After giving Kim a brief tour, I led him to my bedroom where I ditched the tea and biscuits and set about stripping him. He returned the favour, and we crawled into bed, burying ourselves under the covers, hiding from the world as we reconnected in every way possible.
Kim took control, and I let him, giving myself willingly to whatever he wanted. He turned me onto my side and gently raised my leg, slipping into me from behind. The position was intimate, tender. My eyes fluttered as I came with a quiet gasp and felt another piece of my heart give itself over to all that was him.
My alarm woke me the next morning. I rolled over, instinctively searching for Kim, but found nothing but a cold space where he’d been the night before.
Disappointment flooded through me, though I wasn’t altogether surprised. Despite the awesomeness we’d ended on yesterday, Kim hadn’t been able to completely hide his agitation at being away from his work. And it was an agitation I understood, so how could I be angry with him? I couldn’t, and I wasn’t. Just a few more days and it would all be over, and then we could get back to building what we’d started.
I got up, showered, and left the house with the last of the Jammie Dodgers stuffed in my pocket. My train was on time, and before I knew it, I was halfway to Bristol, leaving Kim far behind.
The notion made my stomach churn and my heart skip a beat. We’d gone from a one-night hookup, to friends, and then friends that fucked, to being completely entwined with each other, and being without him, even for just two nights, felt all wrong.
So wrong, that I was tempted to get off the train at Bodmin and head straight back home. But I didn’t. Beyond the fact that we both had work to do, I still hadn’t got around to telling Kim I was head over heels in love with him—if indeed such a thing was necessary—and so barging into the workshop a few hours after I was supposed to be gone for two days might seem a little extreme.
I made it to Bristol and checked into my hotel. A text was waiting for me from Kim:Thinking of you—three simple words that eased the anxious gripe in my gut. I smiled and fired a message back:Thinking of you too . . . and missing you.
Missing him didn’t come close to how I was feeling, but after waiting a moment for a reply I didn’t really expect, I pocketed the phone and got on with my day.
The job was in the city, photographing the interior of Bristol Cathedral and taking some aerial footage of the outside with my Phantom 4. I did the drone work first, and the flights took most of the day, only stopping when the light got away from me.
I packed up and headed back to the hotel, craving a hot shower, a beer, and a greasy burger. The shower in my room provided instant gratification, and a grumpy hotel porter appeared with my dinner a while later. I didn’t bother with the beer. Whatever Kim thought about it, being with him was actually good for my alcohol consumption, and I was feeling the benefits of drinking less already.
My early start caught up with me fast, and I was dozing off when my phone rang sometime later.
Blinking, I reached for it, half expecting it to be Dad or Laura panicking about something ridiculous to do with the barn opening. Kim’s throaty chuckle took me by surprise.
“Did I wake you?”
I sat up and squinted at the time: four minutes past midnight. Damn. It had been ten o’clock last time I’d checked. “A little. I don’t mind, though. I was hoping you’d call.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve missed you today. I wish you were here with me.”
“Me too, and if you’d gone a day later, I could’ve been.”
The lightness in Kim’s tone was a clue, and it took me a moment to grasp what it meant. “You finished?”
“Yup. Delivered the last dozen chairs an hour ago.”
“Wow.” I couldn’t mask the awe in my voice. The last I knew, Kim had been twenty-five chairs short of the forty-chair order, with just a pile of driftwood to help him along. The scale of what he and his crew of guys had achieved in such a short time was incredible. “I’m so happy for you. How do you feel?”
“Relieved. I didn’t think we were going to make it, and we wouldn’t have done except that your dad called me this morning and told me not to paint the last few chairs . . . to keep ’em natural with just a varnish. Saved me two days of fannying around.”
“Thank God for my dad and his indecisiveness, eh?”
“Indeed. Anyway, enough about me. How are you? How was your day?”
“Long.” I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “Drone flying is fun, but it’s hard work, you know? Got to make sure I don’t hit anything.”
“Like a plane?”
“Only if a plane was about to clip Bristol Cathedral, but yes . . . planes, birds, buildings. I’m fucking knackered.”
“Yeah, you sound it. I’m gonna let you get back to sleep.”
“Don’t go.”
Kim chuckled softly. “I’m not going anywhere, mate. Get some shut-eye, yeah? And get through tomorrow. Then we can open that bloody barn and I can stop seeing it in my sleep.”