I See London

by Chanel Cleeton

  “You say that about all the events.”

  “Well, this time it’s true.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You’re going.”

  “Why?”

  Fleur paused, her expression clouded. “Last year Costa and I spent Valentine’s Day in Paris. This year he’s probably celebrating it the same way with his new girlfriend. I don’t feel like being by myself tonight.”

  Whenever Fleur played the Costa card, I knew she was bringing in the big guns. “I’m not really sure I’m in a social mood tonight.”

  What I didn’t say was that I didn’t want to see Samir. Ever since that night on the steps, I’d been avoiding him. I couldn’t believe I’d broken down like that in front of him, or that I’d told him about my mom.

  I felt vulnerable, exposed. And I didn’t want to deal with it.

  “That’s the point. No one is in a good mood tonight. But instead of sitting in the room feeling sorry for ourselves, we’re going to get dressed up, go out, get drunk and judge everyone’s fashion choices. We’re reclaiming Valentine’s Day.”

  I grinned, her mood infectious. Fleur had a way of rallying the troops when her mind was set on something. “Fine. You’ve convinced me.”

  Given my current dateless status on Valentine’s Day I figured it couldn’t get any worse.

  * * *

  By the time we got to the club, the party was already in full swing. I had to give it to the university—they never did things in half measures. The venue they’d chosen for the event was, according to Fleur, one of London’s trendier clubs. The interior was sleek and modern. Cool house music poured from the club speakers.

  I followed Fleur over to a table where Mya and Michael sat, already knocking back glasses of champagne.

  Michael waved us over. “You came!” he shouted over the music.

  “Fleur convinced me.”

  I slid into the booth next to Michael. He passed me a glass of champagne.

  “A toast,” he shouted. “To my girls.”

  We clinked glasses.

  I caught sight of George across the room. I grinned, waving at him. I’d seen less and less of him as the year progressed.

  “Hey, guys, I’ll be right back.” I left the table and walked over to him. “Hey.”

  He grinned. “Hi. How’s it going?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  “I’m surprised you came out tonight. It’s good to see you, though.”

  George didn’t seem to be big on going out. He ran with the quieter crowd within the International School.

  He shrugged. “Residence Life sponsors the party every year. Mrs. Fox wanted everyone to come.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did.”

  George gestured to a point over my shoulder. “I see you’re hanging out with the Ice Queen now.”

  My gaze jerked to where Fleur sat with Mya and Michael. I grinned, turning back to face him. “She’s kind of amazing when you get to know her.”

  George shrugged, taking a swig from his bottle of beer. “I’ll just have to take your word on that one.”

  “She is,” I insisted. “She’s really loyal and fun. And believe it or not, she can be pretty sweet.”

  George tossed me a skeptical look.

  “Do you want to go for a run sometime soon?” he asked, changing the subject.

  I nodded. We’d started running together at the beginning of last semester, but the busier school got, the less time I had for working out. Unfortunately my thighs seemed to miss the activity. “Sounds good to me.”

  We talked for a few more minutes before I headed back to my friends.

  I slipped into the booth between Fleur and Michael. Fleur sipped her champagne, surveying the room. She had that look in her eyes I’d quickly learned spelled trouble.

  “I’m going to play,” she announced, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

  I groaned.

  Most of the guys at the International School failed to impress me. The American guys were nice, but in an environment as diverse as our university, they tended to blend into the background. The European guys were doable but they operated a tight little clique that was hard to break into—especially given Fleur’s breakup with Costa, who seemed to be the unofficial leader of the Europeans. There were some major hotties within the group, but that was it. Not to mention they seemed a little stuck-up.

  The Arabs were überintimidating. Probably because they mostly spoke Arabic and I got the distinct impression they looked down on the Americans. Even my friendship with Samir hadn’t been enough to make me feel comfortable around the Arab clique. Although Samir was definitely the undisputed leader. The Africans, like the Arabs, mostly kept to themselves.

