Page 97 of One Last Try

“OWEN BOSLEY, WHERE ARE YOU?” the crowd shouts over and over. It’s like a battle cry, discordant but somehow one voice, and then someone yells, tearing a hole in the unity of the chant. People start pointing to one place—the gap between the bleachers.

Instantly Daisy’s beside me, directing the camera to the same spot.

Gatherings part, and Owen’s right there, barrelling through the centre. The chants morph into surprised “ohs” and then cheers. I abandon the PA system mic and jog towards him.

Owen’s face is beetroot red. He clutches his side as he lumbers over. I expect us to meet in the middle and hug it out, but he slows, and slows further still, until he’s barely placing one foot in front of the other. Then he’s doubled over, wheezing to catch his breath.

I close the rest of the distance between us. “Where have you been?”

“Pub,” he huffs out. “Ran . . . there. Ran . . . back.”

“Oh, god.” I kneel beside him, move to wrap my arms around him, but he holds up a hand, stopping me. I’m only vaguely conscious of the hundreds of spectators, and the camera lens pointed at us.

“You . . . love me?” he asks. His breaths are laboured, his beautiful face contorted into a grimace. He’s already wearing his head guard and sweat streams from underneath.

“I do,” I reply.

He doesn’t say he loves me back, he simply flashes me a dopey, slightly drunk-looking smile. “And you’re . . . staying?”

“Yes. If that’s okay?”

“In Fernbank Cottage?”

“If that’s cool with you,” I say. “I’ll still pay rent, but . . .” Here goes nothing. The question I should have asked him this morning . . . last weekend . . . actually, weeks ago. “I was hoping maybe we could . . . move in together?”

Damn, this is such an intimate conversation to be having in front of seven hundred onlookers.

Oh, wait . . . I left the microphone in the middle of the pitch. They can’t hear us. They’re all watching, but it’s impossible for them to hear what we’re saying right now.

“Okay,” I continue. “So I know it all seems a bit sudden to be asking this. We’ve only been shagging for a couple of months, but I’ve just got a really good feeling about this . . . us. I want to live with you, Owen. I’m . . . in love with you, and this tiny little village, and this beautiful life we’ve created here. I want all in.”

Owen reaches out, brushes his thumb along my jaw. “I love that you don’t need to ask me whether I’m all in or if I love you too, that you just know that I am and I do.”

I nod, because I’ve known for some time. Perhaps it was when he called me his boyfriend in front of his daughter, or when Daisy told me she falls in love easily and that it’s a family trait, or perhaps it was the accumulation of micro acts of service Owen does for me—always making sure he has my safe foods ready, looking after me when I’ve drunk too much, the hand he places on my back letting me know he’s beside me. It’s in the little notes he leaves on my shopping-list pad, the way he understands instinctively when I need space and quiet, how he’ll bust me out of social situations when I’m at sensory overload.

It’s the way he sang “I Walk the Line,” to me. There were dozens of people in his pub that night, but it could have been just us two.

“How, though?” he asks. “How did you know I’m arse over tit for you? Am I that obvious?”

I decide to give him the most neuro-spicy answer I can think of. “It’s the feet.”

“Huh?” Whatever Owen had expected me to say, it wasn’t that. He half frowns, half laughs.

“Feet are the furthest parts of the body from the brain, so the parts we have the least conscious control over.” His frown deepens, and he tilts his head to the side like a puppy trying to understand its master’s commands. “If you look at a person’s feet, they’ll tell you what they’re thinking. For example, if you’re in a group, your feet will point to the person you find most interesting. Or if you’re at a party and you want to leave, your feet will point towards the door. Mine, unsurprisingly, always point towards the buffet. But yeah, feet never fail to reveal what someone really wants.”

Owen’s still crouching, but he looks down anyway. “My feet are pointing at you.”

“They always are,” I say. He doesn’t need to know how often I notice this, how often I glance down just to reassure myself. Wherever we are, in whichever room or space, even if he’s engaged in conversation with another person, he’ll always have one foot aimed towards me. Like he’s telling me there’s still a part of him that’s reserved for me.

“So, are you all in?” I ask. “If you need more time, I can wait until the end of my tenancy agreement?But . . .you already told Molly you’re moving back in next week, so maybe . . . I just keep all my things where they are and put the empty boxes out for recycling, and maybe we carry all your things over from the flat to Fernbank?”

Owen laughs. “Oh my god, yes. Yes, please. All in. Let’s move in together.” He grabs either side of my face and kisses me roughly.

Applause breaks out around us—clapping and whistling and whooping—and I suddenly remember we have an audience. It doesn’t stop me fromsliding my tongue along the crease of his lips until he opens for me and I’m searching his mouth for that familiar reward. I find it when he moans. It’s all I can do not to mount him here in front of everybody. I return with my own groan as I ignore the sudden urgency for friction. Hopefully the tent I’m pitching isn’t too obvious.

Don’t fail me now Picnic Eggs shorts.

From beside us, Daisy coughs. “Guys? Dad? Matt’s still miked up. Just warning you in case you’ve forgotten.”

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