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julie,
priestly

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Suddenly, he's having a hard time sitting still. Concentration is impossible. He draws a lot. He doesn't finish anything. What he does do is draw Laurence a lot, lingering over the lines of his face. Some of the drawings are more successful than others. Sprawled on one of the chairs on the porch outside the hut they share, he all but growls at himself.

He tears the page out. He starts again.

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That's enough to make him laugh. I've shakes his head at himself, rolling his eyes.

"I'm sorry, truly," he says, dropping his pencil in his lap to hold up his hand in surrender. "things are rather...trying. As late."

"It can be difficult to go back to a normal life when one has grown accustomed to living with mad girls," I say, as though of course his problem must be that he is missing sharing a house with Maddie and me. "But I'm here to help you manage."

I mean that part sincerely, whatever it is that's truly bothering him.

Living with mad girls is nothing compared to living with aviators and dragons but Granby is not about to bring that up. He smiles.

"Just sit still and I'll draw you," he says. "That should be simple enough for both of us."

I fold the pages I rescued from the ground neatly, just in case he might want them back, and curl up in the chair with my chin on my knees, straightening my skirt down over my legs as I settle myself comfortably. I find it more than a small honor that he likes to draw me, but that isn't something I would say to him out loud.

"Certainly easier now that I'm somewhat less of a wreck than I was the first time you did. Not nearly so much of a challenge to make me look half decent."

"Never a challenge to mak you look half decent," he sys, settling himself and picking up his pencil again. "Anyway, it's a pleasure to draw you after spending so much time on Laurence. A complete change, as it were.". He smiles. "I find myself somewhat preoccupied of late."

"if you're only trying for half, of course it's easy," I tease, more than happy to give him this distraction, even if I don't understand the entirety of what he's going through. I love Maddie beyond words, but it's completely different to being in love, regardless of any similarities.

"I once said that finding your best friend was like being in love. I never thought about it becoming more complicated than that."

There's a part of him that feels like he shouldn't be talking about this at all, but then there's virtually nobody that he trusts better than her. And, honestly, he'd probably talk to Iskierka about it, if she was here.

"I've known how I felt about him for years," he admits. "It was easier when there was no chance of it going anywhere."

I'm not sure why he trusts me with his secrets and his feelings, when he knows how horribly I can use such things against people. Maybe because I've already done that to him and we came out closer on the other side of it. I do know that I take his trust very seriously and would do anything not to break it again.

"Easier, maybe, but was it better?" I am honestly curious. "At least now you don't have to waste time on... What? Pointless yearning? Not that you just sat around pining." I know him better than that.

"Better." He turns that over in his head for a moment, mulling on it before he shrugs. "I honestly don't know. I never expected to have him. And now I do and...there's very little to be done about it, it seems."

"You have him, but you don't?" I'm not entirely certain I completely understand the situation as he's laying it out here. "I'd hoped you'd at least be happier."

"I have him, but in another way I very clearly do not.". His face colours. "Really, Julie...I shouldn't be talking to you about this."

"Oh." It's the way he blushes more than his actual words that makes his meaning sink in, and I feel my own cheeks flush a bit; not because I have very delicate sensibilities of my own, but because he's so discomfited about it. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, remember? I won't force it out of you."

"Julie, there's no one that I trust more than you. I'd tell you anything.". His face was burning and he made a soft, frustrated noise. "But you're also a girl and this is not done. It just isn't."

"Who's to say what's done and what isn't?" I know he's from a very different time and I think he's very good about adapting to modern times in general, but this is just silly. "If you don't want to talk about something, don't talk about it because you don't want to, not because of some rule that has no reason to apply to us."

"The way you rewrite rules, you'd think that it was easy," says Granby, ruefully. "and it isn't that I don't want to - never that. It's all such a bloody frustrating mess."

"it is easy. Rules are only guidelines made up by people. I'm a person and perfectly capable of making up guidelines for myself." I just don't see the point in doing or not doing anything just because someone else has decided I should or shouldn't.

"I don't know how to help you in any way other than listening to whatever you'd like to say," I admit. "I'm not saying that just to get you to talk to me, honestly. Just go on drawing if that helps you more."

"I've just got no experience of this," he says, voice flat, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "My whole life, it's been...mutual agreement. Easy enough to negotiate. Little was the closest I've ever had to an affair and even that was easy. Now? I've no idea but to let him have all the time in the world but then nothing will happen at all. If it was...a little more each time it would be different, but...he barely lets me touch him."

Once he's started, it's difficult to stop. It comes out as a torrent.

I just sit quietly and listen until he's done, and then I remain quiet for a moment longer, considering how best to respond.

"You won't have much experience of them, given how you generally seem to start off with a particular agreement already in place, but there's a certain type of man who thinks they're being gentlemanly to not do what you both know you both want," I say finally. "If you were a girl, I'd tell you to just grab him and snog him senseless and see what happens, but I don't think that'll do in this case."

I realize that I'm being utterly unhelpful and give him an apologetic smile. "If you were a girl I'd have all kinds of advice, but I'm not sure a tight sweater and the right lipstick would help you much."

"I don't think that's exactly it," he says, choosing not to pass comment on lipstick and sweater. "He's never done anything like this, I suppose, and there's got to be no small part of him that thinks its wrong to want it...if he wants it at all and isn't just humouring me."

"That would be terribly unfair to both of you if he's only humoring you. You know him better than I do of course, but would he really do that? I've never had the impression he'd be so dishonest." Say what you will about me and the things I can and will do with the information, but I am good at reading men. "I imagine it's confusing for anyone, changing how you love a person."

"I imagine that you're right," he says, nodding his head. "It's easy for me to forget that not everyone is as sure as I am. I've just always...known. And there was...that time when we were stuck and it was definitely for me benefit. What if I didn't give him enough choice in the matter?"

"He doesn't strike me as stupid or weak, either, John. You wouldn't like him so much if he was." He's clearly been thinking about all of this too much. I can understand the reason he's so very preoccupied, but I'm not sure it's good for him. "Handsome and charming as you are, you're probably not so very irresistible that he lost all sense."

"You're right, of course," says Granby, still clearly flustered. "I'm being unfair to him. I know I am. It's just...frustrating."

"I don't think fairness has much to do with it. You're not angry with him and you're not saying anything unreasonable to me. Though my judgment is probably questionable." I smile at him and hope I'm offering at least a small amount of comfort.

"And you're not so bad off, you know," I can't help but add. "I went out with a man recently who wouldn't so much as touch my hand until I did it first. I understand frustration."

"That sounds exactly like my life of late," says Granby, managing a crooked smile. "I haven't been this chaste since I was a boy."