  We were a veritable United Nations of men.

  “Maggie likes her men older,” Michael teased with an exaggerated drawl.

  I elbowed him in the side. “Shut up.”

  Mya leaned in. “Who are you going to hit on?”

  Fleur scanned the crowd, tapping her fingers against her champagne flute. Her eyes narrowed. “Him.”

  We all followed Fleur’s gaze.

  Of course.

  Alessandro Marin was arguably the hottest guy at the International School. He was Italian and looked every inch the Roman god. He was also, as far as I could tell, pretty much untouchable. Possibly even for Fleur. He didn’t even run with the European group; he pretty much did his own thing. There were rumors he modeled on the side and had dated a Swedish pop star.

  “Nice choice.” Michael let out a low whistle.

  I had to agree—the boy was majorly fine.

  She grinned. “Excuse me, I’m going to go meet my latest—”

  “Victim?” I teased.

  “Exactly.”

  After Fleur left, I sat with Mya and Michael, watching the crowd. Fleur was right; it did look as if most if not all of the school was here.

  And then I saw him.

  Chapter 32

  Samir stood across the room from me with a large group of Arabs. Some I recognized from other nights out, others seemed new. Tonight he wore a white collared dress shirt, sleeves rolled, exposing lean, tanned forearms.

  A flush spread across my cheeks. He wasn’t here with a date.

  Suddenly, Samir turned. He grinned at me, his head jerking in a nod. His gaze ran over me from head to toe, his grin widening.

  I froze. I couldn’t stop staring at him. A part of me wanted to cross the room and say hi. Hell, I wanted to say more than hi. I was losing my mind.

  “Oh, shit,” Michael exclaimed.

  I tore my attention away from Samir.

  “What’s up?” I asked, recognizing his tone immediately. It was his something-major-is-about-to-go-down voice.

  “Shit is about to get ugly.”

  I scanned the crowd, but nothing seemed out of place to me. No one was wearing the same outfit; no one seemed to be messing with someone else’s guy. My gaze settled back on Samir’s group. He’d turned away from me, his attention focused on something else. A low murmur seemed to spread throughout the crowd. Whatever was happening, Samir was clearly about to be part of it.

  “What’s going on?”

  Mya’s eyes widened, ignoring me. Her gaze settled on someone in the crowd. “Oh, she didn’t.” Her voice had the same eager anticipation Michael’s did.

  “What? What am I missing?”

  Mya gestured toward a dark-haired girl standing in the corner, her arms wrapped around a boy’s waist.

  “That’s Amira. She’s Omar’s ex-girlfriend.”

  Samir’s BFF Omar. Awareness dawned. “And that’s not Omar.”

  “Nope. That’s Abdul. He used to be part of Samir’s little group, but he and Amira hooked up while she was still dating Omar. They’ve been lying low ever since.”

  “Apparently not any longer,” Michael commented, his gaze jerking back and forth between the couple and Samir’s clique.

  Sure enough,
Omar had broken away from his group and was now heading toward Amira and Abdul. The expression on his face said it all. This was not going to go over well.

  “You don’t think they’re going to fight, do you?”

  The words were barely out of my mouth before Omar shoved Abdul. Amira shrieked, moving away from Abdul. Words were tossed out in Arabic.

  Michael leaned forward. “Oh, here we go.”

  A group of guys moved into the fray, backing up Omar. There had to have been six of them.

  Mya frowned. “This is about to get real.”

  Samir came at the group, a mass of guys behind him. My heart thudded. “Oh, no.”

  “Really, really real,” Mya added.

  She wasn’t kidding. I’d never actually seen a fight in person. My high school hadn’t been particularly rowdy, and while there were a few fights, I’d always seemed to miss them. Here I had a front-row seat.

  Through the mass of people it was impossible to see who threw the first punch. But inevitably someone did and the instant fist connected with bone, things got really ugly. There must have been thirty people now, a mix of guys from the university. Most were Arab and seemed to be friends with either Omar or Abdul. The rest seemed to have randomly jumped in for the thrill of the fight.

