Page 118 of The Wedding Pact
He stood in front of August and reached out a hand to graze against hers. ‘I can’t keep holding your hand. I can’t keep putting my arms around you. I can’t keep kissing you.’ His eyes moved to her lips and her breathing slowed. She tilted her chin towards him, her eyes on his mouth also. He swallowed, and said quietly. ‘I can’t keep having you climb in my bed.’
August nodded, a tiny movement of her head, her gaze moving from his lips up to his eyes.
Flynn moved a fraction closer to her and said, ‘I’m in love with you, August. So I can’t do those things anymore if you don’t feel the same.’
She smiled at him, and moments before their lips touched after what felt like too long but also just the right amount of time, she whispered, ‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’
This kiss felt right. It felt like everything it had been back when they were practising, and more. The room seemed to be spinning, they touched each other’s faces, backs of necks, they breathed against the lips before them, and they gave their hearts to one another, fully.
‘Are you ready for this?’ August whispered, when they pulled apart. ‘Because this is real life now, no more curtains dropping or scenes ending, this is us.’
‘I’m so ready,’ Flynn replied. ‘I’m ready for us to take the next step in our relationship, and move from husband-and-wife, to boyfriend-and-girlfriend. Are you?’
She pretended to think for a moment. ‘I don’t know, sounds a bit risky … ’
Flynn laughed, and before he swept her into another kiss that would take them a long time to come out of, he let his eyes take her in, wanting to remember this moment for all of his life.
Chapter 89
August
Later that evening, while Flynn fixed them dinner, August’s phone rang. Seeing Abe’s name, she went to her room to take his call.
August took a deep breath; this was it. But you know what … it was okay. She and Flynn had found each other, they were each other’s home, they’d picked each other. They’d pickedthemselvesand their happiness and their futures, no matter where they ended up living.
‘Hi, Abe,’ she answered. ‘How’s your mum been this afternoon?’
‘She’s doing fine,’ he said. He sounded more like himself again – the more relaxed version of himself that she’d got to know over the recent months. She liked that voice, and she hoped he could forgive her one day so they could be friends. ‘I just came from the hospital, actually, and listen … She’s handing the management of the building over to me, so she wanted it to be my call whether we ask you to move out or not.’
‘Oh.’
‘I told her we didn’t really have any legal grounds to ask you to move out, and of course we got into the same discussion we always do.’
‘It doesn’t matter about legalities, Abe, if you and your mum want us out, we’ll understand and we’ll go.’ Saying it out loud stabbed August in the heart, but she would stick by her word.
‘Well, Mum did give me her recommendation. But she also said that because of us – me – my complicated feelings and “sad, lonely, womanless life in London” as she so aptly put it – I had to make the final call.’
August looked around her room, at her little balcony and her pile of scripts and then at herself in the mirror. ‘And?’
‘And … you and Flynn can stay.’
Her heart did a somersault before her ears asked her to check in case they were malfunctioning. ‘Did you say we could stay, as in, keep living here?’
‘I did. You’re good tenants. Neither of us particularly wants to start the search again, and Mum said something about a pearl being angry at her from up there if she kicked you out, whatever that meant. So if you two want to stay, I’m happy for you to stay.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked August, keeping her voice quiet. ‘Abe, I don’t want you to feel weird.’
‘Really, August, I will be fine.’ He paused, before saying quietly, kindly, ‘Go and be happy.’
‘You too, Abe.’
When August hung up the phone she held it to her for a second, holding Abe for just a moment like she’d barely had a chance to in real life.
She then let him go.
August sat for a few minutes in her surroundings, in her bedroom, with her Flynn on the other side of the door. She wouldn’t take any of this for granted again. From now on, August Anderson would use the drive she knew was in her to work for her dreams.
That said … she’d never give up her adventurous streak.
