Page 50 of Taste

Finally, my brain connected to my mouth again. “That sounds a lot like that option where we have to watch Sky Sports.”

“I bloody hate Sky Sports. Unless it’s the men’s diving. Love Tom Daley.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Right?” He smiled and kissed me on the nose. “We are going to be fine, Finn. You and me. This will be fine. One day, we’ll look back at the past six months and wonder what the hell we were thinking. But despite all the crap we’ve done, all those stupid arguments, your ridiculous put-downs—”

“But you areso crapat accounting.”

He hit me over the head, mocking me with a face full of laughter. “I cook the books just fine, thank you very much.”

“So, tea?” I said.

“Yes. Come on.”

His flat was freezing cold, but he dragged me out of bed and wrapped me in one of the millions of blankets that seemed to litter his home. There was a duvet thrown over the sofa, which I would have to grab on the way back, because my feet were cold against his stone tiles, and I already missed the warmth of being wrapped up in him.

“Sorry about the…you know. Earlier.”

“Do you know how many panic attacks I have had? Too many. It’s fine. You’re still my favourite person in the world.”

“I thought that was Mabel.”

“Mabel will always be my Mabel. Even if they were once… Well, they have good taste.”

“Awkward.”

“Super so.”

“Whydoyou have a teacup tattooed on your shoulder?”

He smiled, bringing down cups from a shelf in his kitchenette, flicking the kettle on with one hand as the other went for the milk in the fridge. He was still naked, and I was drinking him in, his nudity as normal and warm as sunshine in summer. I loved that he was so at ease with himself. He wasn’t trying to hide who he was, and I felt terribly overdressed in my fleecy superhero cape.

“None of my tattoos mean anything, I’m not that kind of person. They’re all spur-of-the-moment madcap ideas that were funny at the time. I guess it could be me saying I’m my own cup of tea. I got it at a time when I was depressed and lonely, but I’ve always been okay with who I am. With all the ups and downs and the shit that comes with being me. It’s not like I had a choice, did I? I didn’t choose any of this. Well, I like this choice.” He looked me up and down.

“You choose me?” My attempt to make light of his statement fell flat as a pancake, but I wanted him to say it.

“I choose you. I saidfuck itweeks ago, resigned myself to the fact that I was in love with you and that our stupid fights only made me lust after you more. So, fuck it, royally. I choose you.”

“I choose you back.”

That made him smile. “You’re my cup of tea, Finley Dumbass, whatever your name is.”

“Godfrey,” I said.

“But I like when you call me that.”

I did too. Damnit, I liked him so much. More than I had realised. Well, I had realised, obviously. I’d been in love with him since that first bloody kiss outside the boardroom. Nobody had ever done that to me before. Made me so goddamn angry yet filled me with hope in one small headbutt to the face.

“Do you know how I know this is real?” he continued, pouring boiling water over the two teabags he’d thrown into each cup. Unless that was decaf, I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon, but I didn’t dare to tell him that. “I know it’s real because I’m standing here and you’re over there, and all I can feel is butterflies in my stomach. You still, even now, fluster me no end. You make me feel warm all over, and I go all clumsy and silly. You smile and life seems a little brighter. You tell me you like me, and I see a future not limited to these four walls.”

He smiled, and I swallowed a truckload of sudden emotions. I couldn’t speak. Yet he just smiled and kept talking.

“That sounds weird, I know, but I don’t do much outside work. But you’re here and…well, sex is easy when there are no feelings involved. You meet and you fuck, then you walk away. When there are feelings, it suddenly gets hard to not second guess your every step. And it’s even harder to walk away. I don’t want you to walk away when things get hard. Can you promise me that? Don’t walk away. Just give me a hug and take me to bed so we can cuddle it all better. Can we do that?”

I was in his arms before he’d finished speaking.

“I love you. You know that, don’t you?” My blanket slid to the floor, and I was surprised how I suddenly didn’t give a damn anymore. I didn’t care that we were stark naked. I didn’t care that I was cold. I didn’t care that I’d just said those words to him for the first time. I didn’t care about the bloody universe as long as I could have something as real as this. Just the two of us. Him and me.

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