36. Bash
36
BASH
For a second time this week, Bash found himself moving bags out of one room and into another, putting Faye’s alongside his own where they were holing up for the rest of the night.
He dropped her bag on the carpet and gawped. “You were supposed to have waited!”
Stark naked on the bed, Faye sucked the spoon between her lips clean with a too-cute shrug. “I couldn’t resist.”
The kitchen didn’t have much to satisfy their post-sex cravings, but it did have ice cream. Bash hadn’t hesitated to start opening cupboards in search of bowls when Faye held up the salted caramel tub with a flourish.
“Hm. If you drip any onto your tits,” he warned, placing a knee up on the bed, “I’m reserving the right to lick it off.”
The tease in Faye’s cat-like eyes contemplated doing just that on purpose.
Bash sat himself beside her whilst they ate. Now that he wasn’t predisposed with pleasuring Faye, he actually had the chance to glance at the evergreen and white themed room he labelled as “cottage core.” T he artwork of pressed flowers he’d counted to try and not come down Faye’s throat was a nice addition.
“I love these,” she said at one point, her fingertip tracing the sprinkling of grey hairs at his temple.
“Do you?” There were only a few, and Bash wasn’t exactly conscious about them, but he did feel as though they made him look older than he was.
“They make you look refined.”
He snorted. “Me? Refined?” Was that another word for ‘old’?
“Yes. Amongst your charms and roguish ways, Sébastien, you’ve never been anything other than a gentleman to me.”
The last few hours aside.
Faye liked rearranging his hair, and Bash let her. Only her. She was adorable in her focus, oblivious to how he mapped her face freely with every distracted second he got.
“What else do you like?” He stirred the last melted pool of salted caramel in the bowl in his lap.
Faye’s eyes glinted like she was up to no good. “Fishing for compliments now, are we?”
“No.” Not about his appearance, at least. “It’s just nice to hear you say these things.”
They were still naked – which was marginally perilous when handling such a frozen, drippy dessert – but Bash hadn’t felt this comfortable to simply exist naked next to somebody else, purely talking, ever.
He didn’t mind the second Faye took to think, because her answer was more than he could’ve ever expected.
“I like how much you make me laugh,” she said softly, longingly. “I like the warmth of your hugs and how you tug your ear when you’re nervous, and this freckle right here is really adorable. I think you’re brave for how much you open up, even when it’s hard for you. And I appreciate how much you do for me. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. You go out of your way a lot, Bash, when you don’t have to. From when I started the bakery to running with me wh en it’s dark, you always come when I need someone.”
Damn it, his eyes went misty. “You do a lot for me too, Faye. You’re my chainsaw.”
“I’m your—what?” Faye’s gentle laugh mirrored the confusion twisting her face.
“That didn’t come out right.” Bash un-scrunched his eyes and put his empty bowl on the nightstand. Moving closer, he angled himself to face her.
“My chainsaw,” he explained. “You help me cut through my unhealthy habits, you always have. Yes, I noticed. You telling me it was okay to eat that doughnut the other morning is just one example.”
There were so many times where it was as though she’d read his intrusive thoughts creeping in before he had and encouraged him to shove them away. Most days he was able to regulate himself, but sometimes he just needed that little extra help.
Bash knew for certain he wouldn’t be half of who he was now if he didn’t have Faye there in his life.
The smile on her lips slowly slipped. Wanting to touch her, Bash circled his thumb lazily around her knee.
“I never want you to be unwell,” she said, mirroring his action in stroking her thumb across his tattoo, the one he’d gotten just for her. “And I’m glad you’ve trusted me to tell me about it.”
Bash held Faye’s gentle eyes for a moment, then moved her bowl sitting empty between them to the nightstand so he could lean over and kiss her. He wouldn’t ever get enough of the bonfires that she lit in his heart. Cupping her jaw in his palm as he poured out his appreciation in a slow, reverent kiss, Faye responded to his lips like this ease was both new and what had always been between them.
Bash sifted his fingers up through her hair when they pulled apart, which in itself kept them close, eyes bouncing between hers.
“I should’ve told you a thousand times that you are so … gorgeous ,” h e said, sighing because he couldn’t quite believe that she existed. So beautiful inside and out. Faye’d brought up his dating life, but he couldn’t have ever pretended to be in love with someone else for the rest of his days when she was always just out of reach.
The corners of Faye’s mouth tugged right before she dipped her head.
“I’m serious!” Bash protested to how she shied away from his gaze. “And I won’t let you tell me that you’re not. I won’t even let you think it.”
Faye curled her knees up towards her stomach, bringing her attention somewhere near to his jaw. “I never thought you were attracted to me.”
If she still believed that, then he hadn’t done a very good job just now. Tucking his fingers under her chin, Bash coaxed her eyes up to his, a lazy smile on his face.
“I have been for a decade, Peanut,” he promised. “I guess that I can let myself be more obvious about it from now on.”
If she knew just how many times he’d had to stop himself from turning his casual, affectionate touches into something more, then she would’ve known how much he wanted her a long time ago.
His skin tickled where Faye began to brush her fingers up and down his arm. He’d completely forgotten that he was naked, though it was impossible to forget that she was too whilst they sat here between pillows and blankets. Unashamed, Bash stole as many glances at every inch of her as he could, finding freckles that he didn’t know existed above her waist and on her thighs.
