Russell & Bromley, that most veddy British of men’s shoe stores, and my first thought was, Ha! So men do go shopping together in pairs, too.
My second was much less coherent and involved ducking around or under or behind things, if only there had been anything to duck around or under or behind. Somehow, I had the feeling that crashing through the plate-glass window of Jimmy Choo would be far more conspicuous than staying put. The fight-or-flight instinct had taken hold, and flight was well on its way towards winning.
Because those weren’t just any two men.
The one carrying a shoe box, who looked as if someone had just shot his pet dog, I vaguely recognized from the night of my disastrous blind date with the man of Grandma’s choosing. But I wasn’t concerned with him. It was Colin who worried me; Colin, who was strolling blithely along beside him, right in my direction. My unshowered, ungroomed, decidedly unkempt, anything but seductive direction.
In the glow of light from the shop windows, cutting against the November dusk, Colin’s hair shone like tawny gold of an old coin, back before they
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