Chapter 9
Mark
For a second I don’t move, not because I’m tired, but because I’m trying to work out what feels different.
Then I realise.
Weight.
Warmth.
Philip is half on top of me, one arm draped across my stomach, one leg tangled with mine under the duvet as though at some point in the night he drifted closer and, in his sleep, never found a reason to move away again.
His face is turned into my shoulder, mouth slightly open, hair sticking up at the back.
Morning light creeps around the blinds in pale grey strips. Somewhere outside, seagulls are already screaming at each other like the day has opened with litigation.
Philip breathes out against my chest.
Small.
Warm.
I feel it all the way through me.
Not sharing a bed. Not waking up beside someone.
This immediate awareness that if I move too quickly I will lose something I am not ready to lose yet.
Which is a fairly impressive level of emotional instability for eight hours’ acquaintance.
I should probably be more concerned.
Instead I keep looking at him.
Asleep, he looks younger somehow. Less arranged. All the dry sharpness gone from his face, leaving only a man who trusted my bed enough to feel safe in it.
Warmth floods through me in a way I am not remotely equipped to deal with this early in the morning.
His fingers twitch once against my stomach.
My mouth betrays me with the hint of a smile.
Carefully I reach for my phone.
6:12.
Too early for any civilised person.
Perfect.
I usually run before breakfast when I’m down here. Clear my head. Get the sea air in before Whitstable fills with tourists in expensive knitwear.
My head could use the help.
Slowly, carefully, I ease out from under him.
He makes a quiet protesting sound and reaches instinctively towards the warmth I’m taking with me.
My chest does something deeply unhelpful.
I wedge a spare pillow against him and he folds around it immediately with a small exhale, settling again.
I pull on running shorts, a hoodie and trainers, then stand there for a second, watching him.
Still asleep.
Still wrapped around the pillow.
Still looking far too comfortable in my bed for someone who was a stranger yesterday.
Then I drag myself back into functioning adulthood and head downstairs.
The house carries that early coastal chill that never quite counts as cold but still makes bare feet move faster across floorboards.
Heath is awake.
Or rather, Heath is sitting in front of the dark grey beanie like a grumpy old man deeply dissatisfied with temporary accommodation, blinking at me as though this relocation has been a personal insult.
“Well,” I murmur, leaning on the island. “You survived.”
He twitches one whisker.
Food mostly gone. Water lower. No obvious signs of fresh rodent trauma.
“That’s promising.”
He continues to stare.
I nod once. “I’m choosing to take that as approval.”
This is absurd.
I am conducting a morning welfare check on a hamster because his owner is asleep upstairs in my bed.
Yeah.
Definitely need the run.
Ten minutes later I’m outside, trainers hitting the familiar curve of the seafront path.
The cold bites first, then settles.
Salt, damp timber, seaweed, coffee drifting from somewhere already open.
Whitstable is only half awake, which is when I like it best. Dog walkers. Two old men pretending they are not racing each other. Someone in an expensive waterproof looking betrayed by weather as a concept.
Usually this is where my brain clears.
Today it does the opposite.
Because Philip is upstairs.
Because somewhere between Islington and Whitstable he stopped feeling like a stranger I brought home and started feeling like someone I am already accounting for.
I replay stupid details without permission.
His laugh in the car when he forgot the hamster.
The way he held Heath as though the tiny thing might shatter.
The look he gave me in the kitchen when I told him this wasn’t a hook-up.
The way he curled back into me in the dark with the easy trust of someone who had known me longer than a day.
The cumulative effect of it sits somewhere uncomfortably close to hope, which is reason enough to increase my pace.
My trainers hit harder against the pavement.
He leaves Wednesday.
That fact remains stubbornly unmoved by chemistry, domesticity, or the alarming softness of waking up with him draped over me.
Wednesday.
This is a weekend.
A strange, intense, probably ill-advised weekend.
Nothing more.
I know that.
Unfortunately knowing a thing and liking it are rarely the same exercise.
By the time I loop back towards the harbour, sweat cooling at the back of my neck, I have achieved exactly one useful conclusion.
I like him.
Too much already.
Excellent.
Whitstable is beginning to wake properly now. Delivery vans. Café chairs scraping pavement. Seagulls circling overhead like tiny violent attack planes.
I cut across towards Harbour Street and head for the coffee place on the corner.
“Morning, Mark.”
“Morning. Two cappuccinos, please.”
The owner nods and turns to the machine.
I lean against the counter and pull out my phone.
Two missed messages from Callum.
Alive?
followed half an hour later by
If you died in Islington, I’m not identifying the body.
I’m considering leaving him to wonder when the phone starts vibrating.
I answer. “What.”
“Well that’s warm,” Callum says.
“You rang me at stupid o’clock.”
“It’s nearly eight.”
“Still offensive.”
There is airport noise behind him. Announcements, luggage wheels, the general misery of public travel.
“You ignored my messages.”
“I was occupied.”
A pause.
Then, in the driest voice possible, “You got laid.”
I close my eyes briefly.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Hm.”
That one syllable contains an unreasonable amount of smugness.
“I was trying to work out whether your evening ended with you sulking at home, or whether, for once, it was a little less tragic.”
I look out through the café window.
“It was less tragic.”
Another pause.
Longer.
“Hm,” he says again.
“Don’t.”
“Didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
“That sounds like a personal issue.”
Fair.
“I’m boarding in a bit,” he says. “Flying to KL with Jasper.”
I had forgotten that was today.
“Try to contain your heartbreak.”
“I’ll attempt to survive,” I snort.
“I had an idea on the way to Heathrow,” he says. “Thought I’d book in at Iron & Ash when I’m back later this month. You still due another tattoo?”
A week ago, over drinks, I’d mentioned wanting one.
I don’t have a design in mind yet. Just the usual itch that turns up every now and then when life feels a little too settled and I start eyeing empty skin like unused space.
I stare at the chalkboard menu without seeing any of it.
“What are you getting?” I ask.
“A raven. Or something close enough. I’ll decide when I hate airports less.”
That drags a small laugh out of me.
“Useful.”
“I try.”
He goes quiet for a beat.
Then, bluntly, “You in?”
I tap my thumb once against the counter.
The easy answer would be yes.
Because suddenly the idea of marking something into skin feels less like a whim and more like an attempt to pin down this restless, unsettled energy before it gets ideas of its own.
But wanting another tattoo and knowing what belongs under your skin are not the same thing.
And right now I have no idea what this is.
Only that it matters more than it should.
I exhale slowly.
“Book me in,” I say.
“For what?”
“I’ll work it out.”
“I’ll text you the time. Try not to make any catastrophic life choices before I’m back.”
“No promises.”
“Obviously.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone for a second, then at the coffees being set on the counter.
I have agreed to a tattoo I have not designed because something in me already wants to mark this morning as different.
Which feels sane.
By recent standards.
I collect the tray and head back towards the house.