Page 53 of Taste

“Your team will be proud to hold the fort, knowing you trust them to do so. That’s what they’re there for, keeping it together when you can’t. My team know to pull together when I can’t be there. That’s why I employ them, because they have my back. I have theirs too. It’s simple.”

“You’re not going to work either then?”

“Nope. Told you. Them’s the rules.”

I loved how he smiled. How the awkwardness was melting into comfort. The sun shone in through the window, the day already in full swing outside in the street. London life moved along, the world turned, and here I was in my tiny home, wondering how I’d snagged myself someone as handsome as him.

“What do you want to do today?” I asked, trying to find something we could talk about for longer than a few seconds without me welling up.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled around his toast. “It’s rare I have a day off. I tend to like…pick up my dry-cleaning, do a shop and watch something on Netflix.”

“We could do my laundry, pick up a takeaway and watch something on Netflix,” I suggested. It actually sounded like a plan. I thought perhaps we could have a drink at this small bar I liked and go for a walk around the park as well. Normal things that normal couples did. Not that I’d ever been part of a couple, so maybe that was not what normal people did at all.

“Sounds thrilling,” he joked, but then he went quiet again.

I took his hand across the table. “We don’t have to do anything.”

“Not doing anything is not an option.” God, he was sexy when he was bossy. His fingers squeezed mine and his tongue flicked across his bottom lip in frustration perhaps, because there was something he wanted to say, but it seemed to be stuck in his throat.

“Go on,” I urged. “It’s just me. Be honest and brutal and we’ll deal with it.”

“Issues. I remember.”

“Not today. Issues are off the menu. Today is a day of rest. We both need to chill and just hang out. Enjoy each other’s company. Not that I’m entirely sure what that entails. I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone…until now.”

“I don’t believe that. You saw that Belgian Wings girl for months!”

“Six weeks. We fucked around.”

“Sounds like a relationship to me.”

“Nope. Friends with benefits. She laughed when I broke it off with her.”

“You must have had boyfriends.”

“Nothing that lasted. I never really felt ready for someone else to be part of my life. I brought hook-ups back here but kicked them out as soon as we’d done the deed. I was always upfront with breakfast not being part of the package and that there would be no sleeping involved.”

“Yet here I am.”

“Here you are. I’m comfortable with you.”

“Comfortable?” He smiled. I loved his smile.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. So, this is a relationship then, is it?”

He was quiet, just fiddling with my fingers, the sunlight casting shadows on his face. People walked by outside, the sound of their chatter trailing in their wake. Doors slammed in the flat above.

“Yup.” The realisation washing over me like a warm blanket.

“I’m sorry about last night. It keeps playing on a loop in my head, and I…I think you were right. It was too fast. Too much too soon. But I really, really do love you, Mark. Being with you is all I can think about right now, so do you think… Can we just go to bed and fuck each other senseless? Just get back into the swing of things, and feel normal again?”

“Without the hurling abuse at each other?”

“Well, I might have to bring up some minor accounting issues Saffiya mentioned in the meeting last week, and then there’s the fact that we’re looking at—”

“Shut up, Finley.”

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