Chapter Sixteen
Oliver
“So let me get this straight,” Bastian said, pointing a wooden chip fork at me.
“Lane was your childhood best friend and first boyfriend, then it ended horribly when you went to university, and now you’re living together while he renovates your nan’s old house, which you think you’re going to sell, but you’re not sure? ”
“That’s about it.” We were sitting on a bench near the beach, eating chips in the sunshine like two teenagers skiving off school or two old ladies on a day out.
I wondered whether I should be telling Bastian all this, but he was easy to talk to and one of the only people I knew who had a neutral outlook on my relationship with Lane.
He hadn’t been there for the past, so I was hoping he’d have something of an unbiased opinion. “And we’re also…”
“Ohhh, I wondered if there was something going on between you last night,” Bastian said with a grin. “You didn’t look like just friends.”
“Was it that obvious?”
“To me at least,” Bastian said. “But I didn’t want to ask because you hadn’t said anything. I wasn’t sure if it was something new you didn’t want to label.”
“It’s not. I mean, I don’t want to label it. We said it was just something fun for the summer, but…”
“You’re not sure if it is?” I nodded. Bastian stabbed at a chip and thought for a second. “Did you talk to him about it?”
“No, I haven’t. I know I should, at some point at least, because the thing that fucked it all up last time was poor communication.
I’m just worried I’m reading too much into this, and that Lane thinks it’s just something fun while I’m trying not to regurgitate a million feelings at him.
” I sighed and nudged a chip with my fork.
“I’m sorry for dumping on you. We literally only met on Monday, and now I’m spewing all this random shit at you. ”
“It’s fine,” Bastian said with a warm smile that suggested he meant it. “I think queer friendship is like that sometimes. You go straight from hello to the size of your favourite dildo.”
I snorted because it was sort of true. Most of my housemates in London were queer, and the first time I’d met Nils—the day I’d moved in—he’d introduced himself, then asked if he looked fuckable in his jeans and whether a pink or blue jock would look better.
He’d even shown up at my bedroom door in one while holding the other so I’d be able to make an informed decision. I’d told him blue.
“What are you going to do?” Bastian asked.
I looked out across the bay, letting the sun warm my face.
Even with everything going on with Lane, I still felt more relaxed than I had in ages.
It was nice to be able to get up from my desk at lunch and potter around for a bit or meet someone to grab food.
I mean, I could do that in London, but it was always so busy it felt like I could never go far.
Plus, a casual lunch was a thousand times more expensive.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I know I should talk to him, but I also think I need to figure out what I want. I still don’t know whether I want to stay here or not, and I can’t have an honest conversation with him if I don’t know all the answers.
I can’t tell him we can give our relationship another shot if I’m not going to be here in six weeks. ”
I wanted to dive in and pretend nothing existed outside of what Lane and I were doing, but that was impossible.
I owed it to him, and to myself, to figure my shit out before we had the conversation.
I couldn’t ask him if he had feelings for me when I couldn’t promise him anything more than a couple weeks of fun.
But that didn’t mean I wanted to stop what we were doing either.
Maybe if we kept walking this path, the destination would become clear.
It would at least give me a chance to work out what I was going to do.
A tiny part of me was starting to wonder whether going back to London was the right choice, but I knew it was too soon to make that decision.
I’d worked so hard to get where I was that I wasn’t going to give it all up because two weeks away had inverted my entire life.
“I think that’s sensible,” Bastian said.
“But my one piece of advice would be not to leave it too long. If you don’t talk to him, you won’t have any idea what he’s feeling, and that can just make things messy.
It’s always better to know where you stand with each other, even if it hurts.
You said that’s what sank you last time, so if you want another chance, you can’t let it happen again. ”
I nodded and stabbed another couple of chips onto my fork. Bastian was right. This was my second chance. And this time, I had to get it right.
I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about my conversation with Bastian while trying, and failing, to get some work done.
Lane had said he was happy for me to work from his house, so I’d taken my laptop to the sofa and stretched out with Sparrow’s head on my lap.
It wasn’t the most practical position to try and edit, but it was comfortable, and it wasn’t like I was actually getting much done.
By the time I realised I’d read the same paragraph four times and processed none of it, it was pushing four, and I’d barely worked my way through ten pages since I’d sat down over two hours ago—something that should only have taken me thirty minutes to an hour at most. I rubbed Sparrow’s ears and chuckled as she huffed contentedly, then switched over to my emails.
It was easier to answer a few simple questions than concentrate on taking a novel apart.
I really wanted to do something special for Lane that evening as a thanks for everything he’d done for me over the week. He’d opened his home to me without a second thought, given me a place to stay and work, and folded me into his life.
Plus, he’d given me the most incredible orgasms every night, and I was incredibly grateful for that.
It really was like nothing had happened between us, like time had somehow skipped forward but left us in the same place, a little older but maybe not wiser.
