“Of me? You're unsure of me?”
“No. I’m the most sure of you. I'm unsure of life with you and how I fit into it. Your world still feels so overwhelming to me. I love you but sometimes it's hard for me to see how we'll meet in the middle. Where we'll live, how we'll fit around each other.”
“Where do you want to live?”
“Wherever you are,” I replied.
“Right back at you.” He gave me that small smile. It melted me. It always would.
“Just let me have more time, please. I haven't changed my mind. I love you and I want to be with you, I just need more time.”
“You're sure it's nothing else? Sometimes I think what I did to you, all of those fucking awful things that I did to you, are still here haunting you.”
“They are. Not all the time but they're still there. I do trust you though. I see the change in you.”
“But you still don’t want anyone to know we’re engaged? You’re not sure enough of me for that.”
I chose my words very carefully. Discussing this topic was like handling a bomb. “I just don’t want Keira and Natalie thinking I’m making another bad choice. Dating you again is one thing?—”
He scoffed and I knew it was the word ‘dating’ that he hated.
“They’ve accepted that but marrying you…I worry how they’ll look at me. Like I’m an idiot that can’t make smart decisions when it comes to men.”
“I'm impatient. I always have been. I want everything immediately and I usually get it, unless it regards you and then I have to practise compromise and patience. My two least favourite things.” He gave me a wry smile. “If I were to be patient now, I would remember that though we've known each other for three years, we've only been a solid couple for a collection of months. Months in the beginning where you didn't know what you were to me and in truth, even I didn't know what you were to me. And then I hurt you, over and over again I hurt you. Then years apart, then together, and I fixed so much of what I’d done but I hurt you again and still we weren't a couple. Until now. You were always mine and I was always yours but we weren't a couple.” He chuckled then, making me frown.
“What’s so funny?”
“Not funny exactly, but perhaps ironic that I was able to call you my fiancee before I could call you my girlfriend. You agreed to marry me based on love and lust and connection alone. I think I'm guilty of underestimating how much else we still have to build. Again, ironic considering that building things is my business.” He nodded then as if he'd made a decision, a private pact with himself. “I'll give you more time, Lo. I'll show you how things can be. These last few months have been good between us, haven't they?” He sounded unsure and it hurt me to hear it. He'd been trying so hard, so hard at something that even at thirty six he still had no idea how to do.
“Yes,” I assured him, “it's been wonderful.” I thought about breakfast this morning and how sweet he'd been. I was frustrated with myself for not being ready but I had to trust mygut. “I just need more time to have a life before I'm ready to be a wife.”
He laughed at my cheesy line. “It's easy for me to forget that you're a decade younger than I am. I certainly wasn't ready to be married when I was twenty seven. With anyone else I think it would be difficult but when I think of life with you it just feels easy. Not you, you are most definitely not easy but life with you has always been right, even when we're fighting.”
I kissed him and it was only a moment before he lifted me and placed me on the desk. It was the second time today we'd been in this position and I was sure we'd be here again before we slept. It came to us easy, sex as simple as breathing. I opened my legs as he unfastened his trousers and he slipped inside, so wet, so slick, so simple. He rocked into me, pulling breathy moans from my mouth. I slipped off the sleeves of my dress and unfastened my bra, my breasts spilling free. His hands found them, gripping and pulling.
“I’ll only wait one month more though. Promise me, no longer than that.”
I didn’t have to think about it. “I promise.”
Three
Alfie started most days working out in his home gym at an ungodly hour that no sensible person should ever be awake at. He had invited me to join him a few times, an offer that had earned him a withering look. Usually he was back in bed before I woke up. Not today. Today I woke alone.
Before I could worry about why, my phone pinged. It was a photo from Keira. She was at dinner with a group of people, one or two looked vaguely familiar. Actors, I presumed.
I missed my best friend. She’d been in New York for months now working as an assistant designer on some broadway production. I was happy for her but our apartment had been too empty without her. Another reason why I’d chosen to make the leap to Alfie’s place.
Her support of my relationship with Alfie was reluctant at best and I couldn't say that I blamed her. He'd hurt her too. Part of me had been relieved when she gave me the news that she would be going to America for a while and that made me feel sick with guilt. Keira had been the only constant in my life. Dad, mum, gran, all gone. Natalie and Ryan had burst into my life, rocking my world. Then came Adam to terrorise me. And thenAlfie…he had broken me, put me back together and then broken me again. Throughout all of it, there had been Keira.
Refusing to lie in bed and wallow over my best friend any longer, I got up, showered and dressed. I dug around in my boxes until I found a white dress with dainty yellow daisies on it. That would do for today.
I felt uneasy seeing my belongings in Alfie’s house. They seemed out of place.
I was about to give myself a get-a-grip lecture when Alfie walked in wearing a towel, skin flushed from the steam he always took after his workout.
I smiled but still, he must have read the insecurity in my eyes. “What's wrong?”
I nudged one of the boxes with my foot. “Just feels weird having my stuff here.”
