“Which part is that?”
“The part that makes me feel like you’re my home.” The words fall out of me unchecked. As if I’m drunk, and I don’t give a single shite. “I’m trying to tell you I love you, in case I’m not being clear.”
There’s a chance I’m not. I’m so poleaxed by fatigue I can’t be sure I’m not slurring. But Sab…
He smiles and it’s everything I need. He always has been, I just didn’t fecking know it. “Regarde-moi, mon cœur. Juste moi. I think I might love you too.”
Galen
One Year Later…
“What’s so good about these croissants? It’s just pastry, right?”
Sonny asks the question from somewhere behind me, where he’s taking up space in the line snaking out of the bakery on Cosmic Avenue in full firefighter gear. Eejit even has his helmet on.
“They’re an experience,” I tell him with all the seriousness I can muster when I’m this fecking happy. “I’m telling you, lad. You take these on your date tonight, you’re definitely staying over.”
“That how you charmed Sab?”
I snort. “What do you think?”
“Think you’re punching, mate.”
Can’t argue with that. Or with the logic of buying twenty croissants when I know Sab did the same this morning, but we are what we are. I eat a lot of croissants these days. A lot of chicken, walnuts, and buttery-lemon biscuits.
Zero complaints about that.
No notes.
I buy the croissants.
Stuff one in Sonny’s fat mouth and eat two myself before we get outside. Good job, too, because it’s snowing again.Of course. It’s December in Everwyld. It always fecking snows.
It’s also tradition that I almost die before I get to sit down for my Christmas dinner, but I’m breaking the curse this year. Another hour and I’m off shift till January 2nd.
Or you know, right now.
My watch commander sidles over and gives me a nudge. “Live over there, don’t ya?”
He jabs a thumb in the general direction of Cinnamon Row, but winds up pointing more at Sab’s house than mine, and I don’t hate it. “Pretty much.”
“Got gear on the pump?”
As it happens, I have. A shout came in at the beginning of my shift when I was still in civvies.
The commander grins. “Get changed and naff off. See you next year.”
I don’t need telling twice. I chuck a couple more croissants at Sonny, then I leg it to the engine and change my clothes, hightailing it out of there before a call comes in and pisses on my Christmas chips.
And I don’t go to Cinnamon Row.
I stay on Cosmic Avenue and let myself into the cosy house I’ve come to call home, though I still own the renovated two-bed over the back fence. The one I’m selling to Sab’s mechanic friend if his da’s probate ever comes through. The one that now has a finished kitchen and bespoke wardrobes in both bedrooms, thanks to Sab and his mad carpentry skills.
He has mad skills in other areas too. But though his bed is still rumpled from this morning, when we tumbled back into it and almost made ourselves late for fecking work, I don’t have time to dwell on the near-permanent heat flare in my stomach.Not if I want to make it to something that’s more important to me than just about anything.
I blur through the shower and leave the house again, wearing Sab’s shirt because the collar smells like him. Fecking bliss. I dash up the road to the building that barely survived the eighties and slip through the entrance in the nick of time. Imakeit with a smile on my face instead of watching from a distance with sirens in my ears and smoke in my lungs.
The nursery smells of biscuits and PVA glue. Coats spill from pegs, glitter ground into the carpet, glinting in the light from the low winter sun. I’m content to skulk at the back, but she sees me—she always has.
