54. Jack
Chapter 54
Jack
“I love you so much,” Morgan said as I nuzzled into her neck, the delicate chains cold against my cheek.
Hip hip, huzzah!
“I love you, too,” I said in her ear. “And I’m so sorry. But I meant it. You can take the job. No matter where you want to be, what you want to do, I’m there.”
Hip hip, huzzah!
“About that,” she said, and I pulled back to see a huge smile on her face. “I actually got a different job.”
“Oh?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.
“Simone helped me get a design job at the R escue. So looks like I’ll be sticking around.”
I swallowed hard as I fought back tears. Was this real life?
As the fervour died down around us, I looked up and around and saw the Queen beckoning to us from the balcony. I grabbed Morgan by the hand and climbed the stairs with her, and the Queen presented us to the crowd once more, and they cheered again. Then we were seated, Morgan draped across my lap rather than on her own seat, and the joust began.
“That was hella romantic,” the Queen said, dropping out of her Ren Faire voice and into a deep southern drawl.
“It really was,” I said, turning to Morgan. “You’re my knight in ornamental armour.”
“Damn straight,” Morgan said, sitting up straighter.
The Queen turned back to the joust, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Morgan. She looked more beautiful to me than she ever had, and not just because of the dress, or because of what had just happened. Though sure, that probably had something to do with it.
No, it was because she looked so confident. So completely herself, in a way I’d never seen her. And I hoped I could spend the rest of my life helping her feel that way.
I leaned over towards her, burying my face in her hair by her ear. I felt her shiver in response, and I let myself for a split second think about the later I knew would be coming.
“Where will you live?” I asked, fully prepared to ask her then and there to move in with me. But she smiled, and I knew she had it taken care of. Of course she did. She’d thought of everything.
“I’m moving in with Fatima,” she said. Suddenly my conversation from earlier made perfect sense; she’d known Morgan was staying in town, because she was part of it. I’d thought she was the one out of the loop, but it turned out to be me.
“She was already panicking about how she’d afford the place without Jared,” Morgan continued, “so it was a match made in heaven. I’ll have to get rid of a lot of stuff though.”
“I’m very good at moving boxes,” I said, and Morgan laughed.
“Don’t I know it.”
We looked out at the joust for a moment, pretending to be interested in what was happening; we were meant to be presiding over it, after all. But if Morgan’s thoughts were anything like mine, they were far from Sir Maximus and his opponent.
“So, there’s actually more,” Morgan said. I leaned my head back and laughed.
“Of fucking course there is. What now?”
Morgan reached down into a pocket in the side of her dress – sorry, Phil had sewn in pockets ?? – and pulled out her phone. She opened it up, and I watched as she squinted at the screen for a moment before chuckling.
“Hah, the Fellowship. That’s funny.”
“Come on, you tease,” I said, reaching my hands up to tickle her waist. She squirmed in my lap, making my trousers go a bit tight, so I pressed onto her hips to still her.
“Well,” she said, “you’ll have to be okay sharing me with another guy.”
I squinted at her in confusion, and she spun her phone around, a picture of Pablo appearing in front of me. It took me a moment to understand what she was saying, but when I did I grabbed the phone out of her hand, then looked back up at her.
“No!”
She nodded as she smiled, biting at her bottom lip. “We can pick him up on Tuesday when we get home.”
I looked up at her with tears in my eyes. “How did you do it?” I asked. “How did you manage to make everything so very right?”
“The same thing as you,” she said with a shrug. “I asked myself what I really wanted. The real me, not the me I’d been trying to force. And it was simple. Yes, I wanted to work in design, but I also wanted game nights with our friends. I wanted this dog. And I wanted you. And once I knew that, it felt like a no-brainer.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because if that’s really what you want, then that’s great. But if you want to go to York, if you want to live somewhere else, we can do that. Or you can do that, and I’ll support you from wherever you want me. I want you to be happy.”
She tilted her face down and rubbed her nose against mine. “ You make me happy, numpty.”
And dammit if the tears didn’t start falling at that very minute.
Morgan sat back and laughed. “Numpty? That’s what put you over the edge?”
“Shut up,” I said, pushing as if to eject her from my lap. “Remember when you used to reward me for showing emotion?”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a baby voice, stroking my face, wiping my already-subsided tears away with her thumbs. “A million emotional XP for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, pulling her in for another kiss. “I couldn’t have levelled up without you.”
“And what about me?” she asked, sitting up straight and posing as if she was being assessed. “Grand romantic gesture in a foreign country, taking over an entire festival? What’s that worth to you?”
“Everything,” I said. “It’s worth everything.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and Morgan must have felt it, too, because she looked down at our laps.
“Save the vibes for the bedroom, babe,” she said with a laugh.
“Very funny,” I said, pulling out my phone to silence it, but not before I saw the text message that had just come through in the Wench Please group chat.
Get a room!!!!!!!!
“I mean, they’ve got a point,” I said, shrugging up at Morgan, who had read the message, too. “Actually, come to think of it, there’s definitely a tree somewhere around here that would be good enough.”
Morgan laughed and hit my arm in what I assumed was meant to be a playful punch, but the whole knight thing was clearly getting to her head, as it actually stung a bit. Even so, I could feel my grin extend not only up to my eyes but even down into my chest.
“I love you so much,” I whispered in her ear, her curls tickling my cheeks.
“Back at ya,” she said, turning to me and kissing me gently on the nose.
“God,” I scoffed, “what kind of dickhead doesn’t say ‘I love you’ back?”
Another playful punch in the same spot, and that one definitely stung.
“Ouch!” I cried. “Take it easy. You’re stronger than you think.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s such a cheesy line.”
Then she leaned in to kiss me properly, and all the trumpets and gallops and huzzahs faded into nothing. Because I finally knew exactly what I wanted, and I had it right here in my arms.