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“Found it. Bodleian has the book.” Enola jumps out of her seat and rushes to get her coat, leaving her roommate alone on the couch — and finally making her put the phone down.
“You’re leaving? Now?” Cicely raises a surprised brow. “Oh! Can you buy some flowers on the way?”
“Why—“ Oh right, Cicely’s mum is visiting. Enola had completely forgotten about that; she glances around the messy state of their flat and knows that she’ll get a distressed text from Cici if she doesn’t get home quick enough. Passing by the flower shop shouldn’t take so much time though. “Sure.”
Enola barely hears Cicely’s thanks as she leaves the door right after. Her instinct tells her to rush, as if the book is going to disappear out of nowhere. Although, the library’s website did say that they only have one copy available, and her assignment is due next week.
Her mind wanders as she walks through the streets of Oxford, rather calm for a Sunday. She mentally plans her routine for today: go to the library to get her textbook, go to a nearby flower shop to buy flowers, go home and help Cici clean the flat, then spend the rest of the day doing her assignments.
She arrives at the Bodleian Library quicker than she’d anticipated. But well, it is only a five minutes walk. She shows her student card to a lady at the front and enters, heading straight to the section that she had made sure to remember on her way. It’s only been two weeks since the start of the year, yet Enola already has most of the layout of the place memorized from the ridiculous amount of time she spends here.
There it is. Right above her is the book: The Art of Laws, one that her professor had insisted everyone to buy their own copy of, but Enola was waiting until she has the time to visit Sherlock’s place to steal his copy. She tries reaching for it when another hand takes it before her, and, out of reflex, she holds onto the book.
Neither of them let go, so she looks up to see a brown haired guy. He’s staring her just like she’s staring at him, with his pretty brown eyes and sharp jawline. His hair is a mix of messy and neat, and Enola feels an urge to fix the flying hairs.
She has to snap herself out of her trance— strange, she has never react like this to seeing a boy — and reminds herself that they both want the same book.
“I’m pretty sure I found it first.” Enola plasters on a nice smile — although it’s pretty obvious that it isn’t genuine; she tries snatching the book to her side, and he lets go for just a little bit.
He mirrors her fake smile, and she hates the feeling she gets in her stomach. “I’m pretty sure I got it first, though.” He tries snatching the book back, but her hold is firm.
Ugh, this is getting tedious.
“I have an assignment due in two weeks.” He says, as if that’s going to change anything.
“Ha!” She exclaims with a genuine smile this time. “Mine’s next week.”
He shoots her a glare; she gleams at him.
“I’ll pay you.”
“Suggesting bribery, I see?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “How very decent of you.”
Judging from his clothing, and posture, and literally everything, she figures he probably comes from a well-off background; he just offered paying for the book from her, after all.
“There’s a bookstore down the road, y’know?” She flings her hand to a random direction. He’ll figure the actual way with maps, preferably on his own.
“I am not waiting nearly an hour for a book i’ll only use once.” He gives her a look, like she just proposed treason.
“Well, that’s too bad.” The boy barely even notices her completely grabbing the book from his grasp. He does take notice, though, once she had hidden it behind her back. “It’s either you wait an hour in a queue, or you wait until I’m done with this book.”
He groans before surrendering. “Fine, just text me or something when you’re done.” She chuckles at his idiocy as he pulls out his phone.
“Nincompoop.” She mumbles beneath her breath as she pulls out her own phone. Unfortunately, the boy seems to have heard her.
“What did you just call me?” He looks more incredulous than angry; did he not hear her, or did he just not understand the word?
“Nothing.” Enola ignores his stare and opens her contacts before passing her phone to him. He does the same.
They both type their numbers in silence, that is, until he chuckles beside her. “Who even speak like that anymore?”
He passes her phone back to her. On it, his number, and a nickname: “not an idiot”.
Maybe he’s not a complete nincompoop.
“Ha ha, very funny.” Enola mocks a laugh, deletes the really bad joke from her phone, and passes his phone back to him.
“No name?” He fakes a disappointed look. “What am I supposed to call you, then? Miss I-Found-It-First?”
She holds back a laugh and glares at him. “It’s Enola. And yours? Or should I just call you nincompoop?”
“Tewkesbury, pleasure to meet you.” There is anything but pleasure in his voice, amusement might be close enough. But her mind is elsewhere.
“And how the hell do you spell that?” She shoots the boy—Tewkesbury —a confused look. He sighs and takes her phone to type it himself.
Once she gets her phone back, she takes one look at the name and save it, in her contacts and memory. “Shame, nincompoop fits you a lot better.”
Tewkesbury laughs, “I’ll see you around, Enola.”
“Hopefully not.”
Enola does not let herself think about the boy at the library until she is far enough from the library’s proximity. Only then, does she allow herself to replay the events, and deny that he probably has the prettiest smile she’s ever seen.
Gods, she needs to stay away from him. She has a very busy four years of university ahead of her, and she will not let a beautiful boy get in her way of getting a degree.
