Men woo women with flowers. My crush sent me pots of insectivorous plants.

There was a pot of bladderwort beside a pot of a venus fly trap and I stared up again at the delivery man, silently asking him to confirm whether he had made the correct delivery.

The poor man looked plausibly awkward and I would’ve laughed had it not been for the fact that I had no clue what to do with those two plants.

I cleared my throat before asking quietly, “Are you sure you can’t take them back?”

“The client would kill me, ma’am,”

I sighed. Fuck Caspian (quite literally too). “Can you throw them in a dumpster on the way back?”

“I would be fired if my boss were to find out,” I cursed under my breath. “The man asked me to give you a note, miss,” With those words, he handed me a piece of paper with Mr Grey’s handwriting. I swear that man managed to have sexy handwriting, if that was even possible.

To keep near your windows,

Caspian Grey

P.S.: I am very sorry about what I did. Forgive me?

“Need my help carrying them inside, miss?” the man asked and I shook my head in response.

“I’ll be fine. Here,” I handed him a hundred-dollar bill before lifting the pots and closing the door with my foot. The man deserved the tip for being put in that situation.

I carried the pots up to my room, again miraculously opening and closing the door with my foot.

There was a window above my bed, and one near the study table. Just as I was laying down both the plants there, I realized two things: one, I had never told him I hated insects, and two, I had never told him that my room had two windows.

A chill went over my body as I remembered that he had also somehow managed to obtain my number, despite the fact that I had never shared it with him.

Without wasting another thought, I dialled his number. It took him three rings to pick up, and I calmed my thundering heart and greeted him politely, “Good evening, Mr Grey,”

“Good evening to you too, Ms Decembers,”

“I wanted to thank you for sending me those plants. I love them!” I honestly did. I hated stupid arthropods too much, and I was glad that I had one more thing to protect me from them.

“I am glad,” he replied, his words being short, but his voice was anything but curt.

“Though I wonder how you knew about it…my hatred towards insects, the fact that I had two windows in my room, and most importantly, my phone number. How did you get it, Sir?”

A beat passed in absolute silence before he answered. “It’s hard not to miss the fact that you despise insects when you go around calling people ‘you stupid arthropod’ or ‘you son of a centipede’. While I can’t get you plants to keep in your room that can kill chilopods, what I can gift you is something that will help you get rid of the insects. I merely estimated the number of windows you had, Noctiluca. And I am a teacher, I have access to the students’ records. It wasn’t hard to dig out your phone number,”

 It did make sense but I still felt like there was something wrong. I refused to pry on it, in case it were to sound rude, but I didn’t know what to say. Luckily, he saved me by asking,

“Pizza or burger?”                                               

“Sorry?”

“What would you like to have for dinner, Noctiluca?”

“Neither. I am not hungry right now. I’ll cook when I feel like it,”

“The last thing I want is my star student wasting her time in the kitchen while she could be securing her next medal,”

“Your star student’s tired and needs a break,”

“A break, huh?” he asked, more to himself, before humming and saying, “Get ready, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,”

“Where are we going?” I asked, biting my lips as anticipation curled in my chest.

“To get you a break, Noctiluca,”

I jumped in a simple white dress which came off as classy at the first glance, and casual at the second. The last time he’d taken me out, I had been dressed horribly inappropriately, and I didn’t want to repeat that.

I put on casual danglers and a locket before strapping a watch around my wrist and then, diving into my shoe-closet. I picked out black boots. He hadn’t told me where we were going, so, wearing books was the safest choice. They’d be more comfortable than pencil-heels and more elegant than sneakers.

I was down in ten minutes and had securely locked the door by the time he had arrived.

He was in a sleek dark blue car that screamed rich. My parents were loaded, but I took one glance at the car and knew that it wasn’t something we could’ve easily afforded.

“Rolls-Royce? I don’t speak cars but I know enough to know that it’s worth more than all my organs combined!” I blurted as soon as I sat in the passenger seat. “How many cars do you own?”

“Fourteen in all, but I only have three in the town. The rest are in England,”

“Wow, that’s a lot. Can you marry me?” I joked shamelessly, making him chuckle.

“Sure, as soon as you turn eighteen, Ms Decembers,”

“I’ll hold you to that, Mr Grey,” I muttered before asking, “Where are we going?”

“There’s a restaurant on the outskirts of the town. They have the most delicious sandwiches,” and just the thought of that, made my mouth water.

“I am hungry already,” It was true. I had only had a banana and milk for breakfast, and had skipped lunch. I had eaten some chips at some time in the day, but other than that, I had eaten nothing, and I was super close to my stomach announcing that on a microphone.

The outskirts of town sounded far, far away, and it would take us at least an hour to get there with traffic. My stomach was too rebellious to wait for that long, and decided to grumble the very next moment.

He gave me a side-glance before taking the next right and stopping in front of a regular restaurant. “We’ll visit that one the next time,” was all he said and all I could think about was the fact that there was, indeed, going to be a next time.

He opened the door of the restaurant and stepped aside so I could enter first, before letting it close behind me. This man and his manners were going to be the death of me.

Our food arrived fifteen minutes later and all I could do while downing the fries was stare and wonder how the heck did God manage to create someone so beautiful.

