Page 135 of Only Ever You

If the time was right, and Faye was ready for it, Bash wouldn’t have needed to be nervous about speaking of marriage at all. He wouldn’t have to ask her if it was what she wanted because he’d already know.

She made her way back to him and stroked her fingers through his hair, the soothing motions like the waves of a constant, gentle tide.

The air was too fragile. The quiet disappointment in Bash’s throat, too stodgy.

The bleak, grey linoleum of the floor mocked him as Faye, composed, said, “I’d want a few years of dating – living together. Maybe one year of being married before anything resembling babies happens.”

Bash hadn’t even mentioned children tonight. He knew he wanted his to be Faye’s, but he guessed she’d factored them into “those things” that she’d noted ten seconds ago. Despite his new sedateness, he couldn’t stop the bolt of excitement at the implication she wanted to have his children, too.

Years,she’d told him.

“That process is fornewcouples. Couples who haven’t already known each other for their whole lives.” He lifted his gaze to find conviction and weariness warring on Faye’s face.

“We haven’t.”

“Their wholeadultlives then.” Bash’s patience for being battled with began to dwindle. “It feels like we have, though.”

Maybe that was just his opinion but could Faye honestly say she didn't believe it too?

His chair rolled backwards when Bash stood and knocked against cardboard packing boxes behind him – an annoying reminder of what was to come soon.

He wiped strands of hair away from Faye’s face and cupped her cheek into his palm, thumb stroking at the corner of her lip. Feeling her lean into his touch, he sighed.

“We’re good together, Peanut, so why don’t we just skip to the next part?” Bashheld his tongue on reminding her that she’d already said she would marry him, even if it was just for a pact.

Faye took a fortifying breath, making him worry even more that she was trying to let him down gently. “Bash, my parents divorced after they rushed into being married too quickly. I was there and it was so …messy. I won’t rush in the same way. It’s too much to risk.”

Wasn’t this thing between them worth that chance though?

Bash should’ve known that fact about her life – hedidknow it. He just … hadn’t equated that situation totheirs. He still cupped her cheek as if his palm was soldered to her skin, her remorse for something that wasn’t her fault chipping away at him.

“If this is how hot headed you’re feeling then maybe …” She took another deeper breath and Bash’s taut body hung on that hesitation. “Maybe we should cool things for a little while.”

Splinters of the office cracked around them. Maybe it was his ribs breaking as Faye plunged her hand between them to grab him by his aching heart. Bash knew he’d pushed the boat out too far in mentioning marriage a minute ago and he was reeling it back in to moor, but this little mistake didn’t mean that?—

“Cool things?” Numbness crawled down his spine. “How cool are you thinking?”

A shard of ice fragmented into his voice on accident as his chest quickened its rise and fall. This was too much to hear all at once, and if the bulb of uncomfortable weight in his throat meant anything, this conversation felt suspiciously like heading towards breaking up.

Faye’s teeth left red marks upon her lip. “Like … not quite ice, but not quite a January morning either?”

“I’m going to need that in non-metaphorical terms, Peanut.”

“Casual?” Faye ventured as if she forced herself to say the word which punched Bash in the gut. “I can’t change the fact that I’m leaving in two weeks, and I don’t want to be serious with you just yet if I can’t quite fill the realities of that.”

Deep down, Bash understood where she came from. He did. But it didn’t stop her reasons from hurting. Ripping.Seizing. He’d barely had enough time to come to terms with Faye leaving as it was.

Shewas the one who had been so terrified of things between them changing, that the distance would make her mean less to him, and yet this step down in who they were to one another washeridea?

Bash tried to make it make sense.

“This next year is going to be all hands on deck for me,” Faye said, “and I’ve only got two hands.”

“Four, Faye. Because you’ve got mine too. And Maisie’s and Freddy’s and Sienna’s.”

Her lips parted and yet … all that came was a wisp of an anguished sigh.

Bash exhaled too. Still holding her cheek and caressing his thumb across her skin, until he agonisingly lowered his hand. Their bodies were close; close enough that he could map the outline of faded wintry freckles on her nose and pick out the flecks of caramel in her eyes.

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