Chapter 26
Cusanu a Chymodi - Kiss and Make-up
Lucy
Iroll over for the hundredth time. My gritty eyes blink through the darkness. The digital clock on the bedside table glares back at me. Three-thirty. I’ve been back at the house since midnight, and I’ve not caught a wink of sleep.
It’s a good job I don’t have to share a bed yet, because the constant tossing and turning is enough to wind me up, let alone anyone else. Though I’m sure Rhys has a way of helping. Sex is a great relaxant.
But I left him at the venue, still searching for the missing guitar.
His snub of my offer of help bothers me, even hours later.
His struggle was written all over his face – the draw of his lip through his teeth, his scrunched up eyes – but his refusal to let me in took me right back to that morning in Gethin’s office.
Shutting me out didn’t help us before. It’s not going to help now.
Two sets of eyes hunting is a lot better than one.
The need to seek him out, talk about it with him, drives my restlessness. It’s pointless lying here doing nothing. I swing my legs out of bed. Therapy taught me that leaving things to fester only makes them worse. Ignoring my problems is what caused me to react the way I did towards Topaz.
I have to find Rhys.
My phone lies quiet on the table, so I tuck it into the waistband of my pyjamas. I slip my feet into my slippers and pull the closest jumper over my head. A soft knock on the door interrupts my shuffle across my room, and I cock an eyebrow at it.
Only one person could be out and about at this time of the morning, and calling on me.
I shuffle faster and open the door without checking who it is.
‘Hi.’
The man standing in front of me is a shadow of the one I love.
Hunched over enough to take up residence in a French cathedral.
His hair, usually swept tidily back from his face, is wild, tugged in all directions.
He holds his laptop tight to his chest, as if it’s the only thing tethering him to life.
‘Hi,’ I reply.
‘Can— can I come in?’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
It’s not been this awkward between us since the drive home from the press conference. I step back to let him over the threshold. He lingers next to me. His eyes flit to the bed, the small sofa by the window, the door to my bathroom. He’s lost.
‘Take a seat on the sofa,’ I say as gently as I can. Anything too sharp, too loud, and I might scare him off. ‘I’ll make us a hot chocolate.’
A small nod is the only signal that he’s heard what I’ve said.
He makes no effort to move. My travel kettle is already plugged into the wall and I switch it on, preparing the drink quickly, adding the copious amounts of sugar he adores, even though it makes my teeth ache.
When it’s ready I push him towards the settee.
He slides his laptop onto the coffee table, but doesn’t take the offered cup.
So I rest it next to his computer before settling by his side, turning my knees towards his so I can see him properly.
Lit only by the large lamp hanging over us, he’s ghostly, his skin almost as pale as the cream upholstery.
His usual peppermint scent’s replaced by something old and stale.
‘It’s only instant, I’m afraid,’ I offer. I can’t handle the quiet from him. I nudge the mug closer to him. ‘I’ll go and get you something proper from the kitchen later, if you want.’
‘You don’t have to do that. You’re not my PA.’ He runs a hand over his face and adds in a softer voice, ‘I mean – I just – I don’t deserve it after yesterday. I’m a dickhead.’
I could lie, fill him with platitudes that’ll make him feel better, but it would get us nowhere. It would get me nowhere. Felicity challenged me to stick up for myself more, so that’s what I’m going to do.
‘I wouldn’t go as far as calling you a dickhead, but you did upset me.’ I don’t pull my blows. ‘I don’t appreciate the way you spoke to me, the way you shut me out.’
He tears his gaze from mine and focuses on the steam unfurling from his mug. It’s a testament to how bad he’s feeling that he’s ignoring the drink in favour of talking to me first. He is a sugar fiend, after all.
‘The pressure got to me,’ he replies. ‘Gethin telling Colin I had it all in hand, that I could find the guitar like we’d just packed it away somewhere different.
Made it sound piss easy. Something I had to sort, that my job depended on finding it.
Guess I got tunnel vision. It’s no excuse, though. You were only trying to help.’
‘Yeah, and we’re supposed to be a team, me and you. I don’t like you thinking you have to do things alone.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
My heart fumbles a beat at the downward twist of his lips, at the sorrow lines criss-crossing his face.
