Page 38 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“You’re not a hard person to be around, Phoebs.”
Her head whips around to face me. She blinks.
“What?”
Shake my head, swallow, lick my lips. “You’re not a difficult person. All these things that you or Digby think are bad qualities, they’re not—they’re just you and if he can’t see that then…”
“You don’t think I’m difficult?” She whispers.
“No,” I say, proudly. I’d scream it from the rooftops, tattoo it on myself because that’s how truthful it is. There isn’t an inch of doubt inside of me when I tell her. “I think you’re the best person I’ve ever known.”
She shakes her head, closes her eyes. “Don’t say that.”
“Why?” I shrug.
She chews her lip, looks conflicted. “Because I have a boyfriend.”
“And he doesn’t think the same as me?”
A second goes by, tilts her legs to the left instead of crossing them because my mum told her it was the way women should sit when she was about seven—done it ever since.
“How can he think that about me if I don’t think that about myself?”
My eyes don’t leave her face.
I never want to leave her again.
“Because I think it.”
“That doesn’t matter—”
I stand up, about to go to bed before I lean over and kiss her, point at her. “If you want to believe in something, believe in the fact that you are the best person I’ve ever known. Phoebe, I’ll die the happiest man on earth knowing that there was a time when I loved you and you loved me back.”
I start to walk off, she turns, looks at me over the back of the sofa.
“I still love—”
“Don’t.” Shake my head, want more than anything for her to finish that sentence. It’s a thousand pins in my eyes. “You have a boyfriend.”
Her eyes well up, the hand clutching the cushion begins to tremble. She sucks her bottom lip in. “But you know, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I sniff, glancing away. “But don’t tell me until you’re ready because when you are, I’m going all in, Phoebs. I’m not running away this time.”
She doesn’t bother to wipe the tears that stream down her cheeks. “Okay. Goodnight, Arthur.”
I stand there for a second, hands shaking, heart rattling, thoughts evaporated.
“Fuck it,” I mutter, go over there and kiss her.
It’s rough, unplanned but perfect nonetheless. Hands cupping her face, I smash my lips to hers. She’s taken back, doesn’t move but I feel the warmth of her tears as they slide into my mouth.
When I pull back, she blinks a good few times, a small smile on her face and that’s the cost of it—that smile is fucking priceless.
I wipe away my own smile, glance out of the window, then back to her. “Don’t tell me yet.”
“But…” she trails off, giggles a bit,
I laugh. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
