Page 50 of I Always Will

“Your flu jab?” Alexandria asked sceptically.

“Yes. You know, winter’s coming. Flu season. Gotta be prepared and all that.”

“Indeed. And, is your flu jab always such a source of stress?” She nodded at Hailey’s hair.

Hailey’s insides swooped at the fact that Alexandria remembered she messed with her hair when she was stressed. It hadn’t even happened on purpose this time, but she supposed the cause had been stress. Kind of. Perhaps not in the way Alexandria meant, but she supposed perfectly calm people didn’t scream into their sofa cushions.

She shook her head, stepping around Alexandria and leading the way into the living room. “Sometimes.”

Alexandria giggled as she took her shoes off and placed them by Hailey’s at the door. It was such a simple gesture, one a number of Hailey’s friends had done over the years, but there was something so much more magical and intimate about it when it was Alexandria. Hailey wondered whether it was the fact that she was staying the night, or whether it was the fact that it wasAlexandriaand she was finally here. Hailey had lost count of the number of times she’d dreamed of coming home to her, coming home with her. Both of their shoes by the door, their coats hanging together on the hooks… And here it was.

“Make yourself at home,” Hailey said, knowing that, no matter how she felt, Alexandria would need the invitation. They weren’t where they had been before.

She headed into the kitchen to make tea, refusing to look at Alexandria settling into her couch like she belonged there.

The kitchen looked clear of anything that could embarrass her or cause problems.

She moved mechanically around the kitchen, making tea on autopilot as she ran through the items in her guest room in her head. She still had a box of things from Alexandria, a collection of items from their time together, but that was in her bedroom since she’d brought it down from the attic. It felt like it was burning a hole in the ceiling. Hailey worried it would fall through, straight into Alexandria’s lap, at any moment, thus exposing her fragile little heart all over again.

She splashed milk into Alexandria’s mug, antsier than she’d ever been in this house, and carried both of their cups back into the living room.

Alexandria was still sitting in the same spot. Hailey breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t been ransacking the place while she was alone, looking for evidence that Hailey still loved and missed her. Not that she thought Alexandria would do that, her head was just all over the place in her presence.

She knew she needed to be calm, to remember nothing had actually changed between them, but Alexandria was such a vision here. She looked perfect nestled into the navy, velvet sofa. The way she smiled shyly at Hailey was one of the most beautiful things Hailey had ever seen.

None of it made sense. It had been seventeen years. She was supposed to be over her. They hadn’t seen each other once in that time. How was it possible to keep loving someone so much in their absence? How was it possible to immediately feel the world falling back into place the minute they returned?

And how was it that, even with their history and her understanding of why they’d gone their separate ways, the only thing she really wanted in the universe was to flop down on the couch with Alexandria and never stop coming home to her for the rest of time?

She placed the tea on the coffee table and did sit down beside Alexandria, though not nearly as close as she so desperately wanted to. She smiled, a little awkwardly, and gestured to the two mugs. “Enjoy.”

Alexandria was watching her with an expression Hailey didn’t understand. Her eyes were slightly narrowed and there was something wondering and wondrous about her gaze. She leaned forward, delicately picked up the mug, and breathed it in deeply, her eyes closing as she did so.

She might think Hailey was the bane of her existence, but she was absolutely going to be the end of Hailey’s. The things seeing her like this did to Hailey were not the kinds of things one could recover from. There was no way she could just go back to nothing, to never seeing Alexandria again, to spending her days pretending that she’d never known Alexandria, never loved her…

“You remembered,” Alexandria whispered after taking a sip of her tea, her eyes still closed.

Hailey almost asked what she meant but, before she could get the words out, she finally realised she hadn’t asked what Alexandria wanted to drink or how she took her tea. The Alexandria she’d known loved her evening tea. She loved it with half a teaspoon of sugar and a little splash of milk.

And foolish, reckless, distracted Hailey had made her exactly that. Without even checking if that’s how she still took it.

Hailey froze, her eyes wide, her heart pounding. She needed an excuse. Anything other thanyeah, sorry, still in love with you.

“It’s perfect,” Alexandria said, her voice a little louder but not enough to remove the sense of intimacy that had snuck in and coiled around them. Instead, it filled the room, filled the space between them, and it pulled on every atom in Hailey’s body, begging her to let it in, to be closer to Alexandria.

She wanted to give in so badly.

She cleared her throat. “I’m glad. Sorry, I should have checked that’s still how you take it.”

Unexpectedly, Alexandria flushed instantly. Hailey had no idea what about the statement had caused that response, but she was desperate to ask. Normally, she’d make a joke, a slightly flirtatious one that served as a question and got her the information she wanted. As it stood, it seemed Alexandria’s presence in her home had broken something inside of her and she’d forgotten entirely how to be cool and flirtatious.

“Uh, yeah,” Alexandria said, stiffening slightly and looking away. “That’s still how I like it.”

Hailey was fascinated. Something about her answer was stilted and off. Not in a way that scared Hailey, but in a way that made curiosity burn even brighter inside. Alexandria was avoiding the full answer, she was keeping something hidden, but not because of anything bad. She was doing that thing where she got shy around Hailey, and that always meant the real answer was going to make Hailey’s heart giddy and excited and send her rocketing off to cloud nine.

She wanted that answer so badly.

She chuckled. “No need to be embarrassed, Daley.”

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