Page 23 of Only Ever You

“Did someone swing for you?” The volume of concern in Faye’s voice made his heart constrict.

“Only Bennet’s balls.”

She blinked at him.

“That didn’t come out right.” Absolutely not at all.

Scoffing a chuckle, Faye reached up her fingers and Bash had to gently stop her from doing anything other than hovering them near his wounded cheek while he repeated the story he’d told at the pub of his stupid accident, all because he’d been thinking of how she’d reached for him on first instinct that morning when she’d slipped on a spilled drink atBaked. He’d darted to steady her anyway, but the fact that her hands had stretched out for him and no one else had done something weird to Bash’s insides.

He should be used to the feeling of her skin when their hands touched, but even after eleven years, he couldn’t stop that little tingle from happening.

“Do you want ice?” Faye offered from where she’d sprung towards her kitchen area, already reaching for her freezer door. Before Bash could get a word in, the blue-white interior light awoke as she rummaged inside. “I don’t have any peas, but I’ve got frozen onions?”

“I’ll pass on the onions, thanks. I already iced it earlier.” Combined with the chilled wind that beat his face on his way here, his cheek was still numb.

His gaze wandered between Faye’s choice of pyjamas and the bundle of blankets on her slatish-brown sofa. The trusty hot water bottle which he knew to make an appearance every month peeked out from between the haphazard arrangement.

“Speaking of,” he said, casually leaning over to find that the bottle wasn’t hot anymore, “your flat is really cold.”

Bash felt bad for saying it, the insensitivity twisting a knot in his gut. Money had always been tighter for Faye than he’d ever had to worry about. Running a business had taken a lot of investment on her part, and he didn’t mean to imply she couldn’t afford her heating. But it was mid-December in England, not the Bahamas. Nights here were frosty evenwithcentral heating, and he didn’t like the thought of Faye unconsciously reaching hypothermia inthe night. It was a far stretch but he was a dramatic Annie sometimes.

She finished rearranging the contents of her freezer and wandered towards him, rubbing her hands over her bare arms. “I turned the radiators down so the boiler won’t die again.”

Head cocked, Bash sighed.

Faye …

That knot in his stomach? Make it ten.Twelveif he included the scare of her SOS call.

He withheld the second wind of his urge to sigh her name. A scolding from him wasn’t what Faye needed tonight.She should be staying with him in his home, in his guest bed with all of its duvets and blankets and under-floor heating, but he couldn’t force her.

Bash shrugged off his coat, dropped it on a kitchen chair, and pulled his hoodie off next. “Here, it’s warm.”

Faye’s eyes flicked between his determined gaze and the mass of orange he held out for her. She even took a step back. “Oh, no, I’m okay.” Though her wobbly smile said otherwise.

“Your nose is pink.”

“It is?” She touched that button shaped feature.

Gotcha.Bash’s lips began to slant. “Please take it.” He was one moment away from putting the hoodie on her himself if she didn’t take it in five, four, three …

“Won’t you be cold?” Faye stepped closer again, fingers creeping out towards him.

“I run hot, don’t worry.”

With a cute twist of her mouth, Faye considered the hoodie, then swiped the offending material like it was her favourite doughnut. She drowned beneath the bulk of orange that came to her mid-thighs, and somewhere not so deep inside Bash’s chest a new trove of accomplishment unlocked, because she was wearing his clothes. And not just any clothes: hisfavouritehoodie that she’d gifted to him one Christmas, thinking that he wouldn’t ever wear it.

It was his favourite hoodie.

The years of their friendship had rarely involved the exchange of garments except in dire circumstances. One awkward night out in Fulham where he’d spilled a mojito down the white shirt of his pirate costumeand thengotten the shirt caught on something – he didn’t know what – that ripped it clean down the middle, meaning he’d had to borrow the cape from Faye’s Little Red Riding Hood costume, was just one example.

This,he thought.Thisis what he wanted. Late nights with wholesome food and the television playing on low as Faye wrapped herself in his clothes then huddled herself in him. Within his embrace, burrowing at his side.

For a dreamlike second Bash’s mind took him to a place with a picture of them curled together on this sofa behind him, and it felt so real that his eyes glazed over. His body warmed from the inside out with those thoughts pushing away the midnight chill.

Chill. Midnight. Faye.

His head involuntarily twitched and Bash was back in the reality of a boiler-less flat at one a.m, with night time hours dwindling away. Tiredness crept up his hips and crawled up his spine, and the tail end of Faye’s voice made him refocus.

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