I thought because I didn’t know. “Nothing. I don’t know.”
“Ava, honey, how does he make you feel?”
“Happy. Excited. Safe. Loved.”
“Has he said it?” she said, standing up.
“No.”
My mother looked to the door that was slightly ajar and I followed her eyes. Eli was standing there, his tall build resting against the door frame, crutches by his side.
“I’m going to leave you two to talk while I kick your father’s ass into ordering me that lamp,” she said, although I had no idea what lamp she was talking about and knew that she was more than capable of ordering any lamp or anything else for herself.
Eli looked at me from the doorway, not moving. He was wearing a polo shirt and jeans, his stubble a couple of days old and he had his colour back. His hair was short and tidy and his eyes piercing.The most attractive man I’ve ever met. I wanted to go to him and throw my arms around him, to pull myself as close as I could and anchor myself there.
“Are you ready for those words?” he said quietly. “Because I’m ready to say them.”
My heart thumped heavy enough to wake the Ancient Egyptian dead.
“Ava,” he said, starting to use his crutches to hobble towards me. “Those words are yours. Whenever you want them, wherever you want them.”
I watched him wide-eyed. “How long were you standing there for?”
“Long enough,” he said. “Is safe a good way to make you feel?”
I nodded. “It’s all good,” I said, my voice quiet and fragile.
He sat down next to me on the chesterfield sofa, discarding his crutches on to the floor and then pulled me into him. His lips pressed against my neck in a kiss and a shiver shimmied through me.
“I love you, so you should feel loved. I’m in love with you too.”
I turned quickly, almost head butting his chin. “I feel the same.”
“You’re in love with you too?”
I swatted him with my hand. “Way to spoil a moment!”
He laughed that dirty chuckle, our faces just inches apart.
“I love you,” I said. “I want us to be together properly. In a big house with a garden for Queenie and a place we can decorate together.”
“So you can laugh at my poor plastering skills?” he said.
“You’ll get better with practice.”
And then he kissed me and I knew I had already found my forever home.
Epilogue
Elijah
October
There wasnothing quite like taking a chance and rolling the dice, especially when you were already dressed up as a skeleton with a plaster cast and a print out of an x-ray attached to you.
“We’re adults,” Ava said. She was also dressed as a skeleton, her face painted to look contoured and large lashes and skin patches drawn on with something. She was a sexy skeleton and I’d already saved a selfie we’d taken as my lock screen on my phone, even though I knew Seph and Jackson would rip the piss out of me. “Shouldn’t be trick or treating.”
“There’s just one house I want to visit,” I said. “It’s not far. Even on crutches.”
