Early August

Sarah is standing in a beautifully decorated reception area, wearing a fancier dress than she cares for, clutching a glass of white wine so tightly in her hand that she thinks it might shatter. If it happens, and it hits the beautiful floor of this hall, Sarah thinks it’ll be the university’s fault. Actually, all of this is University College London’s fault, now that she thinks about it.

She’s at a reception hosted by her faculty, a sort of mini-gala dinner in honour of a visiting professor, held at her university’s best venue - Faculty House, home of many a bat mitzvah and wedding - which inexplicably had been scheduled for mid-summer, when many of her fellow lit masters are not around to attend. Of course, Sarah is around - she’s always around, always in the student carrels or the library or in search of coffee somewhere in these hallowed buildings - so she gets a free ticket for the dinner, too. Gets two free tickets, actually, and is asked - ordered - to bring someone, so as to fill up space.

That, of course, is the last thing she wants to do. Obviously, Sarah loves lectures. She’s a nerd in the truest sense, loves podcasts, loves learning, loves listening to old guys drone on and on about history and literature and everything else. And she attends class with a bunch of other people who also love all of those things. The problem is that those are the only people she knows who would be at all interested in attending, and they’re all already invited.

Of them, only her friend and fellow masters student Eve is actually coming. She’s bringing her boyfriend, but he’s doing his Ph. D. in classics, so he’s used to these sorts of things. They’re a great couple, really fun people, so at a minimum Sarah knows that she’ll have a great time third-wheeling.

But then: enter Lucas.

Sarah had been on the phone to Marcia, trying in vain to convince her to ditch her family’s annual vacation to Spain so that she could attend a lecture for a literature masters program - it’s a clear failure from the beginning, but Sarah owes it to her professors to actually try - when Lucas had walked into the living room, pieced her dilemma together, and offered to come.

Sarah will admit, she’d been a little bit nervous about it. First, there was the whole thing where she was extremely into him and trying desperately not to make it obvious so as to save herself the embarrassment of rejection - plus, they live together, what a terrible idea from many angles - but besides that, she’d also been concerned about the general hoity-toity attitude of her cohort. Eve is cool, she’s not worried about Eve - but her professors, the school, the whole shebang - it all screams classism. She’s got some merit funding, but the bottom line is that she’s still spending thousands of dollars to live in London to attend University College London to get a masters degree in literature, and after this she’ll probably end up spending even more money to get a Ph.D. and then spend the rest of her life in academic institutions. If Lucas doesn’t already think she’s stuffy and out of touch, he probably will after this.

Secretly, she’d love to go to pastry school and work in a bakery; she doesn’t like the idea of the early hours but she knows she’d love the work. That, though, doesn’t fit into her five-year plan.

Not that she doesn’t love being in school - she really, really does. It’s the thing she’s always been best at. She’s not friendly or outgoing or naturally charming enough to be instantly liked. She’s an introvert. She’s bossy. She’s particular. All of the things that have made her into a neurotic person with only a few good friends also make her an excellent student - and, she thinks, probably a decent teacher - so really, academic life is probably what she’s best suited for. She can live locked up in her ivory tower with all of the other people who are just like her.

Lucas is decidedly not one of those people. He’s the opposite of her in so many respects - he’s funny, warm and charismatic. He’s spontaneous, distracted and full of life in the kind of way that the stuffy professorial types at her school would deride. He’s got a gift, a way with other people, that even with all of the training in the world, she could never learn. And whether or not he realizes it, it’ll take him anywhere he wants to go. He probably wants to travel the world or something.

Sarah is pretty sure that Lucas could turn the dictator of North Korea into being a friend. Who she has less faith in are the more conservative, uptight crowd in her cohort.

Of course, in the end, she’s wrong. Everybody loves him. His warm grin and easy nature are contagious (she knows that better than anybody), and if it wasn’t for him muttering, “I am so damn out of place here, Sarah” into her ear when they’d walked in, she’d have thought that it was a perfect fit from all sides.

It actually works too well, Sarah thinks. This is the Universities fault. They didn’t need to schedule this at a time where she has to bring her roommate that she has poorly-suppressed feelings for. It didn’t need to be semi-formal in the annoying way the Russel Group types like everything to be. She doesn’t need to be wearing this blue dress -though she does think she looks pretty good in it: it’s dusty blue, with short sleeves, and stretches from just beneath her collarbone to just above her knees. Professional enough for the setting, but it also gathers into a knot at the left side of her waist, so she’s not completely shapeless.

Lucas doesn’t need to be dressed up either. She’s kind of embarrassed to note that his being cleaned up a little is probably the most distracting thing about tonight. His hair is half-tamed, no hat, curls just wild enough to be still him. He’s wearing a pair of dress pants with a black button-up shirt tucked in, and shoes that aren’t slip-on or steel-toed work boots. It’s alternate-universe semi-corporate Lucas, kind of, and while Sarah’s sure that he’s not comfortable, he looks really, really good.

She’s not the only one who’s noticed.

Sarah really should have seen this coming. She came to a party for repressed overachievers and brought a tall, well-built, good-looking man with her. A man who’d never met a stranger and who had immediately engaged anyone interested in conversation.

So that is how she ends up here, with a vice grip on the only glass of wine she’s let herself have tonight, standing at a reception-height table with Eve and her boyfriend Ham, watching an English-lit masters student named Faelynn, who once asked Sarah if she dressed like a nun on purpose, flirt heavily with Lucas one table over.

“Faelynn’s friendly,” Sarah observes, keeping her tone of voice as measured and careful as possible.

“Faelynn’s a wolf waiting to strike,” Eve corrects, taking a large sip of bourbon. “And your roommate is a little baby deer who wandered into her territory.”

Sarah snorts. She really, really likes Eve.

“If the wolf actually just wants to get the baby deer,” Ham adds. “More like a praying mantis.”

Eve nods and taps her index finger against Ham’s thumb. “Yes, that’s a better analogy.” She nudges Sarah. “So anything going on there?”

Sarah has a small sip of wine. “We’re just friends.”

“You guys look good together.”

Sarah smiles as she shakes her head at Eve. She should never introduce her to Marcia. “Lucas is 6’4”, he looks good with everybody.”

“Sarah, you should probably go rescue him from Faelynn.” Eve raises an eyebrow in their direction.

Sarah glances over, sees Faelynn laughing and touching Lucas’s forearm (it looks strong and tanned against his rolled-up sleeve - Sarah may not like Faelynn, but she’s have to admit, she has good taste), then looks away. He’s a grown man and he can do whatever he wants.

Eve, apparently undeterred, calls over, “Hey, Lucas! Come here for a second.”

Sarah tries to keep her face neutral, but she feels an overwhelming sense of pleasure at the way Faelynn looks affronted when Lucas politely excuses himself. He sidles up to Sarah, holding a glass of red wine in one hand, and sets his other on her lower back. Faelynn makes a face, walks away, and Sarah is on cloud nine.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Eve says dismissively, knocking back the rest of her bourbon. “Just saving you. Faelynn’s a snake in the grass.”

Lucas looks curiously at Sarah, who shrugs and then nods. “Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

An announcement is made that the lecture and dinner portion is about to begin, so they grab their drinks and begin to file into the adjacent room, where round tables with cloth napkins and real silverware have been set up. Mercifully, Sarah and Lucas are seated with Ham and Eve, as well as a girl Sarah recognizes as being from the history department and her date, a guy who looks like he’s already bored in advance.