  Without realizing it, my eyes tracked Samir’s movements. He threw punches, his movements sharp and quick. He might not have been a big guy, but he was fast. And by the looks of things, this definitely wasn’t his first fight. I winced as one of the other guys landed a blow to his jaw. Samir’s head jerked back.

  Nausea welled up. “Isn’t security going to break it up?”

  Michael shrugged. “Would you want to go into that?”

  He had a point.

  The three of us watched in shock as the fighting continued. I couldn’t even tell who was fighting anymore; gone were any clear alliances or sides. This was a brawl—arms shoving, hands punching, legs kicking. I half expected people to start biting each other.

  In the melee I lost sight of Samir.

  “This is insane.”

  Mya shook her head, her tone wry. “This stuff happens all the time. Although I have to say, I’ve never seen this many of them brawling at once.”

  “Aren’t they going to get in trouble?” This looked like the sort of thing you could get expelled for.

  “They’ll probably be fine. The school’s pretty used to it by now. The guys involved will pay for the damage to the club and all will be forgotten.”

  “This is undoubtedly the most effed-up Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had.”

  Michael clinked our glasses together. “Amen, sister.”

  Suddenly club security began moving into the crowd, breaking the fight apart. The bouncers pulled people off of each other. A guy grabbed Samir, yanking him off of Abdul. Samir’s shirt was ripped at the bottom. Blood ran down his face from a cut on his cheek. His eyes looked intense, wild. Our gazes connected across the room. The look he sent me was all fire, passion, heat—

  I shivered. I needed air. Immediately.

  * * *

  “I’m glad you called,” I told Hugh, linking my fingers with his.

  After the police arrived, we bailed on the party. Fleur left with Alessandro; Mya and Michael headed back to the dorms. The thought of going home to my room had been too depressing. I couldn’t stop wondering about Samir. Finally I ended up sending him a text.

  Are you ok?

  He hadn’t responded. The suspense was driving me nuts.

  “I’m glad I called, too. It’s good to get to see you, even if Valentine’s Day is almost over.” Hugh leaned down, brushing a soft kiss to my temple. “I’m sorry your party didn’t go well.”

  I laughed. “That is the understatement of the year.”

  I’d been too embarrassed to fill Hugh in on the fight. Somehow I didn’t think nearly thirty-year-old men spent their Valentine’s Days engaging in public brawls. Plus, he still thought I was in grad school. I felt a twinge of guilt at the weight of my lies.

  We held hands, walking through Chelsea. I’d taken a cab to meet Hugh at Cobalt just as he finished up work and he’d offered to walk me home, not that we had gotten very far.

  “Come here,” Hugh whispered, pulling me into a dark alley. His arms wrapped around me, his hands slipping under my long coat. It took some maneuvering before his hands found the bare skin beneath my top. I shivered. His lips found mine, his mouth opening, plundering mine with his tongue.

  My back hit the stone wall of the mews. Pressed between Hugh and the building, I felt every inch of his hard body against me. We stayed like that, making out in the dark mews, until something wet landed on my nose. I broke apart from Hugh and looked up at the sky. White drops fell from the sky in a lazy pattern, covering my face and coat. I laughed, the sound echoing through the narrow mews.

  I had never seen snow before. It got pretty cold in South Carolina, but my grandparents lived too far south for us to actually see any real winter weather.

  It felt like magic.

  Hugh grinned, white drops of snow falling around his face and hair. He leaned down, kissing the snowflakes off the tip of my nose. He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me up against the warmth of his body. “Come on. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

  We walked down the streets, our arms wrapped around each other. With the snow falling, the streets of London were remarkably quiet, most people driven inside by the cold. A few other couples walked around us, but for the most part it felt as if we had the town to ourselves. We walked past big glass store windows with elegant dresses and exotic shoes on display. I paused in front of one, catching the image of the girl walking by in the glass.