Faye curled her lip between her teeth before she uttered, “I don’t know if this was just a one time thing, or?—”
He frowned. “Why would it only be that?”
“Well … I’m leaving London, Bash. For a year. Maybe more …”
“Faye, if you think that the length of England and a few hours of driving is going to stop this” – Bash gestured between them – “from being exactly what it should be, then you’re wrong, Peanut. I’ve waited this long to have you, I’m not going to let you go now that we’re not just a fantasy anymore.”
Her features softened as she slowly blinked, hopefully accepting that what he’d said was true.
Bash shifted himself and began to lay back against the headboard. He opened his arm out wide and waited while Faye grabbed the green throw blanket and pulled it over them. One of them would have to get out of bed to turn the light off, but he’d worry about that later.
It was their first night sharing a bed as a couple and Bash wouldn’t let anything ruin that.
“And now that I know about the move,” he began as their bodies entwined, “tell me all about it.”
“I’m excited.” Faye settled into his arm curled around her. “I’ll be moving in mid-January, which is why I’ve not really cared about fixing my heating. I’m only going to be in that flat for another couple of weeks.”
Another couple of weeks. Bash hoped she couldn’t feel how his heart picked up at the fact that another couple of weeks was all the time they had before their lives would shift again.
“What are you going to do with all of your stuff when you go?” he asked to distract himself from the sadness crawling into his chest.
“I was just going to sell everything that I can’t logistically take. Moving up the length of the country costs a lot, or so I’ve found.”
“Don’t sell stuff,” Bash said without thinking.
Faye lifted her head up off of his chest. “Huh?”
“Don’t sell what you can’t take. I’ll keep it for you at my house.”
“But … where?”
He tipped his chin down to look at her. “Faye, I’ve got an entire basement that I don’t know what to do with and I’m one minute away from turning it into a man cave. ”
“I’m surprised you don’t have one of those already, to be honest,” she said.
Bash chuckled beneath a couple of breaths and drew himself back to seriousness with a smile. “Please, let me do this for you?”
Faye fluttered her eyelashes at him but he held his nerve until she caved. “Okay. But I’m paying you for the storage.”
“No you won’t.” Bash slung his other arm around her. “The last thing I need is more money.”
“Show off.” She playfully batted his chest. Why did he love her little innocent teases so much?
“I prefer the term ‘down to earth’. Anyway, if you’d let me have my way then you’d have been living with me for years. Your stuff wouldn’t need to be moving anywhere.”
Bash couldn’t quite believe where he was. When the time came for him to let out everything he’d held back for a decade – he’d surprised himself that all of the words he’d ever wanted to say to Faye had left him in the right order. He’d just never planned for it to be so spontaneous on a chilled winter night, worn out from travelling, and in a hallway.
You never look at me like that.
Like what?
Like you’re in love with me or something.
Well, maybe I am.
There was no maybe about it. Bash usually cursed his impulsive tongue, but he didn’t this time.
Faye’d been so riled up because of the television, of all things, and maybe from how he’d pretended they were dating in front of Mrs Papplewick – don’t ask him why, Bash didn’t know either. Seeing those sparks of fire she’d let off had captured him so fiercely, he couldn’t look away.
For some reason, a frustrated Faye turned him on. Made him crave to sink his fingers inside of her so that she could unwind. Bash supposed that doing just that had done the trick since she snuggled up to him and sighed happily .
He hadn’t lied; bringing Faye with him to his family’s Christmas had been a mistake, because all it showed him was what he was missing out on, and how much he wanted those extra pieces to be filled in by her. If she hadn't come, he’d simply have gone about the days like normal and returned home without anything having changed.
But they had.
All of their friends were right: they’d found love right under their noses and not known it for a decade.
Matt had been right too. It didn’t matter when or where or how he told Faye that he loved her; she’d wanted to hear those words. And hearing them from him at the foot of a staircase had been, if anything, better than any plan Bash could’ve put together.
This holiday had shifted their relationship towards something that’d confused him for days, and the words “ Well, maybe I am” had just slipped right out of him and surprised them both, leaving no choice but to let everything come from his unprepared heart.
And to hear Faye say that she’d belonged to him since that first moment where fate had made her run into him? Well that’d just sent Bash up to the moon.
She didn’t respond to his comment about how she should have lived with him already for years. Instead, she slithered off of the bed.
“Where’re you going?” Bash watched her shimmy into her underwear and then his t-shirt, which was a new sight to imprint on his retinas, alongside the rest of her naked and mewling his name.
“Just something that I have to do,” Faye said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Her footsteps echoed all of the way down the stairs.
Bash waited.
A minute later, his phone that he’d found downstairs on the sofa and tossed aside an hour ago buzzed with a notification. He searched the nightstand piled with empty bowls for the device.
Faye
I’m home x
Bash read the text, and his heart melted into a gooey mess when he realised what she meant.
Text me when you get home – the goodbye he always gave to her.
His bubble of a laugh was with a joy that brought a strange sting behind his eyes. He wouldn’t cry, not over a text. But damn it he wanted to.
When he looked up, Faye leaned in the doorway, toying with her phone in her hands. Bash set his phone down on the nightstand and opened up his arms to her.
This was home.
This was his future.
And it only hit him then how momentous it was.
They’d fallen in love with each other over a decade. No fuss. No drama. Just them.
Just them. That’s all he needed.