Chapter Forty-Two
MILES
PRESENT
“You didn’t even see the Eiffel Tower? Are you insane?”
I just shrug, pulling a jar of cocoa from Marina’s cupboard. “I heard it’s really not all that.”
“Miles!” She looks at me wide-eyed. “You didn’t think to go find out?”
I did think about it, but the reality of my situation is what stopped me. “It felt silly to go look at something like that by myself. I’d stand there wishing I could turn and tell someone how beautiful it was and no one would be there.” It sounds pathetic, but I know I can say it in front of her.
Her eyes soften. “You really never stayed in one place for more than a few days?”
She pops the lid off the jar and begins measuring it out.
I pick up the sieve, holding it over the mixing bowl and she tips the cocoa over it.
“I used to. I mean, I had the summer house. I would spend a week, maybe two, there every year. I spent a week with Isla and May at their dorms in college. You can imagine just how traumatising that was for me. ”
She snorts, measuring out the flour as I shake the sieve, letting the fine powder sift through the tiny gaps.
“But after everything that happened with us… No,” I shake my head, “I never really stopped to take a breath. Not until now.”
“Wasn’t that lonely?” She looks up at me, her eyes filled with sympathy.
“Yeah, princess,” I say. “It was.”
She pops up on her toes, pressing a sugary kiss to my lips. Marina has been tasting the brownie mixture at every stage to make sure it’s coming along right.
We decided today was the perfect day to tick another thing off our list, and considering it’s drizzly outside, Marina decided it was the right day for brownies.
She picks up her pink spatula that has little cherries on it and pushes the mixture around the bowl. She’s got that energy about her, the one where I can tell she wants to say something, but she’s not sure if she should.
We’ve been living in a bubble for the last two weeks, and it feels like a dream.
Calling Marina mine again is something I never thought I would do, but she said it.
I’m yours. And she’s said it over and over since then, like a whispered prayer, like something she’s hoping will stay true if she says it often enough.
But she doesn’t need to pray, because there’s not a chance I’m letting her slip away, not this time.
“Just say it, baby.”
“What?” She doesn’t meet my gaze, her focus completely on the mixture in front of her.
I dip my finger into the brown mixture and smear a blob of it on the tip of her nose.
Her mouth drops open and she spins to look at me.
“I really want this to turn out well, but don’t think I won’t waste this whole mixture making you wish you didn’t just do that.
” I can’t help but grin, I love her sassy side.
I wipe the mixture from her nose with my finger and then slip it into my mouth, licking the chocolate taste off my skin.
“Don’t do that,” she says. “Don’t be hot now. ”
I just shake my head. “Just say whatever it is that’s rolling around in that head of yours.”
She sighs, dropping the spatula into the bowl and giving me her attention.
I lean my hip against the counter, watching as she bites the inside of her lip. We’ve been living in this bubble of happiness, ignoring anything outside of the feeling of being together again, so I know she’s nervous to rock the boat.
I brush my hand across her cheek. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.”
She’s still struggling to believe that things between us aren’t going to end the same way twice. Quiet conversations with our heads on her pillows have been filled with her every worry, and me doing my best to tell her that this time will be different.
But words are simply that; nothing will convince her more than my actions matching exactly what I’m telling her.
“If—“ she lets out a big breath. “If you hadn’t got hurt, you were going to leave the next day.”
“Yeah.” I won’t try to pretend that wasn’t true.
“What would’ve happened then?”
I run my hand down her arm, landing my fingers in between hers.
“I was already planning in my head how to ask my boss for more time off so that I could come back soon.” I squeeze her hand in mine, as if emphasising the words.
“At that point, I didn’t believe I had half a chance with you.
I was convinced that even friends would be a stretch, so I decided to come back in a few months, see if you’d changed your mind. ”
“But then you got hurt.”
“Then I got hurt.” I nod, sliding my arms around her waist. “And the only person I wanted to see was sitting at my bedside the entire time. It scared me, the thought of not working for so long. Initially my mind went straight to worry, to stress, that I’d fucked everything up by getting hurt.
But seeing you there beside me,” her hazel eyes hold me hostage as I speak.
“I realized what I had gained, more time with you. And that seemed to make everything better.”
“So getting beaten up was really the best gift you could’ve gotten,” she says with a small smile.
“It gave me this,” I say, pushing her hair behind her ear. “So yeah, I’d say I’m pretty lucky.” She snorts, shaking her head before I smile against her mouth, catching her lips in a searing kiss.
I’m waiting for her to ask me what’s going to happen in just over two weeks when I’m supposed to be cleared for work, and I don’t know how I’m going to answer.
With every passing day, I’m getting closer to needing to make a decision, and simultaneously getting further away from feeling confident about making one.
All I feel about the idea of going back to work is dread, and I’m not sure what that means for me.
But Marina doesn’t ask, she just goes back to her brownies. “Can you get the tin?” she asks. “Third drawer from the left.”
I nearly trip over her ankle as I squeeze past her to get to the drawer. Her kitchen is barely big enough for two people.