So she forces herself to only think of the next task of the day, which is to buy Cicely some flowers. On that note, she probably should add telling Cicely about Tewkesbury when she gets back—
Her head’s straying again.
After an agonizing walk filled with the two sides of her head fighting against each other, she finally sees the silhouette of a flower shop, and quickens her pace. She’s so concentrated on getting to her destination without thinking about a certain person, that she walks straight into somebody.
“Ow.” She mumbles, taking in the weirdly familiar outfit, then looking up to see..
“Oh, gods, not you again.” There he is, standing right in front of her, Tewkesbury.
He stops trying to smooth his sweater out to look at her. “Oh, come on, Enola—“ he says her name like they’re old friends, she remarks to no one but herself— “my presence cannot be that bad.”
“Oh, but it is!” She walks past him to enter the shop. “What if you steal my flowers?” She jokes, exasperated.
Tewkesbury lets out a laugh, “I would never dare.” He follows her into the flower shop, “Didn’t think you’d be into flowers.”
“I’m not, trust me.” She gives him a look. “It’s for my roommate.”
“You’re in a two people setup?” He raises a surprised eyebrow at her.
“What? Are you too posh for that, Tewkesbury?” His name on her tongue felt strangely satisfying. She shakes off the intrusive idea.
He laughs and denies, “Just didn’t think anybody could keep up with that attitude of yours.”
She rolls her eyes, ignoring the clear trap.
They wait in silence for a while, both looking around at the flowers. Cicely had sent her reference photo to go off of, so there isn’t much to look for. Tewkesbury seems very interested, though; but Enola doesn’t say anything, she just stares at him for a while before looking away.
“You’re interested in flowers.” She breaks the quiet between them.
“They’re fascinating, can you blame me?” He reaches for a flower with a smile.
She takes a look at the flower in his palm. With the way he speaks, the flower slightly appeals to her more. She shrugs anyway. “I don’t really see what’s so captivating.”
It’s his turn to roll his eyes at her now, though he’s clearly less exasperated than she was. “Too bad they don’t have columbines here.”
“What? So you can give one to me and call me foolish?” She smirks at the surprised look on his face.
“Thought you didn’t care about flowers, huh?” The surprise turns to a smirk similar to her own, and she finds herself smiling and rolling her eyes.
“I’ve read books.”
A guy at the counter calls for the next customer — which is her — and Enola finally leaves Tewkesbury’s side.
“I got the book, here’s your flowers.” Enola announces the moment she enters. Cicely, who’s currently balancing a tea set on one arm, and a vase on another, looks at her with half grateful, half beseeching eyes.
“Thanks! And uh..” Enola sets her stuffs down and takes the tea set from Cicely’s hands, “Ugh, I will not survive without you.”
She rolls her eyes— gods, her eyes are going to fall out with the amount of times she had rolled it today alone— before unwrapping the flowers. Cicely comes back with a bottle of water.
“You took longer than I expected.” She asks, pouring the water into the vase as Enola slowly puts the flowers in.
She thinks about the earlier events, of the small dispute in the library, the meet in the flower shop, and somehow being asked out to dinner by Tewkesbury right before the two of them were going to leave.
How should she start?
“Well, I met this guy in the library and we ‘fought’ over the book.” She puts ‘fought’ in air quotes. Cicely raises an eyebrow at the mention of a guy. “I won and we exchanged numbers so I can give the book to him once I’m done.”
Cicely smirks; Enola shoots her a glare.
“I accidentally bumped into him again at the flower shop, we spoke,” she pauses, contemplating whether she should even tell Cicely. Well, who cares anyway. “And then he asked me out to dinner and I said yes.”
Cicely’s smirk turns into a gasp, and suddenly Enola regrets telling her at all.
“Is the Enola Holmes finally falling in love?” She teases and laughs like it’s the most entertaining thing.
“No!” Enola hits her with a cloth she found on the table, Cicely laughs even harder. “I will not be falling for him. He’s just a friend!”
Neither of them believes that.
“Right, right.” Cicely wipes the tears from her eyes, “What’s his name?”
She hits her just once more with the cloth before setting it down and walking away. “Tewkesbury.”
For a moment, she doesn’t hear a single sounds coming from Cicely, and so she turns around to see her roommate with a wide-eyed expression. She’s staring at her like she had just told her the name of a king or something.
“Tewkesbury?” Cicely asks bewilderedly, “As in the Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwhether?”
“Yes, Tewkesbury.” Her brain finally loads in the latter. “I’m sorry, what?”
Cicely laughs. “Oh my god, Enola. It’s not even been two weeks since the start of the school year and you already got a date with the school's 'it' boy.”
"We're in Oxford!" Enola exclaims, "Why are there still 'it' boys?"
"You can't find a better adjective when he's basically the richest boy here and all the girls swoon over him in their free time."
"Who even have free time with the ungodly amount of papers to be submitted in a week?"
"Oh, Enola," Cicely sighs, "They always find a way."
Enola has a feeling she is not going to be able to pull herself out of this one.