‘Seriously, Luce. I hate that I shut you out. These past few hours have been fucking miserable. If you were there, we might not have found the guitar, but it would be an easier night. At least you’d have been there to keep me company.’
His words are genuine and they tug at my insides. All of his sadness bleeds into me and my annoyance is replaced with an overwhelming desire to comfort him.
‘Come here?’ I hold my arms out for him and he leans into them straight away, burying his head under my chin. I thread one hand into his hair while the one still in a cast rubs his back. ‘When did you get back to the house?’
‘Bout five minutes ago. I came straight up here.’ His words rumble against my skin, and I pull him tighter to my chest. He’s been on shift now for thirteen hours. He must be exhausted.
‘Why didn’t you come back earlier? Or go straight to bed? We have a long day ahead of us.’
He shrugs into me. ‘I stayed at the venue cos I really wanted to find that guitar. But when I ran out of CCTV to watch, I knew I had to come speak to you. Work’s important, but so are you.’
My breath shudders. It’s exactly what I needed to hear. Things have changed.
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Nothing. Can’t get a clear enough picture to see what the bloke looks like. Nobody spotted anything unusual. It’s like the guy’s a fucking ghost, slipping in then vanishing with the guitar into fucking thin air.’
‘You’ve done your best, Rhys.’
He pulls away from the hug, something darker crossing his face. ‘If Gethin finds out what we were up to while items were being nicked from backstage, the space I’m supposed to be protecting, he’ll have me out on my arse.’
‘You said we were okay out there, that nobody would know that we—’
‘Doesn’t matter what I think. God I would have fucked you right there against the wall if we weren’t disturbed. It needs to stop. It’s happened to us twice now: doing other things while something bad happened to Cai.’
I stare at him. I was the one setting the boundaries, yet here he is, flipping the tables on me.
It was always supposed to be that work wouldn’t get impacted by us being together, that we couldn’t get carried away.
I threw all of that out of the window in search of what I wanted.
I was the one that went looking for him yesterday. And I shouldn’t have.
So he’s come to the same realisation as me. Not only is he here to apologise, but he’s going to abandon me. Things change so quickly. We shared I love yous only a few hours ago, and now he’s come to dump me.
His eyes widen. ‘Oh, no. Lucy. Not that. I promise. Never that.’ His hands shake as he takes hold of mine, pressing them to his chest. ‘I was just thinking that if we stopped keeping things secret, we could focus on our jobs during work hours, and stop sneaking off on our breaks. We could be together, but in the vicinity of Cai and Gethin, which’ll help us stay present.
Then we wouldn’t miss anything important. ’
‘So… you’re saying that you don’t want to break up with me?’
‘Absolutely not. Does I love you mean I never want to be with you again?’
‘No.’
He leans forward, pressing his lips to mine in the softest of kisses. Our trembles stop as I return each kiss with as much energy as I can after a sleepless night. When he pulls away, his face is smoother and brighter, if not a little flushed.
‘I love you,’ he says. ‘And I want us to be a proper couple.’
‘Like boyfriend and girlfriend?’ My heart is a butterfly beating its wings against my ribcage.
‘Well, yeah. Cos that’s what we are, isn’t it?’
The tips of his ears are pink. He’s so brash and forward in front of everyone else, and I adore that only I get to see this coy side of him.
The romantic, the guy who loves Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts movies.
The man who can quote Love, Actually word for word, even though he despises the sentiments in the film.
His argument for going public makes sense – it would make doing our jobs and getting time together a whole lot easier if we could be out and loud about it. And it’s not like we’re going to throw ourselves onto a sofa in the green room and shag each other’s brains out.
Well, maybe we would, but only if nobody else was around and I thought we could get away with it.
‘I think we are,’ I say, allowing a smile to grow over my face. ‘Have been for a while. Honestly, I’m surprised we’ve kept it hidden for as long as we have.’
‘The others definitely suspect. Cai’s looked like he’s itching to ask me something for weeks, but any time we’re alone, he clams up.’
‘What would you have said if he did?’
‘That I’m hands down, endlessly in love with you, and I don’t give a fuck who knows about it.’
The room spins around me, blurring so he’s the only thing I can focus on. My grin is wider than the arches of Wembley.
‘It’s a good job that I love you too, then.’ I’m surprised I can act all nonchalant about it when in my head, I’m having a pyjama dance party.