Of Mochas and Macchiatos

Part 19

"Sooooo, Gareth says you're getting married." Madeleine blinked up at me with a faux innocent look plastered across her face.

I coughed, instantly choking on the water I'd been drinking. In between gasps I managed to glare at Madeleine and wheeze out a reply.

"How the hell do you know Gareth?" I continued sputtering.

"I know the Heimlich manoeuvre. Do you want me to demonstrate? Oh, could I? Please? Lucky and I have never had a chance to try it out!" Lucas handed me some tissues as the coughing subsided.

"Thank you, Luke. Madeleine Duvall! I am not one of your little guinea pigs. And how the f-"

"Language!" Hissed Lucas, looking around for his mother, and sounding uncannily like her.

"-hell do you know Gareth?" Madeleine smiled sweetly.

"I know everything." She smirked and Lucas rolled his eyes. "Anyway, his mother and my mother and Lucky's mother are part of the same reading club. They're reading-"

"Okay Lena! But do you know Gareth personally?"

"Well-" Madeleine smirked wickedly, delighted with the idea of flouting her knowledge at me.

"Shut up, Del." Said Lucas fondly, laughing and pretending to shove her. She rolled her eyes and laughed, tousling his tightly coiled black hair. It was starting to get long now, nearly a cute little Afro. Gosh, only Luke could get away with saying that to Lena. "Yeah, Evie. We attended some party on a yacht in Alexandria ages ago. Rafe was there, of course, and Gareth too. We know him, y'know? Also, we saw him at the juice bar place yesterday."

"He ordered a Luxe Lime Crime. He told me he was in love with his smoothie. In a relationship for life." Piped up Madeleine, ever so helpfully.

"Great Lena, thanks."

"But, Evie, speaking of relationship," Lena drawled out my name. "You're wearing a ring!" I looked down at the glimmering diamond that twinkled on a 24-carat gold band on my right hand. I'd completely forgotten about it but should have known that there was no way the Duvall and Montague Detective Agency (Or had their name changed?) wouldn't notice. Rafe had bought me a ton of jewellery in addition to my new clothes and shoes and yet this was my first time wearing any of it. I just thought it looked nice. Classy. I liked beautiful things.

"So?" I said. Lucas raised an eyebrow at me as Madeleine persevered on.

"How are you and Rafe going?"

"Good." I said shortly. "Better than how you're going with that essay? You've written the same sentence three times over now."

"Oh, f-"

"Language, Lena!"

"I think it's her lack thereof, Luke. It seems she's confined to those twelve words only. C'mon Madeleine, broaden your lexical choices!"

Lucas and I snickered. Madeleine barked out a mirthless laugh and threw her pen at me which I, surprisingly, successfully ducked away from. However, in the process of doing so, I knocked over what remained of my glass of water.

"Oh-"

"Language!"

*

The next day, my classes seem to drag forever. The professor gave us a reminder that our oral presentations are due in a few weeks and Rafe caught my eye, winks, because it is sorted. Now, anyways. I flash him a smile from across the room and try to avoid his gaze as I hastily scribble down the history professor's words. I've come to the realisation that I don't particularly like history at all and I can practically feel my grades start to slide downhill as soon as that epiphany arrives. I don't even think that I enjoy anthropology? The only class I seem to enjoy right now is literature. And I often find myself lingering by the science labs, wishing I could be inside there, partaking in the analysis of DNA fragments with a gel electrophoresis or perhaps ascertaining the chemical structure of a drug with proton nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy.