“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“Oui-oui, but I only smoked one.”
“I’m not judging you.” I shake a cigarette free and wedge it between my lips.
Tam eyes me as he manoeuvres the van out of the ditch where he dumped it and presses the in-vehicle lighter. “You don’t smoke.”
“Neither do you.” I light the cigarette and take the deepest inhale I can find, closing my eyes for a beat. Then I ash it and toss it out the window.
Tam makes no comment. He just drives and I’m grateful. That he showed up, that he’s with me. No one’s ever done that before, and as storm clouds open above us, I realise that even if he’s not on the same page my heart has flipped to when I wasn’t paying attention, I still need him to know what he means to me.
I take a breath.
He speaks first. “I love you.”
“What?”
Tam steers the van down a dark road—I have no idea whatroute he’s taking home. “I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the other night. I should have.”
“I—what?”
Tam turns his head, slowing the van. “I don’t want to freak you out, but thisjust sexbullshit isn’t working for me anymore. I fucking love you and I need you to know it. Life’s too short to keep that shit in.”
I have nothing.
The road reclaims Tam’s attention and we drive in silence until I realise we’re home.
He exits the van.
I sit, feeling slightly unhinged. He loves me? Even in the best-case scenarios I’d imagined at work tonight, those words never left his mouth.
He loves me?
Nope.
Can’t see it.
Because I love him too, and that would mean everything’s perfect, and that never happens. Not to me.
The passenger door rips open. Tam offers me his good hand. He links our fingers together and tugs me out of the van. I come upright to his beautiful face and he’s not laughing at me. This isn’t a joke. “Come inside,” he whispers. “I need you clean and warm—I need yousafe—before I can think straight.”
By inside, he means his house. I leave my ruined shoes in the rain, and he shuts the door behind us, flicking a switch as Rudy yawns from his cosy bed, not bothering to navigate the dark to come to us.
Nothing happens.
“Power’s still out.” Tam opens a kitchen drawer and dumpstea-lights onto the counter while I stare like a stoned hamster. In another cupboard, he reveals a stash of Mr Kipling pie trays and sets the little candles in them, lighting them with a single match from a battered book.
It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
And his face in the flickering light?
I can’t.
Overcome, I back away, colliding with the doorframe.
Tam flashes to my side. “There’s hot water left in the tank. You okay if we shower together?”