“This would be so much easier at the house,” I mutter under my breath as I pull the tin out of the drawer.
“What? The B&B?” she asks. “I don’t think we would get a second of peace.”
“No,” I look down at my feet. I guess this is as good a time as any. “Not the B&B, the house.”
“What house, Miles?”
I have to force my knee to stay still as I drive up the paved driveway to the house I put an offer on when Isla and I went house hunting. As soon as I walked through the door and saw the big wooden kitchen with a white marble countertop, I was sold.
I pull up, putting my truck in park in front of the double wooden doors, the top half decorated with stained glass windows.
It reminded me so much of my window at the Lost and Found that I had an immediate good feeling as soon as we pulled up behind the realtor that day.
“Miles,” Marina’s voice is wary as she unbuckles her seatbelt, “whose house is this?” I don’t answer, I just open my door and jump out. I hear her door open not a second after mine, and they fall shut at the same time.
“Miles.”
I reach out for her hand, pulling her towards the light stucco building as I pull a key out of my back pocket. I feel nervous, more nervous than I thought I would be.
I slide it into the doorknob, barely breathing as the lock pops open. I push on the door, letting Marina walk through first.
She’s quiet as she walks through the small entryway, taking note of the staircase on her right before turning to her left. She floats down the single step that leads her into the open living space, the kitchen being the first thing she sees as I follow her down.
“What?” She looks down at the wooden floors. “I feel like I should take my shoes off.” I chuckle as she slides her feet out of her sneakers, walking further into the space in her little socks.
Her hands find the marble top immediately, she runs her palms across it until she notices the little gold key sitting by the edge.
“Miles, what’s going on?” She turns around to face me, and the look in her eye is one I can’t read. “Whose house is this?”
“It’s mine,” I say, taking a step towards her. “It can be yours too, if you want it to be. I didn’t get a place with this big of a kitchen just for myself.”
Her eyes are wide. “What are you talking about?”
I reach out to grab her hand, pulling her through the space.
“Here, I envisioned a big dining table, one that can host all of our friends, and your parents too.” I move further into the space.
“ And here,” I bring her to the spot where the space narrows slightly, “the perfect wall for a sixty-inch TV where you can watch as many Julia Roberts rom-coms as you like. I’ll be mowing the lawn out there.
” I turn her to face the glass sliding doors that provide the most gorgeous view of the ocean, but also show off the enormity of the backyard.
It was on my list of non-negotiables. A big kitchen and a big yard. A space that we can fill with love and laughter, and maybe children one day.
“Miles.” She shakes her head, and I take a step back from her, giving her a second to breathe, but she grabs my hand, wrenching me back to hold her as she looks out over the view.
I tell myself to relax, that the fact that she is holding me like this means she’s happy, but I can feel the tension stuck in my shoulders. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. But this place will be here whenever you’re ready.”
She grabs onto my forearms that are wrapped around her. “When did you get this place?”
“A few weeks ago,” I say into her ear before pressing a kiss just below it. My heart is still beating like crazy. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“Before we…”
I chuckle against her skin, and I watch as goosebumps crawl up her neck. “Yeah, baby, before that.”
“But you didn’t know… I mean… What could happen—I just…” She shakes her head. “This place is huge, an entire family could live here comfortably.”
“Well, that’s what I’m hoping for one day.
” She’s stopped breathing. I unwrap myself from around her and spin her to face me.
“I don’t want you to feel any pressure about anything, okay?
I don’t want you to feel like you need to move in tomorrow—I don’t even have furniture yet—I just want you to know that it’s here, and that key over there,” I nod back towards the kitchen.
“It’s yours. You can do whatever you want with it.
Hook it onto your keychain or hide it in your junk drawer, whatever you want, but it’s yours. ”
It feels scary to say it, to put myself on the line like this. I can’t say I won’t be disappointed if she chooses the second option, but I also wouldn’t blame her. This is a lot, and it’s soon. But it also feels like it’s been years in the making.
“What about…” Her words fall away as she takes in the space once more. “You bought a house here?”
“I told you, you’re all I want. You, me, a house with a big kitchen where you can bake all the brownies your heart desires.” Her lips curve into a smile that she can’t hold back. “I’ll figure the rest out later. We come first. You come first.”
She slowly spins back around and walks over to the doors, sliding them open to let the sea breeze sweep through the space as she steps out onto the grass. Her hands fall onto her hips as she looks around the garden.
I lean against the gigantic door frame. “What do you think, princess?”
She turns to face me, and this time I can read the look in her eyes perfectly. “I think we need some furniture. Maybe some cutlery, ooh! And a standing mixer!”
“Is that a yes?”
She smirks as she approaches me, her hands sliding up the front of my shirt. “I dunno, we might need to test out the acoustics in here. In every room really.” Her hand finds the button of my jeans.
“You wanna know if the neighbors can hear you screaming, baby?” I say. “Because we can test that theory.”
“Show me the bedroom?”