Chapter 18 #3
I slump on the bonnet because of course I have, because it isn’t some faceless generic man, it’s Lo in all his complicated awkwardness and beauty.
It’s him with his sharp-boned face and soft full lips, his soft affectionate nature and the fierceness with which he holds me at night.
Complicated and wonderful, he’s my Lo, and that’s how he will always be.
Since the night in the gallery, I’ve striven to believe that we can make a long-distance relationship work.
That some cosmopolitan and arty man won’t sweep him off his feet.
However, sitting now alone and dampened by the rain that’s starting to fall, I remember something I missed.
Lo is loyal. He might be quiet and unassuming, but he’s the most fiercely loyal person I know.
I let that sink in so that when the train chugs out of the station and past my perch, I’m able to lift my hand to wave goodbye.
Although I look hard, I can’t see him because of the rain that’s starting to come down hard now.
Still, I imagine him sitting in his seat looking out at me while he prepares to conquer the world of painting restoration one quiet word at a time.
It gives me the strength to smile in case he’s watching even though my heart feels torn in two.
The train vanishes, leaving me in the desolate carpark with the scent of diesel and wet leaves on the air.
I sit for a few minutes, unwilling to get up and go because it almost feels like I’m abandoning him and us.
Finally, when the rain has become a downpour, I recognise the idiocy of my actions and I slide off the bonnet and let myself back into the car and start the engine.
I turn on the heater and wait for the windscreen to clear.
The blades of the wipers are almost hypnotic, and I stare into the distance, listening to their comforting swish.
They must have lulled me into a stupor which accounts for the reason why, when there’s a thump on the window, I squeal like a little girl. The carpark’s gloomy now and the window’s steamed up, so I use the button to lower the window and then sit in stunned immobility. “ You ?”
Milo peers through the window. His hair is plastered to his face and neck, his skin is winter white, and his teeth are chattering, but his eyes are free from the panic that’s been in them since the gallery, and they’re steady and soft and warm again the way they always are when he looks at me.
The way he’s always looked at me, I realise with a shock of recognition. “Me,” he says.
There’s a short pause while we stare at each other. “Why aren’t you on the train?” My voice is rough and hoarse, and his eyes burn into mine.
“I didn’t want to go,” he says simply.
“Not for me?” I say hoarsely. “Sweetheart, you know we’ll be fine.”
“I know,” he says quietly, cutting through my jumble of words as if he’s shouted.
He doesn’t need to do that, I’ve discovered.
He just speaks and I listen. I always have, even when he was a little boy following me and Gideon around.
“I know we’ll be fine. I never doubted it.
You and I are together now and nothing, no distance, no other person is going to change that.
” There’s a stark simplicity to his words that makes tears form at the back of my eyes.
“Then why?”
“For me.” He swipes his hand across his face. “I love you, but if I’d needed to go I would still have gone. I think I needed to test it.”
“And you worked out the result when you got on the train?”
He smiles. “I’m a quick study.” He grips the window frame.
“I realised that I was only going to prove myself in other people’s eyes when the only person whose opinion was relevant was me, and I’m happy.
To others, I might be wasting my talents burying myself alive in the country.
But to me, I’m happy and freer than I’ve ever been.
I’m at home at the Dower House, at Chi an Mor .
I have friends and a rich, wonderful life and I’m in love. With you. I don’t need anything else.”
We stare at each other for a long second and then he gives that impish grin that I think I’m the only one who sees the wicked edge to it. “I’m also wondering why I’m standing outside in the pouring rain declaring my love to someone who’s dry and warm.”
I jerk and fumble to open the door. “Get in here,” I say hoarsely.
He tumbles in, laughing, and my arms are suddenly full of him.
The long slender length of him, the wide gawky shoulders and wild, wet waves of hair.
I bury my nose in his neck, inhaling the scent of lemon and rosemary and feeling everything settle inside me for the first time in weeks.
“I love you,” I say hoarsely. “I’m so glad you stayed. ”
He kisses me or I kiss him. I don’t know. All I know is that my hands and head are full of him and that’s the way it always will be.
Finally, we pull back and give each other slightly shaky smiles. “Let’s go,” I say. “I feel like we’ve been separated for years. We need make-up sex and lots of it.”
He palms my cock, giving a throaty moan of appreciation. “Let’s go.”
I smirk. “You do know Oz is going to want his present back, don’t you?”
He laughs. “He’s never going to let me forget this.”
I stick the car in reverse but still in sudden horrified shock when there’s a dull thud as I back out. “ Shit !” I groan. “Oh my God, what did I just run over?”
For a second there’s silence and then, incredibly, he laughs. “My suitcase. I put it at the back of the car ready to go in the boot.”
“And that’s what I ran over?” He nods, and I relax and grin. “Just so you know, I’m totally going to go back and forwards over it a few times just to make sure you never leave me again.”
“Never,” he says happily and gives a contented sigh. “Take me home, Niall.”
So I do. With his hand a warm weight on my thigh and his sweet herby scent in my nose, I steer the car towards Chi an Mor . Towards the Dower House. But not towards home because my home is riding by the side of me.