  I wasn’t sure I even recognized her anymore.

  She still looked like me. It was the same brown hair I’d had my entire life, the same brown eyes. But this girl—her smile was brighter than mine ever was, her clothes just a bit sharper. But what made me stop in my tracks and stare was that for the first time in my life, the girl staring back at me was one of those girls. The polished girls. She was happy and confident and had this glow about her I never had in South Carolina.

  Her glow scared me. She scared me a little.

  All my life I was defined by being the smart one. I wasn’t ugly; I just wasn’t pretty enough for it to be much of a factor. So I shut off that part of my life and focused on school. On Harvard. But now—now I was getting C pluses in classes and wearing designer heels. I was changing. And I wasn’t sure who I was anymore. Or who I wanted to be. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I had a blank canvas. And I had no idea what to do with it.

  Up ahead a man stood outside one of the restaurants selling roses.

  Hugh winked at me, pressing a swift kiss to my cheek, breaking me out of my reverie. “Wait here.”

  He crossed the street in long, smooth strides. Something fluttered in my chest.

  Hugh walked over to the guy, his long strides loping over the pavement. It was impossible to not feel admiration at the way he moved. With Hugh’s back to me, I couldn’t see his face, but I knew, and in response my heart pounded in my chest.

  He turned around, a red rose dangling from his right hand. The pounding in my chest intensified. He closed the distance between us until there was merely a foot of space separating our bodies. A slow smile spread across his face. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  I stared down at the vibrant red rose, something like hope flickering in my chest. No guy had ever given me flowers before.

  I reached out, taking the rose from him, our hands brushing against each other. For a moment I didn’t speak; emotion clogged my throat. I wanted to tell him how much it meant to me—this simple gesture made me feel special in a way no one ever had before.

  “Thank you,” I replied, struggling to keep my voice light.

  It was just a flower. A flower that made up for all of the dateless dances, the missed prom and the Valentine’s Days when the only flowers I received were carnations fro
m Jo.

  I closed the distance between us, the rose fisted in my hand, careful to avoid getting pricked by the thorns. I stood up on my tiptoes, even then his mouth just out of reach. Hugh leaned down, meeting me in the middle, his head brushing against mine. His lips found mine, the kiss taking more than it gave. I lost all sense of time, forgot we were standing on the sidewalk of a crowded London street. I thanked him for the rose with my hands and lips, in a way I could never do with words.

  Hugh broke apart first, his lips traveling up my face, grazing my ear. Hovering there. Teasing there. “You’re driving me crazy, Maggie,” he whispered. I shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the weather. “You have to decide. Soon.” His breath came out hurried. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I want you.”

  I could feel the looming deadline, knew I needed to make a decision soon. I wished I could be casual about it—I didn’t know why sex was such a big thing for me. But it was. And despite how hot Hugh was, I just didn’t feel ready and I wasn’t sure how much longer he would wait.

  We finished our walk back to my place, our hands linked. Hugh gathered me close for a good-night kiss. My phone beeped.

  I jerked back. “Sorry. I need to take this. I think it’s from Fleur,” I lied, my heart pounding in my chest.

  I pulled out my phone, relief rushing through me as I read the message.

  I’m fine. Sorry you had to see that. Happy Valentine’s Day. Xxxx.

  “Everything okay, babe?”

  I nodded mechanically, even though I was anything but. With Hugh’s rose clutched in one hand and the text from Samir in another, I’d never felt more confused—

  And I couldn’t help but think—I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore.

  Chapter 33

  “Raise your hand if you had the worst Valentine’s Day.”

  Four sets of hands went up. I was the lone dissenter. Four pairs of eyes shot me dirty looks.

  “Sorry?” My expression was sheepish. “My Valentine’s Day wasn’t exactly perfect either.”

  I might have spent Valentine’s Day with Hugh. But when I came home, I dreamed of Samir.

  Samir snorted. “Try spending it locked in a cell.”