If I were wiser, I’d have thought about all the potential outcomes of this fling before I begged Lane to bend me over the counter.
But it was too late now, and I couldn’t say I regretted any of it.
“What shall we do, Sparrow?” I asked as I tapped out another polite but inane email to marketing. “Do you think dinner would work?”
Lane had a beautiful kitchen and had told me he was happy for me to make the most of it.
I hadn’t had a chance to do much since I’d arrived, but that night felt like the perfect opportunity to flex my culinary muscles.
Various options popped into my mind like I was flicking through a mental cookbook.
It didn’t need to be complicated, but it did need to be delicious.
Gently removing Sparrow from my lap, I climbed off the sofa and left my laptop on the nearby coffee table. Nobody would know if I ducked out for half an hour, and I sincerely doubted anything urgent was going to drop into my inbox this late in the afternoon.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” I said to Sparrow, who thumped her tail on the sofa before stretching out to her full length.
I grabbed the spare key Lane had left me, made sure my wallet was in my pocket, and ducked out of the house.
I had an idea in mind, and I hoped I’d be able to get everything I wanted before the shops closed.
It didn’t take long to walk back into town while quickly scanning Google maps for the shops I wanted.
I knew Heather Bay had a great range of independent food shops—from butchers and fishmongers, who sold their catches straight off the boat, to cheesemongers and delis, to greengrocers full of crates stacked with fruit and veg—and I wanted to check them out.
If I couldn’t get what I wanted, then I’d head to the little supermarket not far up the road, but I was hopeful.
And I was in luck. Despite my horrible sense of direction and the time, I still managed to get my hands on some beautiful steaks, some fresh herbs, and fat, floury potatoes as well as some corn on the cob.
I also grabbed some enormous meringues sandwiched together with cream and fresh fruit from the bakery attached to the butcher.
I’d never been as good with sweet as I was with savoury, and I didn’t want to split my focus by trying to do too much.
When I returned to the house, Sparrow wound her way around my feet, clearly drawn to the smell of food. I chuckled and sent Lane a message asking if I should feed her, mostly because I felt bad about preparing our dinner in front of her.
“Maybe if you’re good, I’ll sneak you a bit of steak,” I said as I unpacked everything. Sparrow snorted, and I shook my head. “You’re right. I’ll give you some anyway.”
I washed my hands and spent a couple of minutes working out how to turn Lane’s oven on to preheat since it was fancier than any I’d seen before, then I started to prep the potatoes, making deep slices into each a few millimetres apart.
One day, I was going to splash out and get myself a couple of posh knives like the Japanese steel ones I’d seen a couple of chefs using in various TV shows.
They were expensive, though, and my budget didn’t stretch that far, especially not living in London where I had to count every penny.
I loved working in publishing, but it definitely didn’t pay well.
After I’d sliced the potatoes, I drizzled them with oil, making sure to rub it carefully into the skin before adding some crushed garlic cloves to the pan and grinding salt over the top.
Sparrow had melted into a puddle on the floor beside me, and after I’d shoved the potatoes into the oven, I checked my phone to see if Lane had replied.
“You’re in luck,” I said, glancing down at Sparrow, who was trying to pretend she’d never been fed. “Lane’s just told me what to feed you, so it looks like you don’t have to wait.”
I’d never seen a dog roll their eyes harder.
I laughed. Clearly, she was used to better service.
It didn’t take me long to find everything and fill her bowl, and it made my chest glow as she spun at my feet.
I’d fallen in love with Sparrow when I’d first met her as a leggy, fluffy, eight-week-old puppy, even though I’d never spent much time with dogs before that.
I’d always hoped that one day I’d be in a position to get a dog of my own, but so far, that idea was still a distant speck on the horizon.
If you lived here, you could have a dog, a small voice in my head whispered. I shook the thought away. Even if it was the truth, it wasn’t something I should be thinking about.
Except… maybe it would be nice. Waking up in the morning and walking a dog along the beach, taking them to the pub on Friday nights to chill under the table in the garden, curling up with them on the sofa in the winter while the cottage’s log burner roared and rain hammered against the window.
I could even turn one of the old bedrooms into an office and put an armchair in the corner for the dog to sleep on.
After all, editing could be done from anywhere, and if I could work here while the cottage was being renovated, why couldn’t I do it full-time?
Heather Bay would be cheaper than living in London, and I’d be closer to Mum.
I’d be closer to Lane too.
And maybe then I’d be able to give us a chance.
A real chance, instead of just burying my head in the sand and hoping everything would be okay, even though I hadn’t made any plans.
I couldn’t have both a life in London and a life here.
I had to choose. And only one of them offered the opportunity for love…
“Hey, I’m back!” The slamming of the front door accompanied Lane’s voice and shattered my concentration.
And it made my heart soar.