CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
As our fantastic Christmas draws even closer, the termnormalwhen it comes to Heath Mason jangles like baubles in the festive air. Me and Josh can claim to be happy withsee where the road takes usall we like, and we do, frequently, we say it all the time, but that jangle is still there. Niggling. The need for knowing is growing inside me faster than Carly’s baby bump is growing inside her.
Heath’s ‘proposals’ are booked in our calendars for the coming months, and a token one just after Christmas when our schedules allow. It’s great to see them mapped out that way, I just wish they were more… informal.
More natural.
Morenormal.
I want to know where the road ahead leads. I need to feel the security of Heath in our future, because being without him…
It doesn’t bear thinking about.
It won’t be that way, and that’s for sure. But I’m always looking ahead and pondering the future. I’m not a live-in-the-moment kind of person. Not at all. I never have been, no matter how many of Josh’s life of Zen books I try to read.
I’ve brought up so manywhat ifscenarios with my super patient boyfriend now that he must be getting sick of them, but he doesn’t vent any frustration. Just keeps assuring me that things will be ok.
Just so long as things stay safe and steady with The Agency and the spotlight isn’t thrown in Heath’s direction from the off, somehow, things will be just fine.
I understand his stance on The Agency, and how we need to keep our heads straight as our newnormalfinds its feet. No crazy actions. No forgetting that Heath is ultimately still listed as a client and that’s cool. That’s ok. No big deal on paper. Without breaking any rules, there can’t really be any consequences, and we’re not breaking any. The confines of Agency regulations can feel claustrophobic, but that’s my heart speaking, not my head.
The last thing we want is for any of us to end up in hot water or risk our careers. Proposal boxes and calendar invites are serving us well for now. They will be fine until we know where the path leads.
Despite all of that though, freedom is calling me. It’s the greatest Christmas gift I could ever want.
Heath Mason, free to be free with us.
“You’re doing the lip thing again,” Josh laughs, between a round of sit-ups in front of the frost covered landscape outside our Belgravia windows.
I pull my legs tighter on his yoga cushion. I’m hardly succeeding at meditation. I suck at it - literally.
“I’m always doing the lip thing lately,” I say. “I’m surprised you aren’t doing it, too. At least some of the time.”
His smirk is such a steady delight.
“Just because I don’t have alost in headspacelook about me doesn’t mean I’m not thinking. Believe me, baby. My mind is churning just as much as yours is.”
“Where do you think the road leads?” I ask him again, for the bazillionth time.
He stops with the sit-ups, grabbing a towel from his side to wipe his sweaty brow. Damn, he looks gorgeous during a workout.
“I know the road leads somewhere good. That’s all that matters.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“A three-way road coming together, somehow. That works for the entire trio. We all have our own considerations.” He puts down the towel. “And our own reputations. Growing status. Potential.”
I nod at that. Yep. He’s right. Hardly a shocker, since he usually is.
Heath is a mega well-known celebrity, and not so long ago, the very thought of that kind of status blew me away. But since my new rounds of proposals have been coming in, and I’m realising the A-listers are just as much people as anyone else, the wide-eyed craziness around the idea is settling.
And so is the idea of being known in my own right.
Ella the Entertainer– those words keep on looping through my head all day long.
“Give it a rest,” Josh says as he presents himself to me for inspection, all suited and booted, complete with thehollycufflinks I bought him. “You’ll blow a fuse in that pretty head of yours if you’re not careful.”
He’s right, I will blow a fuse – or chew my lip off.
