Page 44 of The Spark

Somehow, I seem to know exactly what he wants, and he understands the same in return. I feel as though I am already familiar with every last touchpoint of his skin, the path of his hands, the press of his body.

His hands are on my hips. We quickly get frantic, a blur of bodies and gasped names and sweat-slick skin. We unravel each other entirely, again and again, unable to stop, our gazes locked tight.

Morning. I blink and drink in cold, white light, take a moment to orientate. Then a rush of fresh pleasure as my body remembers. We hardly slept last night. I recall a grey-feathered dawn starting to edge around the blinds, and saying to Ash, through our millionth kiss of the night, ‘It’s getting light.’ And he laughed, and began to say something, then checked himself. So I elbowed him and told him he had to tell me what he’d been going to say, and he laughed some more and said, ‘I was going to say, “That’s got to be some kind of record,” before I realised that would be just about the worst thing that’s ever left my mouth.’ And I smiled and said true, but that it was a record for me too, so let’s just be proud that we’re the kind of people who set records in bed, and then we both started laughing until we eventually began to drift off, wrapped sleepily in each other’s arms.

I saw his lightning scars for the first time last night, too. Faint pink tendrils, like feathers. They stretched across the ridges of his abdomen, marking the place where nature had struck him.

I drew a finger across the patch of marked skin, marvelling at the madness of it, feeling the scars’ tiny seams.

‘They usually go away,’ he whispered. ‘After twenty-four hours, or so. But mine never did. I guess I must scar easily.’

‘I guess you must.’

‘I like to think they’re a reminder to live for the moment. If that’s not too corny.’

‘It’s not corny at all.’

‘I’ve not always loved them, if I’m honest.’ He was tracing my skin with one finger too, absent-mindedly, a circle on my shoulder. ‘People have made comments, sometimes.’

‘You mean, when you’ve been . . . with them?’

He nodded. ‘And trust me, nothing kills a moment of passion like someone exclaiming, Oh, you’re the lightning-strike guy! I get people coming up to me sometimes, too, asking for selfies.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Unfortunately, yeah.’

I returned my gaze to his scars. ‘Do they hurt?’

‘They did a bit, at first. Not so much now.’

‘I think they’re beautiful,’ I whispered. ‘Mad and beautiful all at once.’

He laughed softly. The sound of it touched me deep inside. ‘Mad and beautiful. Thank you, Neve. I’ll take that.’

And then he dipped his head to my collarbone, the exact same spot Jamie was always drawn to, and kissed me there. The sensation felt so familiar, so much like a love I knew well, I had to swallow away tears.

The space next to me on the mattress is empty now. I check the time – still early, though I can hear the rumble of cars on the road outside.

I ease out of bed and pull on a hoodie. As I do, I catch sight of my old battered copy of On Decorating on my nightstand. I retrieved it from the box beneath my bed after I bumped into Lara. It was the first time I’d felt able to look at it since we fell out. Even flicking gingerly through its pages brought her kindness rushing back to me in gusts. How much she believed in me. How she only ever wanted the best for me.

I head downstairs, hoping Ash is there, praying there’s no note to say he had to go, or some other evidence of second thoughts.

To my relief, he is barefoot in my small galley kitchen, wearing yesterday’s T-shirt and jeans. The air is sweet with the scent of coffee and warming butter. At the edge of the room, I pause and smile, my heart on a high-wire. ‘Morning.’

He looks up, concentration subsiding into a smile. ‘Morning. Hope you don’t mind, but... thought you might fancy breakfast. Took the liberty of raiding your fridge for eggs.’

I want to assure him that looting my kitchen for ingredients with which to cook me breakfast definitely counts as one of the lesser morning-after crimes.

‘That’s the opposite of a liberty.’ I lean against the door jamb and watch him for a couple of moments.

‘You look lovely,’ he says.

I run a hand through my unruly mass of bed hair, hoping I don’t resemble my mother. I’d been so impatient to get down here, I forgot to so much as glance into a mirror.

‘And you,’ I say. And it’s true – every time I catch sight of him, my stomach skips. Tall and dark, melt-in-the-middle eyes, the suggestion of a smile always moments from his mouth. And the way he was last night – intense and feverish, gripping and teasing me, dismantling me inch by inch.

After so many years of feeling not quite myself – like some component part of me went missing when Jamie died – I feel a strange sense of ease this morning. It’s as though I’ve finally found what I lost, glistening like a gemstone in the mud left by a turning tide.

---