He dropped me back home later, and I couldn’t stop thinking about everything about that stalker of a man.

***

Kissing Rhys hadn’t gone as I had originally imagined. It was my first kiss, and according to the romance novels, I was supposed to feel sparks and a thousand butterflies were supposed to erupt in my stomach but all I had felt was…wrong. The kiss had felt so fucking wrong.

And now, I was pissed at him for stealing away my first kiss just like that.

All those years of dreaming about having my first kiss with the perfect guy (didn’t have to be my future husband or anything, just perfect) down the drain.

But, it did help in an odd way. I realized that I didn’t feel anything for him, or maybe I did feel something but it was so miniscule, that it was completely insignificant.

The tiny issue was that from the way Rhys had acted after the kiss, I knew for a fact that unlike me, he had felt something.

I had avoided confrontation that night due to my…condition, but he had tried to talk to me all day long, and I had avoided the topic, the conversation, all of it.

How was I supposed to tell him that I felt nothing for him? It would most definitely ruin our friendship. I had shared that attraction in the past maybe, but now, it felt like it was ash.

It felt like it didn’t exist.

And if it did, there was a stronger force at play…

I cursed inside my head and then loudly once more for good measure.

This was not going to end well.

I was right. I was frigging right.

I managed to avoid Rhys till the lunch break, but after that, he grew impatient. “So?” he asked, the second we stepped into an empty classroom and he closed the door behind him.

“So?” I questioned back, crossing my arms and pretending to be dumb.

That seemed to make him nervous, cause he slid his hands into his pockets and waited for a moment before asking, “There’s a great movie in the cinemas. Want to watch it?”

“Sure,” I answered and added later, “Friday evening? Daniel must be free too,”

“I…I just want it to be the two of us…” he confessed.

“You mean…As in a…”

“Date.” He finished for me before looking at me wistfully and I felt horrible for the next words I had to say.

“I…I can’t. I don’t feel that way for you, Rhys,” I decided to just let it out.

I had expected him to get upset…cry, maybe, get a little angry…but instead, his eyes darkened completely and I realized that I might’ve underestimated his rage.

He drove his fist into the wall beside my head and I shrieked, the violence triggering me instantly.

My heart rate plummeted, and it took everything in me to regulate my breathing.

In. Out.

In. Out.

In-

His other hand met the wall to my left, encaging me completely, and he stepped closer to me until I couldn’t breath.

He was too close, too close, I hated when people were too close. It robbed me of my oxygen, and made panic travel to the very tips of my fingers.

“You played me,” came his words: dark, slow, and maliciously. “You appeared to be interested in me and pulled back,”

I deserved the blame, I really did, but I had shown interest in him a year back, and after that party, I had done nothing to show my emotions towards him, because I had felt them flutter: they came and went as they pleased, and I didn’t want him to suffer cause of my fickle feelings.

A lot had changed in a year, a hell lot. I had gone on three dates, he had gone on five. All those times, he hadn’t shown interest and this had been too sudden.

The anxiety grew in my chest until it was blocking my trachea and clogging my lungs an clouding my veins.

“I wasn’t playing-”

“Shut up,” he growled, slamming his fist against the wall again, and I winced. My chest started aching and I did my best to not slap a hand over it. Out of nowhere, the door of the room opened, and I heard someone enter.

“Is there a problem here?” came a posh British accent I had been dying to hear. I turned my line of vision to meet his eyes and let my despair show.

“Oh, it’s cause of him, isn’t it?” Rhys taunted, the anger rising in his irises. I shrunk back further against the wall. “You stupid little-”

“I am gonna need you to step away from Ms Decembers, Mr Cornell,” came Mr Grey’s firm voice, dripping with a foreign darkness.

Rhys clenched his jaw and gave him a look but stepped back anyways, and suddenly oxygen hit me. I closed my eyes. The space was supposed to make me feel better, the anxiety was supposed to subside, but if anything, it kept on growing until all my muscles had spasmed and my neurons had stopped working.

I felt the blood leave my face, and felt legs trembled as Rhys muttered under his breath, “Bitch,”

“I’ll see you in detention, Mr Cornell. Now, if you’d be kind enough to leave the room,” the politeness of his words almost managed to conceal the sharpness and the underlying threat in them.

I let the wall support the entirety of my weight as soon I as heard Rhys leave, and in two strides, Mr Grey was by my side.

“Hey…” he whispered softly, before tapping my cheek. “Look at me January,” he sounded too sexy for me to resist, and just hearing his voice dimmed the palpitations.

I opened my eyes to find him standing right in front of me, not as close as Rhys was, but still, too close. Oddly enough, I didn’t mind it. Instead of suffocating me, his presence cocooned me creating a rift between us and the world, making me feel…safe.

He took ahold of my wrist and placed three fingers against a spot. A low curse left his mouth and I would’ve melted instantly at the way the foul word sounded on his gentlemanly tongue if I wasn’t on the verge of fainting.

He grabbed a chair and made me sit down before kneeling to my right. My eyes rolled to the top of my head as I felt the palpitations continue.

His fingers found that spot on my left wrist again and his other hand engulfed my right one before pressing my palm flat against his chest. Underneath, I heard his heart beat-faster to be regular, but still way slower than mine.

I hadn’t heard anything more melodious in my whole life.