33. Faye
33
FAYE
I’m your idiot, Peanut.
Four words that hadn’t left Faye’s mind since they’d returned to her father’s house, between groaning curses at the television. Why wouldn’t any of the channels work? Now they were stuck here all night without anything to do.
Kissing Bash next door had made this tension dangling above them worse. She’d admitted to herself that levelling him up at his own game wasn’t her finest moment of judgement, but the TV spewing out error code after error code was the final straw.
In a huff, Faye dropped the remote on the sofa, then herself, and waited for whatever witty retort would come from the silent observer at the other end.
All of her frustrations had given her a headache. She was supposed to have arrived home today to open up Baked early tomorrow morning. Now, after two days of closure, there wouldn’t be any doughnuts fresh for reopening, which meant they’d have to stay closed another day and spend all day baking to be ready for the day after that. Numbers and timings and ingredient stock lists swam through her head as she sneered at the blank screen on the wall .
Bash was too silent. Faye’s head fell back against the sofa and turned to eye him. Clearly comfortable, he slouched, knees spread in his blue jeans with hands clasped in his lap, studying her.
Here she was, nostrils flaring like a runaway horse, and there he was all soft-eyed and gooey. Faye’s traitorous heart stumbled over itself at those crinkles by his eyes. He still hadn’t shaved and his beard had turned into an actual one – one her nails restlessly wanted to scratch through.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Bash said in a quieter voice than normal.
“ That .” She flippantly gestured at his face, and his gooey look flattened into one betraying nothing at all before he turned his eyes away.
“Sorry.” He sighed, flattening his hands on his thighs only to rub them back and forth.
Ugh. No. They weren’t doing this again.
“Hey—” Faye dropped her hand on the sofa cushion between them a little too impatiently. “What’s wrong?”
Bash shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong.”
Which meant that something definitely was. Since when did he hide his feelings?
“You’re being weird.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are. You never look at me like that.” Though that look had gone, and Faye surprised herself with how much she wanted it to come back.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re in love with me, or something.” Words. Words. Words .
“Well maybe I am.”
Whatever the reason for Faye’s annoyance flew straight out of her mind. She was suddenly weightless, staring at Bash, because she was sure that she’d just heard him say?—
“What?” Her exhale shuddered .
Eyes wide and white, Bash pressed his lips together. “Hm?”
Faye’s pulse thundered wildly as she sat up straight. “You just said?—”
“No. No, I?—”
“You did just say?—”
“Forget about it. It doesn’t matter. Ignore me.” Bash stood so quickly it made Faye dizzy, and he was halfway out of the room before she could react.
“Bash—” Her throat closed around his name as she scrambled over the back of the sofa.
“I’m going to get some work done.” He didn’t turn, striding down the hall for the stairs.
Butterflies danced in a whirlwind behind Faye’s chest. “What did you mean?”
“I brought my laptop with me. I’ve got mockups for a bathroom I need to look over before?—”
“That’s not what I meant— Ah!” Damn it. Her fluffy socks were too slippery on the floor panels and Faye skidded about all over the place. Not helpful. “What did you mean ‘Well maybe I am’?”
“Nothing.” Bash’s shoulders hunched up around his ears again, hands deep within his pockets, shrinking in on himself. But this was one thing that he couldn’t avoid her about.
“Bash—” Faye managed to wrap her fingers around his wrist and stop him before he got too far. He didn’t shrug her off, but she still wasn’t prepared for this. “You never say things that you don’t mean. What’s happening?”
Twisting in the tight space of the staircase, Bash scrubbed a hand down his flushed face, avoiding her eyes searching for an ounce of anything telling her that what he’d said was true.
Because she wanted it to be true.
With every dream she’d ever had, Faye wanted this one to be true.
Well maybe I am .
She may have played his game earlier, pretended that they were together in front of Mrs P, but they weren’t pretending anymore. And what Bash had just let slip felt very, unbelievably, real .
She stared at him above her on the stairs, and his long, suffering silence said more than his words did.
“It was a mistake bringing you with me,” Bash finally uttered.
Those words were like an ice pick to Faye’s heart. Her middle slowly softened and sank like a cake she’d opened the oven door on one too many times as it baked.
“A mistake?” Her fingers loosened around his wrist. “How?”
