Page 124 of ICED
“Is this what you wanted?” I ask her quietly.
She nods, fingers brushing over the paper. “Exactly.”
“Then let’s make sure it goes up on her walls.”
She looks at me, eyes shining. “You’re going to make me cry in the middle of B&Q.”
I grin. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s cried over wallpaper.”
Maya laughs, half-choked, and leans into me. I hold her close while Lila returns with a lampshade shaped like a rainbow and announces its“just right for cloud princess dreams.”
That night, while Lila’s curled up in the guest room with her new bedding, I help Maya fold laundry in the living room.
“You sure this isn’t too much?” she asks for the tenth time, smoothing out a shirt.
I tug the shirt from her hands, drop it on the couch, and pull her gently into my arms. “Listen,” I say into her hair, “I want a life with you. That means sharing the load. And building a castle bed for a tiny queen if that’s what she wants.”
She laughs into my chest. “Sheisa tiny queen.”
We stay like that, holding on, not just to each other but to the sense that maybe, just maybe, we’re building something that can last.
Later that night, after Lila falls asleep with the cloud pillow tucked under her chin and the duvet bunched aroundher, Maya and I end up side by side on the sofa. The house is quiet except for the low hum of the fridge and the distant creak of the central heating.
She’s sitting cross-legged, nursing a mug of camomile tea, the sleeves of my Raptors hoodie pulled down over her hands.
“I know this isn’t forever,” she says softly, without looking at me.
I study her for a second. The curve of her cheek in the lamplight. The crease between her brows that doesn’t seem to ease unless Lila’s giggling or she’s up to her elbows in dough.
“No,” I say. “But it doesn’t have to be temporary either.” She glances up. “I meant what I said earlier,” I continue. “You’ve been doing this alone a long time, M. You don’t have to anymore.”
Maya swallows. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not.”
“I just,” Her voice wavers. “I worked so hard for that flat. For the right to call something mine. Even if it’s small. Even if the plumbing sucks and the boiler rattles every time we shower. It’s ours.”
I nod, quietly. I get it. More than she probably realises.
“But this,” she says, gesturing around the room, then to the hallway where Lila’s soft snores drift from the guest room, “this feels… safe. And I don’t know what to do with that yet.”
“You don’t have to do anything with it,” I say. “Just let it be true.”
She looks at me then, like she’s seeing past all the bulk and the hockey gear and the dumb jokes I use as armour. Her eyes soften. And something loosens in her face, something that’s been clenched tight since the moment I met her.
I reach over and brush a piece of hair behind her ear.
“I was thinking I’d head back to the flat tomorrow morning, after training,” I say. “Just grab a few more things. Lila’sstar projector. Some clothes. I’ll get that window boarded up.”
Maya’s expression tightens. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Ollie will help. He loves a good excuse to wield a power tool.”
That gets a tired smile out of her. “You’ll be careful?”
“Always.”
I lean in, press a kiss to her forehead, and stay there for a long moment. Just breathing her in. Just being still.
