“That’s an armchair.”
Dair beams even brighter. “Oh, you are good at this game. Have another go!” He points at what else he’s arrived here with. It’s a footstool. One I’d think he’d stolen from a care home if I hadn’t seen it in situ a few streets from here. “Bet you can’t guess what it is.” He smiles so hard that he dimples. “If you guess right, you can keep it!”
The only thing I’m willing to bet is that this furniture belonged to someone he used to care for. Him gifting it to me leaves me all kinds of growly. “I’ve got an even better game we can play together.”
Don’t ask me how the fuck his broad smile widens. Mine does too when he asks, “Does it involve getting horizontal with firemen watching?”
It almost kills me to say, “It could do later,” but those pings on my phone mean a whole lot of Exes are already on their way to meet us at the museum location. I also can’t ignore what Dairhas arrived wearing. I reach out to touch the heart-shaped logo on his fleece jacket. “I was actually planning on playing a game of Snap with you this morning if you aren’t working.”
His brow creases. “Snap?”
“Yeah. At the V&A.”
“The museum?” He must know it—he looks in the right direction for its Cromwell Street location.
“Yeah. Thought we might find more style and pattern matches there for your china inventory. I invited the Exes to come help look. But maybe not, if you wearing that jacket means you don’t actually have the day off.”
Dair winces. “I did score another shift, because…” He points up, no need to remind me what still hangs over his head. “But not until later.” He touches the back of the armchair and quickly adds, “I’ve got time to come with you. And to take these back, if you can’t use them.”
He stands outside a home Flynn wanted me to make look impressive for him. There’s nothing impressive about this armchair and footstool covered in faded roses. As gifts go, I can’t help thinking they’re perfect. Can already guess how good it will feel to sink into those puffy cushions and rest my plates of meat on that footstool after a long day of lumping furniture around for other people. “I can use them.”
“Really?” Dair digs a tooth into his lip like he isn’t half as certain. “You don’t have to. They aren’t worth anything. And look, the stool is damaged.” He nudges it to show me a frayed patch, threads of fabric dangling. “No one would ever bid on it at auction.” He speaks even faster, and I smother a smile at him getting flustered. “I probably couldn’t give either of them away on Marketplace.”
“Wow. You’re really selling them to me.”
He closes his eyes. Huffs. Opens his eyes and starts over. “What I’m trying to say is that they might not look much, butI know how comfortable this chair is. And how hard you work. What do you think?”
I think I fucking love that he’s spent time thinking about me like I’ve been thinking about him. And that he’s associated me with someone special. Even the footstool being scratched to hell, like Kitty has clawed the sofa at home, doesn’t seem like a downside. “Alice had a cat?”
He blinks. “I already told you. One cat and a dog. Mog and Hector.” He pulls out his phone, this time finding a photo of him holding a green-eyed tabby. “Mog’s giving my foster folks hell at home.”
“Alice left her pets to you?”
“For my sins.” His smile looks helpless. “Did you think Charles was exaggerating?” Dair meets my eyes, nothing hidden. “She really did leave me everything. Every single thing, right down to the litter box that Mog is staging a dirty protest over using.” He swallows. “The poor wee thing is only refusing to use it because his routine’s been disrupted again. Took him forever to stop looking for Alice. Now he keeps looking for me. The sooner I get home the better.”
Part of me likes that he’ll have two furry reminders waiting for him in Scotland. The rest of me regrets making meet-up plans at a museum of all places. The hint of a sheen I glimpse before Dair looks away makes me think today might not be the day for any more reminders of what else he’ll soon be leaving.
I don’t mean me.
We both knew this connection was temporary. That it always had a time limit even shorter than February’s twenty-eight days. I’m just narked that I didn’t meet him right at the start of the month. Or even sooner. If he’d found me earlier, we would have had more time together.
Even taking him to one of London’s biggest collections of things Alice valued now seems a dick move. Like I’ll be rubbinghis nose in the fact that she collected copies instead of anything with real value.
Dair hefts up a footstool he just described as worthless and almost gets past me with it. I stop him the same way Kev has stopped me so often, by blocking the doorway. At least this footstool is smaller than a sofa—I can see all of Dair instead of a sliver, so I hope he can see how much I mean this. “We don’t have to go look at a load of tea sets. I can cancel the meet-up.”
“Don’t.”
He does the opposite of the tug-of-war I usually get into with my cousin. Dair goes up on tiptoes, leaning in rather than away from me. His mouth meets mine, there and gone all too quickly, and I step aside. My lips tingle like they last did in my childhood bedroom while firefighters watched, but from this close, I can’t ignore that his eyes aren’t just sheened. They’re well on their way to glossy as he passes me and heads inside, his gaze averted.
I heft up an armchair that isn’t only awkward. It’s fucking heavy, and I follow him with it into the living room and huff, “How did you get this here on your own?”
“I didn’t. I had help.”
Dair faces the window, his back turned to me. I guess so I won’t see a repeat of a battle a bathroom mirror reflected the first week I knew him. This window does the same reflecting, showing me his quick blinks. I move even faster to stand behind him, and man, he fits just right with his back to my chest. We’re so close he has to feel my jealous rumble. “Who helped you carry it?”
I want to be that person.
It’s a hell of a time to come to that realisation—to know for certain that I want more time, not less.
