Oxford Wild by Laura Bradbury

Author:Laura Bradbury [Bradbury, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781989784211
Published: 2021-12-05T18:30:00+00:00

FOURTH WEEK

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cedar

In my room after Hall I sat at my desk, trying to busy myself with reading a few texts I’d borrowed from the college library while I waited for Alfie to arrive to set up my computer and stuff. The sexual tension between us the night before, when I met Norris, was undeniable—at least for me. I had my suspicions, but he remained inscrutable.

I slammed the books shut. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t concentrate on anything, knowing Alfie was imminently going to be spending at least a couple of hours in my room. Maybe we just needed to have sex to get it out of our systems as I’d done with the three men I’d been with before. A physical need met. No more, no less.

The problem was that everything with Alfie felt complicated. No, it was complicated. I couldn’t just stop seeing him. He was my Junior Advisor.

I stared at the computer, printer, and iPhone boxes piled up in front of me. I was right that there was more to Alfie than the image he tried so hard to project to the world. Norris was hairy confirmation of that. That also made meaningless sex a tricky business.

Yes, I loved Alfie’s intellect, but the repressed English scholar didn’t intrigue me. I was drawn to the man who rescued a dog that would otherwise be euthanized, built him a set of stairs to the toilet, had a bag of liver treats on his windowsill, and a knitted dog sweater drying on the cast iron radiator in his room.

I shook my head. I was getting way ahead of myself. One step at a time, Cedar.

A knock on the door.

I leapt off my chair and opened it with a flourish. Instead of coming in, Alfie stayed on the threshold, staring down at my door handle. “Your door wasn’t locked?” he asked.

Of the things I’d been anticipating about his arrival, it wasn’t that. Were locked doors one of the rules about Oxford that I didn’t know about? “No.”

“Do you ever lock it?”

What a bizarre question. “Surely with everyone in college there’s no need—”

“There is a need,” he said, shaking his head. How did we get back here again, to rule-following Alfie, just when I thought we’d made so much progress? “There is a ton of theft in Oxford, even within college walls.”

Theft? I had a hard time believing that. From what I could see, everyone in college had everything they needed.

“Come in.” I waved him in the door. He kept flexing his fingers. Was he nervous?

I shut the door behind us, then locked it. It felt wrong, as though I was locking myself in rather than locking others out. It gave me the itchy sensation of being trapped.

He took a deep breath and walked inside my room, his eyes growing wide with alarm as he surveyed it. Why? It was just a room, and not much different from the day I’d moved in.

“Where are your sheets, Cedar?” He pointed down at my bed and my sleeping bag that lay on top of the bare mattress.

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