Fen said something.
I missed it. “Huh?”
Silence. And then he laughed too, deep and rich. “I’m trying to tell you—”
He cut out again. For a moment, I thought he’d gone, then the line rattled to life again and his voice was louder.
Clearer.
“I don’t know how much of that you caught, but I’m trying to tell you I love you.”
“Fen—”
“No, don’t say anything. I don’t need you to. I just want you to know that whatever you decide to do, I support you. And Charlie. Hell, I’ll drive to Manchester and back every day if that’s what you need, just…damn, just don’t walk away from—”
He cut out again, and this time, he didn’t come back. I called a couple of times, but the line was dead. Wherever he was, the signal was worse than it was up here, and that was saying something.
Still, even losing contact with him did nothing to dull the shiny joy rising in my chest.He loves me. I’d already known it in some way or other, but to hear him say it did things to me I’d never experienced before. My eyes burned and my heart swelled, and maybe, just maybe, for the first time since Charlie had been born, the practicalities really didn’t matter.
Not yet.
He loves me.
Jesus fuck, I loved him too.
And I’d failed in my mission to let him know, a realisation that had me reaching for my phone again.
A message waited for me. I’d missed it buzzing through while I’d been lost in a goddamn love bubble. Who the hell was I right now?
Exactly who you were always meant to be.
My mother didn’t come to me very often, but in that moment, her voice was clear as the air at the top of Christmas Mountain.
I opened the message.
Fen:sorry, this motorway might as well be the moon. i’ll tell you it all again when i get home—tonight, maybe. or the morning if we run out of driving hrs xx
God, I hoped it was tonight, but the morning wasn’t a lifetime away either. Blowing out a breath, I tapped out a reply.
Rami:Be safe. Got lots to tell you too. All of it good. Can’t wait to see you xxx
The message fired off, but didn’t deliver for a while. I put the phone down and set about putting the room back together after our hot night in. The bed was a write-off. I stripped the sheets and put new ones on, then I shook out the rug and swept the fireplace. There wasn’t much I could do about the new squeak in the bed without crawling beneath it with an allen key and some WD40, and life was too short for that.
I took the bedclothes to the house. It was raining again, heavy sheets of water that swept across the yard, soaking me to the skin the brief few seconds I was outside.
Safia laughed. “You’ll have to toughen up if you’re gonna live up here.”
“I’m plenty tough, thanks, mate.” I shook my hair out to prove it, flicking water in her face. It earned me another shove, harder this time, but I didn’t care. She could shove me all day long. Fen loved me, I loved him, and everything was perfect.
I spent the rest of the day hiding from the rain. Christmas was a week away and I’d yet to buy a single present, but I distracted myself from that by eating every sausage roll Safia had made for the freezer and helping the kids replace the edible decorations they’d pinched from the tree.
Addie made shortbread spaceships. Mae made reindeers. Charlie crafted inedible lumps he’d licked a thousand times before they’d even baked, but that was life.
My life, and I loved it.
The afternoon came and went. And then the evening. Fen didn’t text again, but the horrific weather had caused chaos on the motorways down south, so I gave up on expecting him back before dawn and went to bed kind of wishing I’d left the sex-rumpled sheets in place.
The earth shifted as I floated off to sleep. At least, I thought it did, but I was tired enough to believe it was an imaginary goodnight from Fen and I smiled as I slipped into dreamland.