Page 78 of The Fly-Half

“Your X-ray first, then Christmas. Then the Six Nations.” I brushed my hand through his hair. “We’ve got the rest of the season to finish too. Maybe try and win a trophy, because some of us haven’t done that yet.” I grinned and Devon chuckled.

“And we did say we’d win some together,” he said. “We should probably make a start on that.” He pressed a kiss to my sternum. “I was thinking maybe… we could move in together at some point? We’ve already been doing it for the last two weeks, and we don’t hate each other so… It doesn’t have to be now but I don’t know when your contract is up.”

“Next summer. But if yours is sooner, you could move in here. Might be a bit of a squish, but we’ve got the fourth bedroom. If Mason and Ryan can have a room each, so can we. As long as you don’t mind living with them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, of course.” Now we’d talked about it, I needed it to be a reality. Like Devon said, we’d already been doing it and I couldn’t imagine what it would be like not having him here all the time. It would be so lonely. “I love you, Dev, and I’ve known you over half my life. I don’t want to wait any longer than we have to.”

“Okay.” He smiled and kissed my chest again. “I guess we can talk to Mason and Ryan in the morning.”

“Unless they’re already listening,” I said with a snort.

“Somehow I doubt it.” Devon smirked and in the moment of silence we heard the distinctive sounds of sex coming from down the landing. He moved further up my body and kissed me again, his tongue lazily brushing against the seam of my lips. “Moving in, trophies. Anything else?”

“Maybe a few things,” I said, cupping his jaw softly. “But nothing important.”

I wasn’t going to tell him I could already see our entire life mapped out together. Rugby, trophies, buying a house together, maybe some pets because I’d always wanted a dog, a proposal, marriage, retirement and growing old together while we grumbled about ageing injuries.

Love, laughter, silly competitions overCall of Duty, quiet days on the sofa watching endless films, hours of D&D adventures with our friends, travelling abroad for tournaments and holidays, Devon teaching me about good wine, plenty of sex, and kisses stolen whenever possible because I’d never get enough of his mouth.

Spending every day together, from now until the end of our days.

“Nothing important? I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “How do you feel about getting a dog?”

“Instant yes.”

“There we go then. That’s one important thing done.” I drew him in for a kiss. “And now I’m going to kiss you again.”

Devon sighed happily, melting into my arms.

Everything else could wait until tomorrow.

EPILOGUE

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

Devon

“Have we got any more burgers?”I asked as I opened the fridge door and scanned the shelves. “I thought I’d gotten enough out but apparently not.”

We were celebrating the start of our summer break with a barbecue, but despite the massive amount of food we’d bought from Tesco and the local butcher, I was starting to doubt we’d have enough for all our friends who’d descended upon us. I knew we all ate a lot but I hadn’t realised quite how much until we’d been trying to squeeze everything into the fridge.

When I’d seen the head of England catering talking about how many tons of potatoes they used during each campaign, I’d thought he’d been joking. Apparently not.

“Bottom shelf,” Jonny called from the other side of the kitchen where he was sorting out sides and salads. “Should be another couple of packs. And can you grab some more sausages too, please?”

“Found them!” I spotted the burgers hiding away behind a small mountain of sausages and grabbed both, glad that we’ddecided to buy a second barbecue because otherwise it’d take hours to get them all cooked. Especially since we’d also got some lamb koftas and a couple of varieties of chicken kebabs that Ryan had made, plus some halloumi to grill.

And that wasn’t even counting the mountain of sides we’d got too.

Luckily, we’d tasked everyone with bringing drinks and they’d been more than happy to oblige with cases of beer, cider, wine, fizzy drinks, and Peaches bringing all the ingredients to make a couple of pitchers of cocktails.

“I’ll take these out and then I’ll come back in and give you a hand,” I said as I headed towards the back door. We only had a small garden, and it was mostly paved over with the addition of some large plant pots Ryan had planted roses in on a whim in the spring and a few pots of lavender I’d added because I’d missed the smell. We had a bit of garden furniture, but we’d had to hit Argos to get some more chairs for today as well as borrowing some from West and Rory, and Clive and Alan.

I still wasn’t sure we had enough, but it’d have to do.

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