“First we’ve got to face Lucy at the breakfast table,” I whisper, a laugh escaping me as he groans.
I can already feel my cheeks burning as we sit around the dining table. Partly because I’m convinced Lucy knows exactly what happened upstairs, she’s could literally hear a pin drop in the busiest room. And partly because Ray looks far too pleased with himself this morning. Every time I glance his way, there’s this smug little look in his eyes that makes heat crawl right back up my neck.
Lucy sings along terribly to some eighty’s song playing softly on the radio while she stirs scrambled eggs at the stove. Dad sits opposite me reading the newspaper with a seriousness usually reserved for international warfare.
“Did you vote?” he suddenly asks, glancing over the top of the paper towards Ray.
“We are not discussing politics at breakfast,” Lucy snaps immediately. “Close that miserable rag you call news and get the cutlery.”
Alec rolls his eyes dramatically. “I live under a dictatorship.”
“You live because of me,” Lucy shoots back.
Ray laughs quietly beside me, and I have to fight the urge to smile too hard at how relaxed he sounds here. Dad finally folds the newspaper shut and pushes to his feet with a muttered complaint about oppression. The kitchen smells like toast and coffee and warm butter.Home.I didn’t realise how much I missed this until now.
“So,” dad says a few minutes later as he drops knives and forks onto the table with absolutely no organisation whatsoever. “Any plans before you two head back to London?”
I shake my head automatically. But beside me, Ray reaches for my hand beneath the table. The contact instantly steadies something inside me.
“Actually,” he says quietly, rubbing his thumb softly across my knuckles, “I thought maybe we could go and visit your mum and Josh.”
The words hit me so unexpectedly my breath catches. Silence settles around the kitchen and even Lucy stops singing. I stare down at our joined hands as emotion climbs painfully into my throat. The last time I visited Josh’s grave, I’d ended up curled beside it in the pouring rain after completely falling apart. I hadn’t been back since, because grief is strange like that.
Ray’s grip softens slightly around my hand. “Only if you want to,” he adds gently, his brows pulling together almost immediately when he sees my expression. “We don’t have to.”
I bite down softly on my lip to stop it trembling, because somehow this doesn’t feel like pressure. It feels like understanding. Like he knows Josh mattered and instead of being threatened by that . . .he’s making space for it.
Tears sting my eyes almost instantly. “Yes,” I whisper finally, nodding once. “I’d like that very much.”
Ray’s expression softens with relief. Then quietly, he lifts my hand and presses a kiss against my knuckles.
Lucy suddenly clears her throat loudly.
“Well,” she announces, blinking suspiciously fast as she turns back to the stove, “you’ll need a decent breakfast first.”
Alec points at her immediately. “You’re crying.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
She waves the spatula threateningly at him. “I’ll give you something to cry about in a minute.”
Ray’s shoulders shake beside me with quiet laughter.
“It’s so peaceful here,” Ray says quietly as we stop beside Josh’s grave.
The cemetery stretches around us, beneath grey skies and swaying trees, everything hushed except for birdsong drifting faintly through the air.
“Yeah,” I murmur, glancing around slowly. “I always liked that about this place.” My eyes drift back to the headstone. “It feels fitting for grief somehow.”
Ray nods thoughtfully before lowering himself onto the small bench nearby. Part of me aches seeing him here, because this isn’t easy for him. Not just because of Josh. But because grief has a hold on Ray too.
“Part of me wishes we had somewhere to visit Anika,” he admits quietly after a moment.
Emotion tightens immediately in my chest. I crouch beside the grave and begin removing old flowers from the vase carefully.
“You don’t really need a place,” I tell him softly. “You can talk to her anywhere.” When I glance back over my shoulder, he’s staring out across the cemetery like he’s genuinely considering that. “You do talk to her?” I ask gently.