Page 78 of Just Like You
“We’ll be okay.” He moved off me, instead snuggling into my side. “Whatever doubts you have about all of this? We will be okay. A little at a time.”
“Do you have any doubts?”
“Of course I do. I wonder if I have somehow influenced you and made you make decisions you weren’t comfortable with. If you’ll turn around in a month’s time and just walk away.”
“Kieron,” I said sternly. “I married you yesterday. I have no doubts. Zero. I just hope we can navigate all this change and still be us. I’m scared; I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t. But it’s okay. You know, when I was promoted to be in charge on board? I cried in the loos before my first briefing. I thought I would go in there and everyone would just smirk and look at me like I was a complete weirdo. Like I had a hat sayingNew and stupidon my head.”
“Julian,” he said. His voice made me smile.
“I was neither new nor stupid, and everything was fine. I made a lot of mistakes that first year, and sometimes even now, I get things wrong. Jump to conclusions and let my mouth run when it shouldn’t. I’ll probably do that with you as well.”
“And when you do? I’ll just snog you into silence.” He did as well. Another soft kiss on my lips.
“You smell of sex.”
“I hope I do. I just had it.”
“Dirty boy.”
“Didn’t even get to fuck you.”
“Still came. All over me.”
He grinned. His chest jumping with held-back laughter.
“We will be fine. And let me promise you this. Dead serious.”
“What?”
“Whenever you get angry at me? I can take it. Tell me. Shout at me if you need to and then step back and let me stew it over for a bit. I usually end up apologising and making it all better. I was rude to one of the PAs a few weeks ago and had to buy her some kind of coffee drink to apologise. Now all the girls are pulling that one on me, leaving Post-its with their drinks orders like I’m some kind of…runner.”
“Kieron.” I sighed.
“Yeah, but it’s warranted because they’re all ridiculous, and yeah. I’m in the wrong because I trashed their proposal in front of a client. I’m having to eat humble pie there.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I was starting to get to know him. How sometimes he was this high-flying financial manager, professionalism and strength oozing from his fingertips. At other times? He was still the lost boy who had been so brutally yanked from his childhood. The man who made mistakes and had to live with them. The man who also held me so tight that I thought he might snap me in half.
It was just who he was. And what did that make me? It made me…
Strong. Powerful.
Soft.
Loved.
I was loved. I was so loved that it actually hurt a little. And he made me exactly who I wanted to be. The guy with the power to love him back. The man who lifted him up. The person who was lying here, tipping his chin up and making him smile.
“It will be fine. Everyone loves a treat. Just don’t do it again.”
“Oh, I won’t. Trust me. I never make the same mistake twice.”
He looked at me. Really looked at me.
“You will never be a mistake, Julian. You might not know it now, but I know. You’re everything, and I will make you happy. Come hell or high water, I will make you happy.”
“You already do,” I whispered.
“Good,” he said.
