“ ‘Video games’. My favourite song. Ever.”
“Five-starlyrics, baby.”
“ ‘White Mustang’ has nothing on ‘Video games’.”
He sounded out of breath.
“Where are you?” I asked. I could have looked. Checked his location. I hadn’t. I’d been too busy thinking I was something I wasn’t. I definitely wasn’t. The realisation felt like cotton clouds under my uncomfortable shoes. I wanted to kick them off and leave them behind, right here in the street. I was still walking. Nowhere to go. Bus stop?
I needed him.
“I’m on the beach, but I’m leaving now. Family emergency.”
“What emergency?” I questioned, letting my heart jolt.
“You, baby.” He grinned from my screen. “You need me? I’ll come. If I set off now, I should be at yours in what, two hours or something?”
“I love you.”
I’d said it before, but not like this. Like I meant it. I did. I was me and I was short and I was ridiculous and my glasses were steaming up again, but I did… I loved him. And he loved me. And what the hell was going on because now I was running down the road, towards the bus stop, and he was laughing at me, running along some beach too far away from me.
“Drive fast,” I huffed.
“For you? I’d fly if I could. Don’t fall over. I’ll see you at home.”
“I’ll change the sheets.”
“I was thinking,” he said, slowing down and leaning on his car. That stupid old car.
I thought I loved it too. Just seeing it made this real. Like it was actually…something that was mine. My life. My reality. My stupid beating heart.
“I want to take you home. Let you meet the family. All that.”
“Okay,” I said, smiling harder than I actually needed too.
“You’re leaving early, that’s not like you.” He looked at me. Really looked.
“I love you,” I said again. “And you were right. I am…better than this…now.”
“You always were.” He smiled. “Now go home, have a nap and get ready to be loved.”
I laughed. How absurd this was. How funny. How…
How absolutely right.
Chapter 25
Peter
My phone had become the enemy, constantly on charge like I’d made the need for battery life a valid excuse. It still rang and made noises, and I was desperate to switch the ringer off, but that would mean seeing those…
Names I didn’t want to see. Also? The one I wanted to see might not be there, and I think that would destroy me more than anything else.
I missed him. Desperately. I wanted him here, in my house, and I wanted him back and I wanted him in my arms and I wanted to kiss him. More than anything else, I just wanted to hear his voice. See him. His smiles. Let my fingers mess up that tousled hair of his.
I needed him back. My pale, messy, fragile and beautiful Oliver. I could barely admit those thoughts to myself but still did. I had to. Else I would completely go mad.
Cal had stayed all week, preventing me from doing what I wanted to do the most. Just lie in bed and forget about everything else. He wouldn’t letme. Instead he forced me out, dragged me down the pub and wouldn’t let me hide from anything.
