Page 51 of Only Ever You

“What are you reading?” Faye asked on a tired exhale.

Bash wasn’t sure anymore.Focus. Focus.Without moving his gaze from the page he only pretended to read, he tipped the book so she could see the cover.

“Ooo.” The duvet rustled as Faye moved closer, and Bash’s stretched out thighs drew tight in apprehension.

Did she …snuggletowards him? Burrow down at his side? Her head lay on his shoulder. Was he dreaming? Breathing? He tried not to stiffen too much with how her cuddliness caught him by surprise, given her hesitance for sharing a bed in the first place.

“I’ve not read this one,” Faye said, her words like warm kisses through his t-shirt to his collarbone.

Did she know what she was doing to his dizzy mind at all?

Before Bash knew it, he lifted his hand nearest to her, bent his elbow and buried his fingers in her hair, scratching a gentle massage at the side of her head. Faye hummed and the sound went straight to places in Bash’s restless body it shouldn’t; like the purr of a cat as she curled even further in towards him.

This was … new. Not his touch, but the reality that they were in bed whilst he did it.

Faye kept her hands to herself, tucked up against her chest, but just her warmth beside Bash was enough. He liked how comfortable it was; how right lulling each other towards sleep felt.

Page by page, they read together until the end of the chapter. Bash was already halfway through the book before Faye joined, and he was sure she had no idea what was going on, but her eyes remained on the words and her head only lifted from his shoulder to change position.

He folded the book closed for a moment and set it in his lap. Faye shifted her chin and he felt her eyes upon his jaw waiting for what he’d thought he should say.

“I’m sorry my uncle showed up today and made things uncomfortable,” he said, though he hadn’t stopped thinking about it all afternoon. The air had been different;off-colourever since Mortimer arrived.

“Bash, when you have a family like I have, you get used toawkward.”

Bash tilted his head and found Faye’s eyes. Her voice had been soft, stripped-back to something he didn’t hear too often. And though he knew most of her story, he knew too that there was more.

Something in his expression willed her to go on.

“When I was younger,” Faye began, “if I was with my mum’s family, then I’d always be scared to say something nice about my dad or talk about him in any way, and vice versa, because the fallout from the divorce wasn’t good for either side. I love my parents, but I’ve always pictured how awkward it’s going to be if I get married, and the idea of struggling through that day when I would want everyone to be there, hoping that they can coexist peacefully for a few hours, makes me want to have a wedding day even less.”

Faye didn’t offer information like this up too much, so Bash didn’t take it for granted.

“Do you still feel like that? When you’re with either family?” he asked.

“Not as much now. I think time’s helped to heal some things,” she replied. “It’s been nearly twenty-five years.”

Still, being in a big family unit, Bash knew, was difficult for her.

“Is that … why you were hesitant to say yes to coming here?” He didn’t feel like the two situations were correlated, but to Faye they might be.

Her acorn eyes snapped up. “No, not at all. I just didn’t want to intrude on your family. It’s not like I have a reason to be here?—”

“Iwant you here,” he cut off her wrongness. “That’s a good enough reason for my family. And they like seeing you, I know that they do.”

Faye stared up at him, her half-light eyes so beautiful. Bash let the silence sit for a moment as that impulse of a confession swirled around in the air between them, filling his chest with unsteady flutters that felt too much like truth he didn’t speak.

He cleared his throat. “I think I’m going to read another chapter. Do you want to?”

Faye rubbed at her brow with both sets of fingers like she tried to work out a knot of tension there. “I would, but I don’t think I can keep my eyes open for much longer.”

“I can read it to you instead?” Bash offered, opening the book again in his lap.

Her head was already down on her pillow. “That’d be nice.”

So he did, until his body made the decision to fall asleep with Faye by his side for him.

First rule of cross-country rambling with Arthur Phillips: wear the right socks. The man had taken one look at Bash’s feet – which he’d thought acceptable in his walking boots – and sent him off again. It took two minutes to unlace the boots before he’d even made it back to the bedroom to grab a thicker pair of blister-repelling miracle socks.

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