Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Ludo
Somehow, we fudge our way through Rita’s magic soup recipe. Aidan has little interest in what goes in the pot, but he can handle a knife and I can’t, and that’s good enough for me.
We leave the vegetables to simmer with a healthy dash of the all-purpose seasoning I’ve stashed in Aidan’s empty cupboards with the depleted bottle of sunflower oil. Maybe we’ll go shopping again if I ever come back here.
“Come on,” Aidan says. “Let’s go outside.”
Following him is easy, and he leads me onto a cute patio that’s loaded with a wrought-iron bench and a bazillion plant pots.
Flowers, herbs, there’s even a young apple tree, and it’s such a contrast from his soulless flat that I have to pinch myself to be sure my mind isn’t turning yellow. “Wow. This is beautiful.”
Aidan grunts and manoeuvres himself onto the bench, reminding me that he’s been on his feet for the last two hours. “It’s getting there. I lost some plants to frost when I was in hospital and then when I couldn’t bend down, but most of them recovered.”
“So I wasn’t too far off when I bought you that copy of Gardeners’ World?”
He treats me to a self-conscious chuckle. “I guess not. Don’t ask me if I talk to them, though, cos I don’t want to lie to you.”
“You do talk to them.”
“Shut up.”
I purse my lips and crouch to examine his precious plants. He has a basil bush that’s three times the size of the one I bought in the supermarket and about ten shades greener. I smell the perfumed leaves. “This is gorgeous.”
“Have it,” he says. “I don’t do nothing with it.”
“Not yet. I can teach you how . . . if you like?”
Aidan’s eyes brighten enough for my heart to do a little jump. “Would you do that?”
“Of course. I like to cook, when I’m well, at least. It feels like healing, if that makes sense? Like . . . if I put good things in my body, it can only be good for my mind.”
“It makes sense,” Aidan says. “But I’ve always been fonder of the opposite. Abusing my body keeps my mind quiet.”
“I get that.”
The raised flesh on my arms burn. I rub them, and Aiden’s gaze darkens with guilt.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“Why?”
“Because I’m an insensitive twat?”
“Who says you should be sensitive?”
“Everyone I’ve ever met.”
“Well, they’re wrong.” I stand and wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. “I don’t need you to pretend the bad parts of me don’t exist. It makes it too easy for me to do the same.”
“It doesn’t make it better when you can forget about it a while?”
His expression is as open as I’ve ever seen it. I claim the space next to him on the bench and draw a circle on the back of his hand. “You’d think, but no. All that does is make me crash harder when reality bites. I have to accept what bipolar means for me, even the shit bits.”
“There’s good bits?”
I laugh. Can’t help it. “Sometimes. Did I ever tell you my favourite colour is yellow?”
He gets it straight away. Of course he does, and I wonder how many times I’ve told him that before. If I wittered on about it at his bedside when I was manic in the hospital.
Aidan reaches behind him and plucks a tiny yellow flower from a nearby pot, then reaches for another, blue this time. He presses both into my hand but doesn’t speak, and I’m learning that to hear him the loudest, he doesn’t have to.
Aidan doesn’t have a blender, so we pulverise the soup with a handheld drill he’s never used. The vegetables are super soft because we forgot about them simmering on the stove, and they disintegrate perfectly. Maybe it was meant to happen.
I take the pan off the stove while Aidan removes the drill bit and rinses it under the tap. “Is the drill broken now?”
“Wouldn’t matter if it was. It’s been in a box for two years.”
“Is that how long you’ve lived here?”
“No. I’ve been here three years.”
I’m horrified that he’s been going to bed with a sleeping bag for three years, but I bite my tongue. I’ve given him enough earache about his home to last a lifetime. Besides, my house is chaos. Who the hell am I to judge him for keeping things simple?
Simple. Right. It’s a word I often apply to Aidan, and it’s a misnomer really, because he’s dark and complex, and nothing about him is plain to see.
Like now, when he takes the pan from me and peers at the contents.
I can’t tell if he didn’t want me to carry something heavy or if he’s curious about what we’ve made.
Maybe it’s both.
Regardless, he doesn’t have a ladle either, so he pours our dinner into cereal bowls and hands me a teaspoon to eat with. “Sorry, I don’t eat much soup.”
“You should. It’s cheap and good for you.”
“Cheaper than noodles?”
“Overall, yes. You could make four meals for fifty pence.”
“Okay.” He limps to his couch and sits down.
I trail after him and drop beside him. “Try it. I bet it’s nice.”
He dips his spoon into the thick, spicy soup. “It smells nice. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything this orange that wasn’t radioactive.”
“Radioactive?”
“Wotsits,” he clarifies. “Nothing that orange that isn’t a fruit or vegetable can be anything else.”
“Sage advice.”
He answers me by sliding his spoon into his mouth, and I’m instantly distracted by how full his lips are. He’s insanely sexy, and I fight to keep my attraction to him in check. Aidan and I share something I’ve never felt with anyone else. I can’t let the fact that I want to kiss him ruin it.
I can’t ruin it.
“Hey.”
I jump as Aidan’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Huh? What?”
“You spaced,” he says, and I can tell he’s trying not to stare at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t explain, and he doesn’t ask me to. His hand slips from my shoulder and he carries on eating his soup, his face lighting up with genuine pleasure the further down his bowl he gets.
Unable to resist, I dive in too, and I’m rewarded by the magic Rita promised coating my tongue. The soup is sunshine and warmth, and we made it together. I’m sure that makes it taste even better.
We empty our bowls in two minutes flat. Aidan rises to refill us, but I tug him down and go instead.
When we’re full, I put the leftovers in the fridge and return to the couch.
It’s probably time for me to go home, but I don’t want to.
Not yet. I don’t want to leave the tiny bedsit I suddenly feel safe in, and I don’t want to leave Aidan.
You see, two bowls of soup aren’t enough, and it never will be. Aidan needs more from me and from himself.
I crouch in front of him and place my hands on his knees. I’m unsure of what I need to say, and so I don’t say anything. And neither does he, at least, not with words. He leans forwards and takes a breath.
And then he kisses me.