“Because—” Bash exhaled raggedly, then everything rushed from his tongue. “Because seeing you with my family and spending Christmas with you … it was a bad idea.”
Towering over her like he was, Faye felt tiny as she drew her hand back. “I thought you wanted me there?”
“I did. Do . I do. I … ” An anguished sound lodged in Bash’s throat. He came down the few steps he’d taken and though Faye hadn’t moved, he didn’t feel any closer.
“Bash … I don’t understand anything you’re saying.”
“Well how about this—” Determination flared sharply on his features as he closed the gap between them in one stride. “I kissed you last night because I really fucking wanted to kiss you, Faye. And now all that I want to do is do it again.”
He— what?
A disbelieving breath rushed past Faye’s lips as she stared deep into his burning blue eyes. She couldn’t have heard him right, because it sounded like he’d just said that he’d really fucking wanted to kiss her last night, and exclusively wanted to do it again.
Bash stared right back at her and Faye didn’t notice how his hands weren’t in his pockets anymore, or quite how steady they were by his sides. He had so much hold over her in that moment without touching her at all.
The feeling of finally hearing what she’d always wished to hear – she co uldn’t lie to herself anymore – swelled unease so much like fear within her chest. A fear to begin, fear of letting herself fall. Fear to risk losing what they already had between them. A fluttering that didn’t feel as though the hummingbird caged beneath her ribs had enough space to take flight.
I really fucking wanted to kiss you.
“But … all of your … ” Her hands trembled, the material of her leggings too thin for her to pinch.
“All of my what?”
Faye swallowed. “Dates? Those women … ” The ones she’d lost track of years ago.
Understanding crossed Bash’s face, then his eyes darkened. “They’ve all known from before they agreed to go out with me that there were never going to be any feelings involved on my part. If that’s not what they wanted then I kindly walked away.”
Oh. So … he hadn’t looked for a relationship with any of them? Being used and left was Bash’s choice. But why so many?
The flashing curve in Bash’s lips said he’d read where her mind had gone. That handsome sharpness in his expression cut like a knife.
“I’m not going to apologise for wanting sex, Faye,” he said all too casually.
No. Right. He didn’t have to. Faye understood. Who was she to judge him for whatever he did? She’d dated too in the time they’d known each other, but those relationships had often fallen … flat.
Nothing made any sense. Faye had so many questions. “But you said you want more? You want a family, and those women were just—Why would you do that if it’s not what you want?”
Why did that fucking matter right now?
The look in Bash’s eye as a shallow laugh cracked from his lips was like she’d missed a giant neon sign right in front of her face.
“I went after those women because they were all the exact opposite of you !” He looked like he wanted to shake her. Faye wanted him to as well if it’d help her swallow down what he’d just told her. “They weren’t your infectious smiles or your talent or your warmth. They weren’t women who I’d run across freezing cold London at midnight for. They were distractions from how you, Faye, are in my thoughts. Every . Single . Day .”
Something like bubbles of champagne filled Faye up inside. Her mind operated on a time delay as she caught up to what he’d confessed.
“I knew that none of those relationships could ever be serious,” Bash continued, “because the only woman I want to be serious with … is you.”
His breathy voice slowly lost its strength, but not his words, not his meaning. Not the heat in his eyes as he looked down at her. Close enough to touch, feel his warmth sparking against the fire swimming through her skin.
“Why did you never say anything?” Faye’s voice still shook with disbelief.
“Because … ” As Bash found the right words, a soft smile like coming home to a warm apple and cinnamon muffin on a winter night settled on his lips, his cheeks a brighter pink than before. All masks removed.
“Because the way we are has always been both enough and not enough,” he confessed. “It’s taken me years to realise that I want more. You’ve never given me much indication that you did too, so I backed off. I was scared you wouldn’t want me too and that I’d not take the rejection well, which I know sounds so fragile of me.”
Faye’s eyes were wet.
Years … My god, how long had they been fighting this? Pushed back against their hearts? She’d backed off first because he’d been in a relationship when they’d met, and then they’d become friends and she’d never thought in any way that he’d want to be with her the way she wanted him.
What were they waiting for?
She didn’t have any words. If she could take out everything that she felt insi de of her and show it to him in her hands, then she would.
