So tell him.
I settled for kissing him.
He kissed me back.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
But we couldn’t stay in a lay-by all day. We had shit to do. Or, rather,Idid, and I had the hottest wing man ever along for the ride.
I drew back and put the car in gear again. That motion was suspiciously smooth too, but I said nothing. Just absorbed his warm grin and let it heal parts of me I hadn’t known were broken. Being with Fen was like that: holistic. He’d always made me feel good. “I missed you,” I blurted.
Fen waited for me to turn onto the main road, then he squeezed my thigh again. “When?”
“When you were gone from the prison. I was so fucking gutted something awful happened to you and I didn’t know if you were okay. But it wasn’t just that. I kept looking for you, hearing your voice when you weren’t there. It haunted me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. That’s not what I meant. I just need you to know I never stopped thinking about you.”
Fen was silent a moment. I gave it to him and kept my eyes on the road. It wasn’t a particularly long or complicated drive to Manchester, a couple of hours. Fen liked music—he hummed a lot, tapped his fingers to the beat. I fiddled with the radio while he was lost in thought and Radio 2 blasted through the speakers, Wham! again, because we were just that lucky.
I jabbed my fingers at the buttons, fighting to shut George up.
Fen laughed and took over, making a smooth transition to Magic FM and more fucking Christmas songs.
Band Aid. Fuck my life.
“I like this one,” Fen said. “Don’t pull that face.”
“What face?”
“The one that makes you look like a bulldog chewing a wasp.”
“I thought you liked my face?”
“I do.”
I tossed him a smile.
He smiled right back, and suddenly Bono bleating through my ancient car stereo didn’t seem so annoying.
We made good time. My flat appeared in the distance two hours after we’d left the mountain behind. Anxiety flared in my gut, but somehow I knew it wasn’t mine.
I turned to Fen. His face was impassive, but his broad shoulders were tight, jaw set, and a sickening thought occurred to me. “Have you been back here since you left?”
“Here?”
“The city.”
He shook his head. “I got airlifted to a hospital in Leeds. When I got out, I paid someone to clear my flat and drive my stuff up north.”
“Things were that bad?”
Fen averted his gaze to the window. “I was a mess and there was no one around here to help me, so I ran home to an empty house and put myself back together there instead. Stupid, right?”