In Halls

SplashSoc

"Mm, cilantro."

I was in the queue to sign up for SplashSoc and someone was leaning into my personal space, sniffing my plant. That someone was Ed.

"It's coriander, actually," I said, stiffly. I didn't know why I should feel embarrassed to see him. After all it wasn't me who had absconded with a random stranger whilst drunk. But embarrassed I somehow was. He looked tired, but refreshed, his dark hair still a little damp from his morning shower.

"Same difference," he said with a shrug, eyeing the label that proved me right. "Couldn't you have got that for less than half the price at the supermarket?"

I blanched, realising he was right, and let out a growl of discontent. Something about the swindlers over at the plant shop. Ed seemed to find this very amusing.

"Noticed you making friends over at Book Club," he said, waving a book in my face.

"Hey, are you following me?"

"No, I didn't even recognise you until you walked away. I was just there for the free books and there was this girl chatting up the Book Club President, making the rest of us plebs stand and wait." He indicated the book in his hands, which looked like the choice for the Crime subgroup.

"I was not chatting him up!" I objected.

"Made short work of getting his number though, didn't you?" Ed said.

"It wasn't like that. He was just lending me a book."

"Really? Your blush says otherwise, young lady." He nudged me with his elbow.

I shoved him back, fuming at my own pale skin, and at the situation. SplashSoc was apparently such a popular society that we would be stuck in the queue together for a few minutes at least. Unless I made my excuses and dodged away. But I really wanted to keep up a bit of swimming.

"He was just being friendly," I said.

"Oh, right. Do you, or do you not, have his number in your hands right now?"

I looked down at the book and flipped it open. On the first page, beneath a couple of scrawled prices showing that the book had made its way through multiple charity shops over the years, was Callum's note.

Hey Ellen, so nice to meet you today. This is my number if you want to chat about the book... Callum x

How had he even had time to write a whole message?

I blushed brighter, and glanced back to the Book Club table. It wasn't close to SplashSoc, as I'd wandered into the sports club area, but I could have sworn Callum was looking at me.

I didn't get it. There were cute girls everywhere I looked in this room. Cute girls who seemed organised, intelligent, and well-presented. Why would he go for a girl with pizza stains on her bag and pens protruding from every pocket? I turned away, aware that Ed was watching me.

"You're one to talk."

"I am and I will," he said with a smirk.

"Did you even text that girl this morning?" I said. My tone of voice was laden with disapproval, and Ed looked at me for a minute, a fraction of a frown on his face. I wondered if perhaps he didn't even remember the night before.

"No comment," he said, pulling the book from my hands.

"Hey!"

"There's an x on the end here, and you're trying to tell me he was just being friendly?"

"Friendly people might put an x sometimes."

He gave me a derisive glance and turned the book to look at the spine.

"Mansfield Park... a bold choice."

"You've heard of it? It's a Jane Austen, it's like a Regency romance."

He raised an eyebrow at me.

"You've clearly not read it," he said.

"What, and you have?" I asked defensively. We were edging forward in the queue, people jostling past on either side.

He nodded, and held up three fingers, whilst turning the first few pages of the book.

"Three times? And you don't think it's a romance?"

He shook his head. He'd obviously had to study it for some kind of literature class. He probably didn't think it was a romance because his idea of romance involved thumping bass and alcohol. Guys like him couldn't understand the simmering tensions of classic literature.

"The ones I've read are both romances," I said, picturing my vision of Mr Darcy saying you must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you...

Ed closed the book with a snap and handed it back to me.

"There are romantic elements in this but they're not really... It's a book about what happens when you shut a group of young adults in a house together for months without any effective adult supervision. Funny, insightful, chaotic, but it's no Pride and Prejudice."

His extensive review of the works of Jane Austen (which I was beginning to think had come from some online cheat sheet) was interrupted by the group ahead of us parting. At last, we could see our way to the swimming sign-up sheet. The guy behind the desk spotted Ed and grinned.

"Hey, Guayo, what's up?"

They fist bumped. What was with it with the fist bumps around here? The other guy behind the desk also greeted Ed like a best friend.

"How's things, how was your trip, how's your Mum's family?"

Ed cast half a glance in my direction.

"Yeah, fine, all good, how's the club doing?"

Taking Ed's look as a sign that this was nothing to do with me, I turned aside. I signed my name up for the women's casual swimming group and then dodged off into the crowd of Freshers.

Extra post day! So I guess I got carried away with excitement over the fact that some of these chapters are actually getting reads and comments. Thank you so much for that! If you appreciate the extra chapter, drop me a little vote to let me know.   I'm on my own at home for the next few weeks, so today, next week, and the week after I will be posting Sundays as well as Tuesdays and Fridays to get the story moving.

What club would you (or did you) join if you had the choice of all of these options? Myself, I joined the caving group and crawled around underground for a few years.