I think I love you

15)

We reached his apartment after roughly 20 minutes of driving.

I don't know what I was expecting his apartment to look like but what I saw was.. very him.

One wall was almost entirely taken up by a giant bookshelf.

There was a piano in one corner of the room.

Next to it was a small table and included a record player and at least 30 records, the majority of which were classical records.

The apartment itself wasn't very colourful, it was mostly full of browns and greens and very warm, autumnal colours.

but I liked it.

It was very... him.

I noticed that in the corner of the kitchen where there was this sort of no doored cabinet, there was a stack of pumpkins, maybe 6 or 7 of them i think.

He's clearly planning for some sort of get together soon.

or hoping for one.

"you okay?" he wondered.

"I like your apartment" I stated. "it's very you"

"how come?" he tilted his head, closing the door behind him.

"the bookshelf, the classical records, the pumpkins, the very autumnal colours. It's just very you" I clarified. "do you play piano?"

"a little bit" he nodded.

"you gotta show me" I smiled.

"maybe another day" he shrugged. "you play?"

"a little bit" I repeated his answer.

"care to show me?" he wondered.

"maybe another day" I crinkled my nose before making my way across the room and sitting myself down on his couch.

"you want some coffee?" he asked, making his way into the kitchen.

"yes please" I nodded.

"how'd you take it?"

"black, milk and sugar" I responded, opening the book and flicking through a couple of pages.

He returned a couple minutes later, sitting down next to me on the couch and placing the two cups of coffee in front of us.

"wanna get started?" I asked.

He stared at me for a second before nodding.

"so what are you overall thoughts on the novel?" he wondered.

"you see, I'm at odds with this story. While it has the same general tone as Sherlock Holmes, it is quite long winded and difficult to read in some places. As the whole novel is the protagonists rambling thoughts during a week of convalescing, some ideas take up pages and pages and will then change without warning. I know you've read it quite a few times but I think I would have to read again to better understand some of the aspects Conan Doyle has included" I explained.

He nodded his head with each sentence, I could tell he was really listening to what I was saying.

"I can tell you have a lot of thoughts and opinions on it" he stated. "I had pretty much the same opinion when I read it first, although the more you read the book, the more you understand and appreciate"

"Well this novel has caught my eye in a lot of places so I won't be surprised if I read it again, maybe even a couple more times" I nodded.

"may I?" I noticed he had reached his hand out.

"oh. yeah of course" I placed the book in his hands so that he could read through my notes.

I watched as he opened it gently, with that I could tell that he has a lot of love and care for literature and I respected that a lot.

I watched his fingers as they scammed the pages, impressively flicking through each page after only being on it for a couple of seconds.

His hands are pretty nice.

that's... that's weird.

"you really weren't kidding about the 20,000 words per second thing" I chuckled, earning a smile from the boy as he continued reading through my notes.

It suddenly sunk in that he's a literal genius and that he's reading through things that I have written.

Me..

A totally not genius.

I suddenly started getting very nervous.

"I can tell you're nervous" he placed the phone down on his lap. "don't be. For your first time reading, you've made a lot of well thought and executive thoughts, some of which I hadn't even thought about. I can tell that you really payed attention to this book and analysed every thing possible, which I think is what you're supposed to do when reading a novel to fully understand it"

"Well I did get an A* in English literature for a reason" I laughed lightly.

"I'm rather impressed, these are definitely A* worthy book notes. much better than I expected" he nodded.

okay... a little ouch.

"thanks. I know I stated that I had a lot of conflict on the novel but I did enjoy reading and analysing and trying to understand it" I admitted. "I'm not a huge book reader, I don't get to read as often as I'd like but I did really enjoy this so thank you"

"you don't have to thank me. what type of thing are you looking for next? I'm happy to lend you another" he shrugged.

"what would you recommend?" I wondered.

"have you seen silence of the lambs?" he asked.

"seen the movie yes, haven't read the book" I replied.

"there we go then" he placed my copy of The Narrative of John Smith on the table in front of us before he stood up from his seat and made his way to the bookshelf.

He returned moments later with the book in his hand that read The Silence Of The Lambs by Thomas Harris.

I took a long sip of my coffee as he took a seat back on the couch.

"here, you should give this a read. maybe we can do this again, if you want" he wondered.

"Lucy isn't a big book reader, neither is anyone else i know really. so that'd be great, I'd like that" I nodded. "I'll give this a read"

"good. I think you'll enjoy this one, I presume you enjoyed the movie, yes?" he asked.

"i did, I really enjoyed the movie" I replied.