“Hey Pope.” Fen joined me at the screen. He raised a hand in a half wave and gave Dante an intense once-over and whatever he saw seemed to be enough. He nodded. Dante nodded back, and that was it.
Dante’s smirk widened enough to be a genuine smile, and then he was gone.
The blank screen he left behind shocked me. I sat back in my seat again, blowing out a breath.
Fen rubbed my shoulders. “Going to miss him?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Sorry about that. I ran over.”
Fen snorted. “I figured. It was nice to see him, though. You never forget some of them, do you?”
“Nope. Did it sound weird to you when he said it was nice that we were together? Why would he assume that just because you were in my office? I never told him I was working from home.”
“Um…” Fen darted a shifty gaze around the room, then gave me a sheepish smile. “He clocked my crush on you about a million years ago. He thought we were already together, actually, and it kind of gave me the push to ask you out that time.”
“I’d have said yes, you know that, right? If I’d made it back to the prison before you got hurt? Maybe if I had—”
Fen cut me off with a soft kiss, his cobalt-blue eyes swimming with warmth and love. “It doesn’t matter. None of it does. We’re here now.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I shut down my laptop for the rest of the year and let Fen lead me out of the treehouse and up the mountain. The ground was icy and cold, the dampness from the torrential rain long gone. I still looked at the forest floor with suspicion, though. Fen seemed to have moved past the fact that he’d lost another of his nine lives, but I remained half-convinced that Durdle Fell wasn’t done with us yet.
Cynic. Maybe. But I was getting better at that, and with Fen by my side, I was a stronger man than I’d ever been.
We reached the house and slipped inside. Charlie had just got out of the bath. Fen took him to the Christmas tree and told him a fable about the forest creatures that had roamed the land before us.
I was spellbound.
Charlie fell asleep.
Fen shook his head. “At least I’m soothing, eh?”
“You’re more than that.”
The room filled up before I could elaborate, but it didn’t matter. Fen knew how I felt. I’d told him more than once since we’d found him stumbling up the fell, covered in mud and blood, and I’d tell him again before the night was over.
Mince pies, too much spiced wine, and terrible comedy took up the rest of the evening. We hung the stockings and chased the older kids to bed, then left Paddy and Safia to keep them there, retreating to the log cabin that was to be our home while Fen’s house was being repaired.
I’m living with a bloke I’m not related to.
It was a reality I’d never imagined when I’d thrown myself into my piece-of-shit car and hurled Charlie and me up Christmas Mountain, but sometimes real life was better than dreams.
I squeezed Fen’s hand as we stepped inside the cabin. “Did you rescue the photographs?”
Fen gave me a broad grin. “Yup. Every single one. I’m beginning to think I’m blessed by the mountain gods. I only lost material things I don’t care about. That has to mean something.”
I knew what it meant—it meant that Mother Nature knew as well as I did that Fen had suffered enough. That he was a good, kind man who deserved the fucking world. But I kept that to myself. Fen wasn’t a man who could be told what he was worth and believe it. And he didn’t need to be. He just needed to know he was loved, and by now I was hoping he did.
It was late. Though we hadn’t been sharing a room for long, we moved around each other in perfect synch as we got ready for bed. Fen liked the window cracked open—northern weirdo—and I didn’t care. And I liked the smile on his face when I remembered to open it before we slid into bed. Loved it, actually. Perhaps it was the festive excitement lacing the air, but there wasn’t much I didn’t like right now. Everything seemed brighter, even the sun, and I was beginning to worry I’d pull a muscle in my face from smiling so much.
Grinch.
“You’ve got your thinking face on.” Fen tapped my temple. “It’s cute.”
I rolled over in the bed. Fen was bare-chested and glorious. He was my ultimate fantasy in every which way possible, but this was probably my favourite. “You think I’m cute.”
“Always have.”
“Was it the clothes? Because I hate to break it to you, but I’m burning my business casual threads and investing in flannel.”
