I pushed the thought out of my crowded mind and closed the distance between us. Fen and Charlie were having a serious conversation about Charlie’s plans for the day. It involved mud and pie.
“Don’t eat it,” Fen said. “It looks like chocolate, but it’s not.”
Charlie nodded. “I eat pie.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Fen moved to hand Charlie to me.
I shook my head. I liked seeing them together. They were my two favourite things.Damn this man.
The repeat of the thought made me laugh out loud. Fen shot me a questioning glance. I evaded by hiding my face in Charlie’s soft hair. Leaving him for the day was proving harder than I’d anticipated.
Perhaps sensing my seesawing emotions, Fen slid an arm around my waist, effectively sandwiching us all in a loose, three-way hug. “There’s a winter wonderland fair in Tassleton next week. We’re hawking trees in the car park. You wanna come with the bairn?”
Tassleton was ten miles away. I’d never been there, but I knew it was posh and pretty. I opened my mouth to ask if there’d be doughnuts there, but Charlie cut me off with an excited squeal.”
“Yay!”
I was pretty sure he had no clue what he was agreeing to, but his answer was good enough for me. “We’ll come. Now, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here at the crack of dawn?”
“Getting an early start.”
“On what?”
“On our road trip. Sorry I didn’t answer your message. I…fell asleep.”
My brain twitched at the hesitation. His explanation matched my assumption, but something felt off. There wasn’t much scope to get closer to him, but I tried anyway. “Are you all right?”
Fen’s gaze flickered. “Of course. Are you?”
I stared hard at him, as if I could sink into his soul through his eyes and see the parts of him he found so difficult to share, but Safia interrupted us before I fell too deep.
She coaxed Charlie from Fen’s arms and held him out so I could kiss him goodbye. “You boys be good,” she said. “I have a list of things I want if you can track them down.” She stuffed a scrap of paper into my back pocket and a handful of cash. “If you get nothing else, though, bring me some stollen? Addie ate all the marzipan in the middle of the night last week and I cannot be arsed to make any more.”
“Um…okay?”
Safia rolled her eyes and disappeared with Charlie, leaving Fen and I alone, together, like we would be all day. A flutter of something stirred in my belly. Excitement? Nerves?
Both seemed most likely. Fen’s company was the best I’d ever had, but there was a niggle in my subconscious too, warning me that growing ever closer to him only to leave again in the new year was a bad idea for everyone. Me. Him. Even Charlie.
Dude,it’s not a bad idea to be friends with him. He’s amazing.
Truth. But I wanted to kiss him. Hold him. Touch him. And Fen didn’t do friends with benefits. Whatever we were doing now had to be something more, or sooner or later, he’d pull back, and I wasn’t sure I could bear that.Fuck. What if I can’t give him up?
“Hey.” Fen still had his arm around my waist. He held me a little tighter and brushed a soft kiss to my cheek. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. How about we spend the day pretending nothing else exists? Just you and me and a road trip.”
“To my shitty flat in the city?”
“Doesn’t matter where we go, I reckon we just need to stop thinking for a few hours.”
It sounded too good to be true, and I didn’t know if I was capable of it. My siblings had always made endless fun of my ability to sit in the corner and frown over everything and nothing—even the good stuff—forever. I wasn’t sure I could give that up either, but for Fen, I’d fucking try. “Sounds good to me. You ready to go?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
He was. And bowing to the rules we’d just set in place, I didn’t wonder why. I fished my neglected car keys from my pocket and waved them in his face. “Let’s roll.”
