Page 50 of The Player

“Iloveyou,” he says fiercely. “And I’m so tired of holding it in. I’ve loved you since the first moment David brought you home.”

I gasp. “What?”

He nods. “That very first minute you looked at me and smiled and said something that I forget now but was probably sharp. And boom! I fell, and I’ve never managed to stop. All the other men I tried, but they just weren’t you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I?” he says, and there’s a simple dignity touched with pain in his voice. “You were David’s, and I loved him like a brother, and then later, when you weren’t his, you still couldn’t be mine. I thought about telling you when you threw him out but?—”

“But then he died.” He shrugs, and I touch his face. “Even if he hadn’t died, it would never have lasted, Con. After that, I couldn’t trust him anymore. I don’t really think there was a point when Ieverfully trusted him.”

“I know. But he did die, and I couldn’t ever tell you about my feelings then. You were grieving and needed me to be your friend.”

“You’ve always been that. You’ve always been everything to me.”

“I thought I could be happy with you just as my friend, but it got harder and harder as we got closer. I tried to be with other men, but it was a waste of time because I usually picked them because they reminded me in some way of you.”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely a compliment considering Tim.”

He chuckles and strokes my hair back. “I’d see you next to them, and I’d realise that it was useless. Tim was the result of me thinking I didn’t stand a chance with you. I was getting crossand heartsore because I realised you would never reciprocate my feelings, and then I went on tour, and he was flirting with me, and I thought, ‘Why not?’ I couldn’t have you, but maybe I could be happy. And the longer I stayed away, the more I thought I could do it. I could see you again and just think of you as my friend, but it was useless because as soon as we got back, you walked into the reception, and I knew all my feelings were still there and getting stronger. Not weaker. And I was so angry with myself because you’d never feel the same way, and I was a fool.”

“You have never been a fool in your bloody life, Con,” I say. I shake my head. “You were so wrong,” I burst out.

“What?”

I pause, and my next words tumble out in my haste to make him understand. “Because I love you too.”

He jerks. “What?”

“I love you,” I say steadily, my heart twisting at the look of hope in his eyes. “I think I always have in some form or another. I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, and I think that I was always meant for you. All along, you’ve been the perfect person for me. You were always there right under my nose.”

“But what about David?”

“I loved him,” I say, looking at him to check this is okay. He nods, his eyes warm and bright and glowing with so much love that it warms me through and through. “But it was a young man’s love, and the clock was ticking down on our relationship from the moment we met. It was always counting towards the end. If he hadn’t died, we’d have ended, I think we’d have stayed friends, but I never really knew him, and he didn’t know me. But you—you’redifferent. I know you inside out. I know that you hate chewing gum and people who litter, and prefer autumn to summer. I know that your favourite holiday is Christmas and that Christmas films make you cry, and I love you as a man with everything in me. I’ll love you until the day I die, Con.”

His eyes gleam wetly, and he clutches me tight and buries his head in my neck for a second. I kiss his hair, inhaling the scent of his shampoo and feeling the cool, sweet-smelling breeze drifting over us. When he looks up again, he’s smiling, but it’s unlike any other smile I’ve seen from him. It’s big and impossibly wide, and I feel a wave of dizziness that I made this happen.

“Forever, then?” he says.

I nod solemnly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Connie.”

epilogue

Two YearsLATER

I wake up to an empty bed. The sunshine is warm on my face, the birds are singing through the open window, and the sweet scent of the wildflowers Con picked for me on the way home from the pub last night drifts from the bedside table. I’d popped them in a jar before shagging him to say thank you.

I smile at the flowers tenderly. He’s so romantic. Then I look a little closer. And then closer still. They don’t look like wildflowers now I’m not under the influence of a bottle of red wine. They actually look like?—

“Oh my god, Con,” I shout.

“What?” comes the shout from downstairs. I can hear the radio playing faintly and pots banging in the kitchen. I hope he’s making breakfast. The condemned man should always have a last meal.

“Can you come up here, please?”

There’s a silence and then the sound of his footsteps coming up the stairs. They echo because we still don’t have a carpet. But looking on the bright side, we do have a new staircase now thatdoesn’t threaten to send you plummeting down through the hole in the treads to the cellar below.

The door swings open, and Con pokes his head round it. I smile at him. I can’t help it. Just the sight of his lovely, handsome face has me grinning.

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