Trouble was, it wasn’t mine to show him. And Fen knew it too. I hadn’t moved fast enough. He’d seen the name on the screen.
“Dante Pope, eh?”
I moved to stand in front of my laptop. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”
“I know.” He stood and stretched his arms over his head, revealing a strip of his bare abdomen.Lord, kill me now. “I’m glad he still has you taking care of him, though. He’s someone I couldn’t forget if I tried.”
I had some sympathy with him there. Dante Pope was a compelling character and I was beyond grateful that his story had a happy ending. I just wished Fen could see it for himself, but I’d already told him too much.
Fen closed the distance between us and kissed my cheek. “I need to get back to work anyway. Got a big fell this afternoon.”
“A fell on a fell?”
“That’s the worst quip I’ve ever heard.”
I grinned. “I try.”
“Try harder.”
“Okay.”
Fen rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe you, but whatever. I’ll be home tonight. Come find me if you want that sleepover. And I meant it about bringing Charlie.”
“I—”
“Shh.” Fen tapped his finger to my lips. “I get it. I just wish it was different. Him and you. You and him. I like that package.”
He left before I could speak, and it was probably just as well, because I couldn’t hear myself think over my stampeding heart.
13
Fen
I was an idiot. And a selfish one at that. All this time Rami hadn’t put pressure on me to sleep with him, and I’d failed to return the favour.“I like that package.”Translation: don’t leave me. Or, how he might’ve interpreted it: stuff the life you had before you came here. I’m more important.
Oh boy. However I looked at it, I pretty much wanted to die. Or at least, go back in time and shove the words back down my throat. Not because I didn’t mean them. But because it hadn’t been fair for me to say them. Rami had enough to think about without me being a needy idiot. I’d just…man, I didn’t know. What happened in Manchester had changed something in me, as if talking about getting shanked by a serial killer had lifted a burden from my soul. Cheesy? Yup. But it was December, so I let myself have it.
I let myself drift home from work and cook enough dinner for the both of us too, just in case he showed up. And after I took a much needed shower, I found myself in the spare room, scrutinising it like a social worker, trying to decide if it was a safe space for a toddler.
It wasn’t. The window was too easy to open and the bed was too high, and it didn’t even cross my mind that taking my power saw to the wooden legs and lowering it was a ridiculous thing to do.
The window was an easier fix. I attached a chain to the mechanism, preventing it from being opened more than a few inches unless an adult manually took the chain off. It was a five minute job. Sweeping up the sawdust from the bed legs took longer.
It was late in the evening by the time I accepted Rami wasn’t coming. I left my phone downstairs to stop myself staring at it all night and went to bed.
I was a deep sleeper. My mum used to say a bomb could go off beneath me and I wouldn’t notice. Fair cop or not, I couldn’t say, but when a knocking woke me in the morning, I had no idea how long it had been going on for.
Bleary-eyed, I rolled downstairs and opened my front door expecting one of the lads from the timber farm.
Rami’s bright grin seemed like a dream. “Morning.”
“Morrrnin,” Charlie echoed.
A smile split my face. I took Charlie from Rami without a second thought and settled him on my hip, ruffling his dark hair. “Whatcha doing here, little man?”
Charlie said words that made no sense.
Rami laughed. “We brought you breakfast.”