A white-hot thrill licks through my body. It scares and excites me in equal measure and I make no move to put my money where my mouth desperately wants to go.
“I got a new job,” Aidan blurts.
I blink and realise I’m still clutching his hand. “Wow. That’s awesome.”
“It ain’t. Bernard wants me to work in his office with his missus and sister-in-law. You better kiss me quick cos I might not make it through Monday.”
I can’t tell if he’s using humour to deflect from something he can see in my face. My mum once told me the whole world knew I was a mess before I did. I squeeze Aidan’s fingers and try and picture him in the office. I can’t do that either.
Aidan shifts on his log. “Look,” he says quietly. “Just because we want to do things doesn’t mean we have to do them any time soon. I’m good with hanging out, and if you want to kiss me again... well, fuck, I’m not gonna stop you.”
“I want to.”
“I know.”
I take a deep breath, letting it rattle through my ribs and into my limbs. In my head, I kiss him now, and it’s the perfect footnote to a fairy tale I don’t quite understand.
Back in the real world, I stand and tug on his hand. “Let’s go to the shop.”
* * *
Aidan
“Do you like meatballs?”
I glance up from the rosemary bush I’m planting at the bottom of his overgrown garden. I’ve cleared most of the dead shrubs away already, and the herb patch he wants will be awesome if I can get it done before the summer heat fades. “How are you going to make meatballs when all you bought was sausages and an onion?”
“Sausages are meat. I’m going to roll them up like my nonna used to.”
He disappears back into the house. I watch him go, transfixed by the elegant sway of his body. He’s put on a bit of weight since we met in the hospital, his limbs no longer delicate. They are capable, and I want him to come and dig in the earth with me.
I want a lot of things, but I settle for continuing my quest to give him a garden that excites him. You see, Ludo is going to make my home more like his, and I’m going to make his garden more like mine. In between, I’m trying not to touch him too much or stare at him too long, because I don’t want to scare him.
It scaresmehow much I want to kiss him. How I dream about it when we’re not together, more than anything else that keeps me from a peaceful sleep. Kissing has never meant much to me. Scratch that. Before him it’s never meantanything, and waiting for him to break the stalemate between us is killing me.
Not that I can complain about spending the last four days on the trot with him. We have a routine. A morning walk in the woods, a trip to the shop, then he either cooks enough food to load my fridge-freezer for a month or leads me to his house where he cooks enough for just the two of us while I destroy his garden enough to rebuild it.
No kissing.
Absolutely no kissing.
Ludo comes outside again. He crouches by my side, frowning. “I have to work tomorrow.”
My heart sinks, but I’ve been expecting this, the pinprick in the bubble around us. “You never told me what you do for work.”
“It’s not very interesting.”
“I’m interested.” I keep my gaze on the sandy soil—I’ve learnt that Ludo doesn’t like me looking too closely when he’s talking about himself. “In fact, I went to bed last night thinking about it. I’m thinking you’re probably, like, a web designer or some shit. You’re creative, right?”
Ludo snorts, and it’s so derisive I drop my trowel. “I’m not creative.” Bitterness laces his tone. “I’m chaotic. Don’t confuse the two.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off with a minute shake of his head.
“Iamchaotic, and it’s where the colour in my life comes from—yellow and black remember? So I need a beige and grey job to keep me grounded. It would be mayhem otherwise.”
It takes me a moment to decipher his code, and even then, it’s far from an exact translation. “Are you saying you have to do a boring job because you can’t handle anything that excites you?”
“Something like that.” He sits back on his heels. “And don’t start asking me what my hopes and dreams were when I was a kid, because I didn’t have any.”
