Normal? Mannered?He could fill in the blank with any of those and be right.
“I’m not this bad in real life. I’m a professor.”
“You already mentioned that.”
I had?
I had.
“I just mean, I speak in front of people all the time, and can be articulate. Coherent. It’s just—”
He laughed, and it transformed him from a serious man, to someone else. Someone with a happy smile. And dimples. “The dreams,” he said. “And the sleep. And being American.”
I must have frowned.
“The traffic,” he went on to explain.
I opened my mouth to respond, and then shut it again.Think first.
With my heart rate returning to normal, and my humiliation at incalculable levels, I tried to pull myself together.
Focus.Breathing in through my nose, I shut out all the noise, both around me and in my head.
“Better?”
I smiled before I opened my eyes. Orestes was staring at me, eyes narrowed and smile gone.
“I am. Sorry about that.”
“Well. I don’t need the coffee I had planned on any longer. So you saved me five quid.”
Was that a joke?
His tone was bland, and he didn’t so much as crack a smile.
“You’re welcome?”
Thatgot a reaction. The dimples reappeared, and he chuckled, shaking his head.
“Leonora—Leo—look both ways before you cross the street. Or even better, watch the sign.” Slapping his hands against his jean-clad thighs, he stood. And stood.
I got a good look at him. At broad shoulders that he hunched forward, as if trying to make himself inconspicuous. At long arms and legs, and that white scar, reaching down his face like a spider’s web. His gaze left mine to jump from one spot to another.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I stood, then went on my tiptoes to see into his eyes. They weren’t bloodshot, and the pupils weren’t dilated. So it wasn’t drugs. Just being really, really alert. “Can I help you?”
Freezing, so the only part of him that moved were his eyes, he asked. “What?”
“Can I help you? Are you okay?” The deal I made with myself, to think first and talk second flew out the window, and the words poured out of me. “Are you in trouble?”
With each question, his eyes got wider and wider. He took one step closer. Then another.
“I can help.” Reaching out, I grabbed his hand.
His gaze snapped from my face to my hands, and he swallowed hard. “Thank you,” he whispered. Slowly, he extricated himself, and took a step back. “But I’m fine. Just… late.”
Lie.
Letting my hands fall to my sides, I nodded. “Well, then. Have a good day, Orestes. And thanks for saving my life.”