The cradle of jasmine vines unravelled itself, slipping back along the walls of Bell House until Wyn and I were sitting in the middle of the sweetest snowstorm, Lafayette Square turned into our own personal snow globe in the middle of July.
‘I should go,’ he said, nuzzling into my neck. ‘It’s late.’
‘And snowing,’ I replied, flushing as I gathered myself, climbing out of his lap and rearranging my jersey. The curtains at my window fluttered to remind me there was another option. ‘You could stay,’ I suggested. ‘If you want to.’
Wyn’s mouth opened, his green-grey eyes darker than I had ever seen them before and shining in a way that made me catch my breath.
‘I want to. I really want to.’
Carefully, with one hand on the railing, he rose to his feet, his wavy hair obscuring his face. ‘But we have forever, right? I want it to be perfect.’
My response was a barely there nod and I wasn’t sure if I was more confused or relieved. There was nothing I wanted more than to fall asleep with my head on Wyn’s chest and wake up to his heartbeat in the morning but the part that came in between? That still made me anxious, no matter how certain I was this was meant to be. The snow melted away and I felt it return to the air, drifting back into the clouds, the trees, the atmosphere, still with me, only in another form. Wyn held out a hand to help me to my feet and pulled me in for another kiss, something softer, sweeter.
‘Try to get some sleep,’ he said, holding my face in his hands, his lips against my forehead. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ I agreed and I leaned over the balcony, clutching my jersey around my thighs as I watched him climb effortlessly down the magnolia tree.
‘I love you, Emily James,’ he called up with that sleepy half-smile I’d dreamed about for almost a whole month.
‘I love you, Wyn Evans,’ I replied. ‘There’s nothing in this world that could change that.’
He grinned. ‘I know. You’d have to kill me to convince me otherwise.’
The words stole my smile but Wyn was too far away to see. Alone on the balcony, I watched him cross Lafayette Square, and shivered in the balmy night.
Chapter Twenty-One
Of all the possible ways to be woken in the morning, the incessant ringing of a never-ending doorbell was not one of my favourites.
When I reached the front door, bleary-eyed and still in my pyjamas, I found Lydia, her finger jammed into the button, a huge grin on her face.
‘OK, I’m here,’ I said, swiping her hand away from the door. ‘Quit it before Ashley comes out here and chops your arms off.’
‘I’m on my way to get the axe,’ a voice bellowed somewhere in the house. ‘She’d better be gone by the time I get down there.’
‘There was always a non-zero chance my relationship with your aunt was going to end in violence.’
Past my best friend, I saw Jackson’s Audi, the motor still running, double-parked in front of Bell House. While I tried to make sense of the situation, Lydia pushed past me into the house, looking me up and down.
‘You’re coming like that?’
‘Coming where like what?’
She met my nonplussed look with the loudest, heaviest sigh ever to exist.
‘Tell me you have not forgotten?’ she said, hands planted firmly on her hips. ‘Emily James Bell, you are the worst. Hopefully you’re a fast packer or we will leave without you.’
‘Lyds, it’s six a.m.,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know my own name. What are you talking about?’
‘Hilton Head? Vacation? With me?’
‘Hilton Head,’ I repeated with a groan. ‘Vacation. With you.’
‘Wow, Em, wow.’ She clucked her tongue as she marched herself upstairs. ‘Way to make a gal feel special.’
Between ghosting ghosts, returning Weres and nightmare visions, I had completely lost track of the calendar.
‘I did forget, I’m sorry,’ I said when she strolled past me and into the foyer. ‘You know I’d love to come but with things as they are, I don’t think I can leave town.’