Bash began to shake his head. “There’s only one thing I’ve ever wished I could wake up and find under my Christmas tree. You are a gift,” he said, emotion thick in his voice. “All of your quirks, your random ideas … they’re beautiful. And I am left completely unable to function when I think about how much you are the single moon in my sky.”
Faye hadn’t given permission for her chin to tremble like it did.
Warm fingers wrapped around her cold, trembling ones. Like a smooth brush of velvet on her skin, Bash continued to say, “Stare at the sun for too long, and all that you get is burned. Look at the moon … and you can watch her forever, seeing more and more of her you’ve never realised before each day.”
He stared at her lips, then tilted closer, their toes touching. Like she’d tied a rope around his waist and pulled him in.
Faye might never recover from this shock she was in. How could she have never seen this at all? She’d chalked everything Bash had ever said or done for her up to friendship. But now it all made sense; his hugs, the way he touched her. The way he would stare down any guy that she dated. How he was always the first one to come running whenever she needed help.
How he’d kissed her under the mistletoe.
How she was the only one who he ever asked to dance.
Bash cupped her cheek with a careful hand like he was afraid that if he said the wrong thing, she’d shatter, his thumb pressing and brushing across her lips. Faye’s breath caught in her lungs, her legs ready to give way.
“I’ve spent years trying to push away how badly I want to kiss you,” he said with a devastating smile. “And even longer falling gently, madly, wholly in love with you, Faye.”
In love.
Those tears welling in Faye’s eyes, slipped. Their warmth tickled down her cheeks. Because to be loved by someone was nice. To love someone el se was nice too. But to be loved by the person who you were in love with, what was more peaceful than that?
Bash’s eyes bounced between hers, his voice uneven. “Say something … ”
Her tongue finally untied. “Bash … I’ve belonged to you since the day that we met.”
Just like that, Faye ripped a massive, vulnerable, honest tear in time and space, admitting aloud what she should’ve said a decade ago. Any other man might have made her doubt, but Bash was the only one who she would never be unsure of - the one who she would take the risk for and go all of the way.
His glistening eyes snapped to hers. “You have?”
A timid chuckle worked its way out of her, because she couldn’t believe what she finally got to freely say.
“I love you, Bash. I’ve only ever loved you .” Faye watched him take her in, her declaration that she’d hit him with and how it softened every line and crease on his face, making its way down to that stupidly giant heart inside of him. “If there was anyone I could want to fall stupidly in love with, it was only ever you.”
“I’m an idiot, Peanut,” Bash said through a watery smile.
Faye nodded quickly. “Yes.” Hands on the thickness of his neck, she closed the distance between them. “But you’re mine .”
Their lips met and Faye’s heart roared like thunder. Bash’s body froze for less than a second before his arms banded around her lower back and pulled her up against him, lifting her onto her toes. Hot and eager and claiming with his kiss.
Fingers carded into her hair while Bash tilted her head, parted her lips, and Faye let herself be swept away in the heady taste of longing on his tongue, like it wasn’t enough to be kissing her, or for her body to be flush up against his as she clutched at his shoulders.
Heat erupted from her core that told her exactly how this night would end, hitting in one knee-weakening wave under her skin before burning through her chest.
She needed to be a part of him, and a certain part of Bash under the surface of his clothes felt like it needed to be inside of her too.
“Faye … Faye …” Bash lifted his lips for an interlude, enough for her to catch her breath for the briefest moment. Lips tingling and heart raising its fist against her chest for escape.
He kissed her greedily that time, a hand losing itself to her hair and the back of her head as he backed her up. When she pressed to a wall, she gasped with the cold surprise and tugged where her fingers scrunched up his shirt. He slotted his thigh between both of hers until she was straddled upon his leg and reaching up on her toes for more. Wanting to devour him.
Bash’s body was damn solid and his lips moved with hers so perfectly that Faye was lightheaded in an instant. Heat burned through his t-shirt and he moaned shamelessly into her mouth as she testingly tugged on his hair.
“Tell me what you want to happen, Faye.” His rasp was barely restrained. “Because I don’t think that I can let you go.”
“ Don’t ,” Faye managed between her panting. “Don’t let me go.” She crushed a long kiss to his lips. “But please take me upstairs instead.”
With the swiftness that Bash grabbed her waist and tugged her along with him, she wondered why she’d even needed to ask.