Page 138 of Only Ever You

Bash moved to grab his backpack from the locker he’d left it in all day, thinking that Faye would begin to close up the safe and collect her things.

“I think I’m just going to go back to my flat tonight.”

Bash stilled, fingers wrapped around the strap of his backpack.

He didn’t demand to know why – Faye didn’t need to explain that she wanted space. And yet over his shoulder she looked as torn as he felt he’d become too. Like pieces of tissue paper floating off in the wind.

A night in their own company might be good for them, he told himself, after the week they’d had of being glued to each other’s sides.

One night.

“Okay.” Bash pretended he wasn’t as impacted by the punch of her request in his gut as he was, pulling his coat from the rack. “I’ll take you home.”

Faye twisted her hands in front of her. “I’ll be okay on my own.” It was a thin veil of an attempt to sound confident.

Again, Bash didn’t push, though it killed him inside to bite his tongue.

Don’t push me away.

“If that’s what you want … okay. Text me when you get there so I know you’re safe.” It was pitch black outside, below freezing, and though he knew Faye had made the journey to her flat hundreds of times at night, he wouldn’t ever stop worrying about her. To the point where he felt sick and furious at the thought of anything happening to her.

“I will,” she said.

Bash paused in the darkened doorway, looking back at her amongst the paperwork, cardboard boxes, and crisp sticky notes upon the cork board. “I love you, Faye.”

Her mouth curved in a soft smile that made him question his decision to leave without her. “I love you more.”

He shook his head. “Not possible. You’re my moon, remember?”

On his way out, Bash’s gaze snagged on the model he’d made for her on the shelf where it now lived behind the main counter, beneath one of only a couple of spot lamps still turned on. He’d memorised the surprise and joy upon her face when she’d unwrapped the box he’d presented it in. What he wouldn’t give to have her standing in front of him with that same grin and bright eyes right then.

Christmas morning felt like it was an entire world away now.

Chairs were all neatly tucked up to their tables. Display cabinets were empty for the night. A perpetual chill hung in the air and travelled deeper into Bash’s bones the closer he drew to the shuttered glass windows.

A puddle had gathered in the dip of the pavement right outsideBaked’s door. A chocolate wrapper floated in the water, and others ending evening shifts dashed by him under Christmas lights still garnishing the street towards the tube station. The decorations twinkled as waterdripped off of them, but there was no cheeriness in the bleakness at all.

Bash stepped outside into the rain and lingered by the door. Pulling up his collar against the whistle of wind, he stifled and urged away the thickness of sadness creeping up his throat and surging in his eyes.

Sometimes loving someone was hard.

Sometimes agreeing to do what was best for them was harder.

Even if that meant walking away.

42

FAYE

Faye knewshe’d messed up.

She picked up her chicken parmesan dinner from a mini supermarket, letting the frigid temperature outside keep it chilled on her way home,alone, thinking of Bash with every step. On the tube, she texted Maisie and Sienna, and when she arrived home after eight p.m,addedmore layers to her outfit instead of taking them off.

The radiators struggled into a vague sign of life with a gurgle.

A technician that Bash had found was meant to come in three days tofinallyfix the boiler Faye heavily blamed for causing this mess that she was in with him. Since she’d barely spent an hour here after returning from Shropshire, she hadn’t expected to need the heating system at all. Why pay to heat a flat when no one was home? But it looked like, for now at least, she was here once again.

Insulating herself with blankets and a hot water bottle, Faye slouched on her sofa and dug into her cheesy chicken pasta without bothering to decant it from the plastic pot it had come in.

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