Page 51 of Coming Home to Crumbleton

Still, being out of breath wasn’t doing anything to stop the fact that she wanted to pounce on Oli like an over-excited puppy.

‘You’re… you’re here?’ said Oli, staring at her in confusion.

‘I am,’ she puffed, grinning at him.

‘How… I mean, what… I mean… did you miss your train?’

Ruby shook her head. He really was adorable when he was confused like this!

‘The train’s gone… and Bobbi and Ben are on it,’ she said. ‘They’re more than a little bit miffed with me.’

‘Why?’ said Oli, clearly struggling to catch up.

‘Because I’ve just deprived them both of a paid trip to the States,’ she laughed. ‘I told them I wanted to do the initial meetings with the studio online!’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Because I realised something when I got to the train station,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’ said Oli.

‘I can’t walk away from you,’ said Ruby, stepping forward and taking his hands gently - even though she wanted to wrap herself around him and beg him never to let her go. ‘I never want there to be all that space between us again. I want to be near you… or… with you.’

‘Oh,’ said Oli. ‘I see.’

Ruby swallowed. It wasn’t exactly the enthusiastic response she’d been hoping for.

‘Of course, if you don’t want…’ she said, letting go of his hands just as quickly as she’d taken them. Thank goodness she hadn’t jumped on him! ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have just assumed… and you’re on your way out… maybe we can talk later or-’

‘I needed to post this,’ said Oli abruptly, grabbing the package from his desk and thrusting it at her.

Ruby blinked in surprise before taking the carefully wrapped parcel. She frowned down at her own name and address scrawled on the front

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

‘A personal emergency trip to the post office?’ she shook her head in confusion.

Oli mirrored her movement, shaking his head as a smile spread over his face. ‘No - look.’

He pointed at the corner of the package where two words were printed in his looped scrawl.

By Hand

‘You were going to-?’

‘Follow you,’ said Oli simply. ‘Because I can’t handle all that space between us either. Not again.’

‘You can’t?

‘Nope.’

Ruby stroked her fingers over the two words that meant more to her than anything else in the world right now… because it meant they were both in the same place - in more ways than one.

‘What’s in it?’ she said.

‘Only one way to find out,’ said Oli.

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