Page 161 of Fe
Ripley stared at him without blinking. “Your health?”
“You know I won’t have a long life.”
Ripley tightened his hold on Fen’s hand. “We’re all dying.”
“Yes, but I don’t… I don’t want you to watch me slowly deteriorate as my body gives up on me. One day I’ll need a wheelchair. I’ll probably have to use a ventilator. Then my heart will decide it can’t cope and I’ll die.”
“You don’t know what’s going to happen. You could get knocked down by a bus tomorrow.” Ripley groaned. “What I should have said was no one knows how long any of our lives will be.”
“That’s true and sort of the code I live by but that doesn’t factor in the effect of my illness on other people.”
“There’s one thing I know. My life would be better with you in it, whether that’s for five years or fifty.”
“I won’t last another fifty.”
“You don’t know that. Medical advances are being made all the time. I don’t believe you’re so defeatist.”
He wasn’t. But he couldn’t pin his dreams on what might or might not happen.
“What about the new drug? It could work a miracle. If not this one, then another.” Ripley pulled him round and into his arms. “Stop trying to push me away. I understand the situation. This is my choice too. Not just yours. We’re both broken in one way or another, but together we’re just about whole. Okay for now is all we can ever be. And we are okay, aren’t we?”
Fen sighed.
“The stupid thing is I thought it would be me needing to push you away.” Ripley brushed snow from Fen’s hair.
“Because you worried I’d become too attached? That I’d hope you’d change your mind about the six months and fall in love with me and not want to let me go?”
“I didn’t need six months.”
Fen tensed. The atmosphere between them thickened and tightened until Fen found it hard to breathe. Ripley hadn’t actually said the words but…I hear them.
“I’m reminded of something Winston Churchill once said.Lawyers occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.Well, I’ve stumbled over the truth but I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”
As Ripley said the words, snow started to fall more heavily, thick flakes landing on them and melting. Fen opened his mouth, then closed it again before eventually coming out with— “You love me?”
“Want me to say it again?”
“Well, I hope you’re not only going to say it once and that’s all I get.”
Ripley smiled. “I.”Kiss.“Love.”Kiss.“You.”Kiss.
“Is it because I’m the son of James Bond?”
“Obviously.”
“I’m going to pick the perfect time to say it back to you. Probably when you stand up in court about to address a jury. Or when your mum asks you to pass the salt when we’re round for dinner. Is that likely to happen? Dinner, I mean?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll think of a perfect time to say it. When you buy me another sandwich. When would be more appropriate than that?”
“You’re babbling.”
“I know. Shut me up.”
The kiss was everything. Fen forgot all the reasons why this wouldn’t work and only thought of how much he wanted it to work, how much he wanted Ripley.
“Everything is better with you,” Fen whispered. “You make me feel stronger. I know you’re there to catch me if I fall.”
