Page 13 of Only Ever You

“Plus it’s Christmas,” Matt added. “It’s romantic. The best time for you to tell her that you want to?—”

“I thought you had a lecture to get to?” Bash expertly dodged that bullet.

“I’m sure my students won’t complain if I don’t turn up.”

Bash’s brow cocked as he stopped to cross aside road and looked both ways. “I’m sure they will for having to get out of bed for a nine a.m lecture you yourself didn’t turn up to.”

“Alright, I’m going. Let me sort out this mess of paperwork in peace.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you soon,” Bash said as he moved between a couple of stationary cars.

“Right. Love you little brother.”

“Yeah, I love you too.”

Bash had known the way toBaked By The Dozenby heart since two months before it opened, when he’d been up a ladder painting walls pastel peaches and pinks and hammering floral-themed paintings from local artists above the windows. It wasn’t too difficult, since he only lived a few tube stops and a brisk five minute walk away, which was nice. There was peace in his mind knowing he could be here so quickly if Faye ever needed him.

Slowing his stride, he could see her through the pink and green fronted windows, shoulder deep as she reached into a glass display case to arrange her doughnuts. Faye’s presentation was the most aesthetically pleasing, non-furniture based thing Bash would see today.

One of those giant clips she liked to snap onto his clothes without him noticing held back her blonde hair, and she didn’t look a day older than when they’d met.

It physically hurt him to hear that she (misguidedly) believed no guy would ever look at her, but Bash knew every freckle on her face. He could pick out her exact eye colour from a paint swatch, like ripened acorns in autumn with their flecks of caramel and gold. And he’d never regathered that burst of courage he’d had when he was twenty to tell her again.

Still, he couldn’t fathom ever being able to rid his heart of her.

The door with the white frame that’d taken him a wholemorning to strip back the grungy brown paint from the previous shop made no sound when he stepped in. Chandra, Faye’s assistant, served a pair of customers at the till, and he didn’t disturb the relaxed atmosphere as he took it all in.

Faye clocked him standing across the room of round tables and comfy chairs and smiled the way which made Bash remember why he adored her. He offered up his usual wave whilst she placed the last doughnut in the cabinet from the stack of empty trays beside her.

The paying customers took an empty table by the front window with their mocha-chinos concoctions and doughnuts, and Bash slid up to the vacated space, chirping, “Hello there.”

In the corner of his eye, Chandra – with a knowing smile he’d seen all too often – already turned to the fancy coffee machine and frothed up his usual latte.

“Hey,” Faye said breezily as the obnoxious coffee machine loudly steamed up the milk. She looked adorable in her greenBaked By The Dozenapron, waving her gloved hand at the perfectly organised doughnuts. “Which do you want?”

“Oof, none today.” Wincing, Bash flattened down the front of his jacket and held himself taut. “Will have to run an extra mile otherwise.”

Faye gave him a displeased look.

I know. I know.He gave himself that look too. But some habits died hard. Others needed a chainsaw and copious amounts of mortal peril … He was working on it.

“Speaking of, are we still good for tonight?” he asked her.

“Absolutely,” she said with a cheerier glint in her eyes.

It’d started last year in the darker months where he’d set out for his evening run and Faye would sometimes join him. They made a circle around the streets and through a park, delivering her back to her flat before returning to his own home.

They’d only begun running together when she’d thought she’d been followed home one night and panicked, calling him afterlocking every door and window she could and turning on every light. Hearing how terrified she was had broken Bash’s heart, so since then he’d changed his evening route for her so they could jog together in the winter. “I feel so much safer with you here,” she'd told him after that first night, and his anger had risen like a flash flood in the desert that she’d ever felt unsafe at all.

Still, with the extra miles he was putting in, he surely felt trimmer for it.

“And Bash?” Faye said.

“Yeah?”

Her lips began to lift, her voice soft. “Have a doughnut if you want one.”

If you want one.A choice that’d long ago controlled him every single day.

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