Page 83 of One Bed

‘Haven’t a freaking clue,’ he admitted.

‘You dropped into my life like that sunset, tossing colour across the sky. Everything with you is bolder and brighter. Food tastes better, music is sweeter, and my words come easier. When you’re in my life, it’s in technicolour, and when you’re not, it’s like those old sepia movies, the music scratchy and the words stilted.’

He looked at her for a long time, and Bea held his stare, letting him see every emotion in her eyes. ‘Pretty words, Bea, and I appreciate them. But not the ones I most want to hear.’

She didn’t move, didn’t blink. ‘I love you. Please can we be together?’

Gib responded by cupping her face and sliding his lips across hers. ‘Yes. Let’s do that.’

She held his wrists, thrilled his were the eyes she’d look into for the rest of her life. ‘Glad that’s sorted,’ she told him. ‘Nowcan we set this bed on fire?’

He kissed her again before pulling back to frown at her. ‘Are you seriously asking me to pass up the opportunity to eat Nadia’s wood-fired pizza?’

She grinned at him and lifted her sweater and shirt up and over her head. His eyes fell to her chest, and he dragged a finger over her lace-covered nipple. ‘Fuck food. We can live off love, sex and fresh air.’

He lifted her onto his lap and held her close. ‘God, I do love you, Bea-baby. We’re going to be so damn happy.’

‘I already am,’ she told him, kissing his jaw. ‘I can’t wait to sharemybed with you again, Gib.’

‘Bea, I can’t wait to shareeverythingwith you.’

Epilogue

Standing on the now almost empty beach, Gib watched Bea in the shallows, their three-year-old daughter Molly-Cate standing between her legs. Their eight-year-old son, Bhodi, did a duck dive into the clear Aegean water and popped up a minute later. He was, Bea and Gib were convinced, part fish, part seal.

Bodhi ran out of the water and shook himself, spraying water over Bea and his little sister. Bea pretended to swat him, but Mary-Cate actually did, her small hand connecting with his thigh. Bodhi simply picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder –he’d seen Gib do the same with Bea often enough to learn the technique –and jogged down the beach with his sister bouncing on his shoulder.

His son was the spitting image of him at the same age, and he recalled those halcyon days when he’d first visited Greece. If he told his younger self that he would go on to marry the solemn little girl he was made to share a room with, pre-teen Gib would’ve laughed in his face. Ten years after re-meeting Bea, he couldn’t conceive of a life without her at the centre of it.

His world turned because of her.

It had taken some time for him to tell her about his childhood, but she eventually heard all of it. Bea, because she was Bea and wonderful, was empathetic and a good listener, but she didn’t analyse the subject to death.

Bea caught his eye and waved. He walked down to her, kissed her mouth and swung his baby girl, who’d escaped from her brother, into his arms. Because she was a Daddy’s girl, she immediately pushed her face into his neck. Bea took his free hand and squeezed. ‘You were looking quite solemn, darling. Something on your mind?’

‘I was just thinking about the wild boy and the book-reading girl we were.’

She laughed. ‘Young me would be disgusted at the thought of marrying you! You didn’t read.’

‘And you read too much,’ he countered, dropping a kiss on her forehead. ‘Thank God for Golly’s matchmaking.’

Bea grinned. ‘Please don’t tell her that,’ she begged. ‘She’s impossible enough as it is. God, you’d think she’s the first person in the world to turn eighty.’

‘What’s she done now?’ he asked, as they walked along the beach. Bea was, yet again, and with Cass and Nadia’s help, planning an epic birthday party.

‘She’s scatty and demanding and keeps changing her mind. One minute she wants a blowout party, the next she wants to hire a yacht. She wants only vegan food, then only seafood. If she invites this person, she has to invite that person.’

‘Threaten her with afternoon tea at The Savoy, Bea-darling. You once told her that’s how we’d celebrate her eightieth.’

‘Golly’s fucking impossible,’ Mary-Cate said, in her piping, but oh-so-clear voice.

Bea pointed at him at the same time he pointed at her, each laughingly blaming the other for their daughter’s bad language. ‘We really have to clean up our act,’ she told him and went on to lecture Mary-Cate about using adult words.

Bea –the love of his life –was more like her godmother than he’d expected. Being in love, maybe even being with him, flicked a switch in her, and she morphed into a bold, confident, occasionally crazy person. Someone he loved with every fibre of his being. For the past ten years, they’d spent every summer at Golly’s Folly with her family and his flying in and out depending on their schedules.

Whether they were in London, Nashville or at Golly’s Folly, she left scraps of paper all over the house –Pip has his first crush on an older woman.Learn to play poker. Hugh likes it.Get Bodhi’s hair cut—her version of a to-do list. He’d learned not to speak to her when she was in author land, as she never remembered a damn thing he said. He instructed the housekeeper they’d hired to fill the fridge with healthy snack options because Bea would live on doughnuts and canned cheese if given the choice.

Best of all, she loved him. And God, he loved her. She was everything he wanted and, possibly, far more than he deserved. She was the beat of his heart…

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