Page 78 of Best Man
I kiss him then, feeling his weight and smell all around me. He feels safe. He feels right. He feels like my home. He’s perfect.
EPILOGUE
JESSE - SIX MONTHS LATER
I let myself into Zeb’s flat with a quiet sigh of relief. It’s eleven o’clock at night, and I’m bloody shattered. I’ve been at work since seven this morning and it’s been a harrowing day with a case, but I can rest easy now because everything is settled and a mother and her child are now safe.
I look around the flat, inhaling the scent of vanilla and furniture polish on the air. He’s left the lamps on for me, and they shed pools of light on the wooden floors and white walls. It’s an oasis of calm and as far away from the feel of my workplace today as if I’d stepped into a house on the moon.
A clicking of claws sounds out on the floor and then a bundle of fur leaps at me from the shadows. “Clarence,” I whisper. “Were you lying on the bed, you naughty little monster. You know Daddy doesn’t like it.” I laugh. “Just like he doesn’t appreciate me calling him Daddy.”
The dog pants and tries to lick my chin, his little face creased in what looks like a smile. When I encouraged Zeb to get a dog – okay, when I forced Zeb to get a dog – I thought he’d go for a pedigree dog. Something expensive and well groomed. Instead he marched off to thelocal dogs’ home and came back with something small and unkempt that looked very much like a tiny sheep on spindly legs. God knows what breed Clarence is. There’s some terrier in there and a few other breeds, but he’s a bundle of love and slobber and he adores Zeb beyond reason. Wherever he is, you can be sure to find Clarence. The dog accepts me as an extension of Zeb, but we both know who his master is.
I take off my jacket, slinging it onto the back of the sofa, and wander into the kitchen, followed closely by Clarence who sussed out very early on that I’m a soft touch and will always slip him food. There’s another lamp on in here and a plate on the island with a note propped against it. In Zeb’s neat writing is writtenI’ve left you some lasagne, love. I want you to eat it or you’ll be ill.
I smile at the prosaic note that still somehow manages to punch me in the heart. I’ve found that Zeb is very much like this in love. He doesn’t overwhelm me with questions and demands. Instead he thinks hard and studies me and always looks after me. And because he’s studied me over the months so intently and lovingly, he somehow gets it right every time.
I’d texted him when I knew I was going to be late without going into detail. But still he’d known that I needed him, and this is his way of showing me that he’s with me always, regardless of physical presence, with my favourite meal that he learnt to cook from my mother.
I heat it up in the microwave, inhaling the delicious scent and feeling my mouth water and the knot in my stomach unravel. I love my job passionately. I think I’m good at it, and I know I’m helping people, but it still takes a toll, and it’s good to be home. I still as the microwave dings.Home. Is this my home?
I look around the kitchen. It’s still the same beautiful room as it was the first night he fed me dinner and asked me to pretend to be his boyfriend. However, I can see the new additions in the colourful blind that I picked out, in the photos on the fridge and windowsill, and the bright red teapot on the dresser.
I reach out and touch the corner of the photo I like best. It’s a black-and-white shot of the two of us at a party. I’m laughing, and Zeb has his arm round me. A wide smile is splitting his gorgeous face, and hiseyes are creased around the edges, but it’s the way he’s looking at me that I love best. As if I’m everything he can see. I smile. It’s the way I look at him too, but he never realises that.
The microwave dings, and, using a tea towel, I grab my food and head into the lounge to eat on the sofa. Clarence jumps up next to me and gazes at me imploringly as if he hasn’t eaten for a decade. I feed him a bit of lasagne and he licks my cheek affectionately afterwards.
Even here I can see my additions. Front and centre is the peony picture that Zeb bought me from the Cotswolds. I’d carried it here, blithely insisting that his place was a better backdrop for it. I’d worried that I was overstepping but he immediately hung it in pride of place over the fireplace, and he had a smile on his face the whole time.
Other bits of me are also here in the new bright cushions on the sofa, the painting I picked out when we were in Paris for the weekend, my trainers lying abandoned under a chair, and the pile of books on the coffee table. He’ll grumble about them, but he won’t be able to hide the smile. It’s as if he loves these signs that I live here as much as I do.
I still with my fork halfway to my mouth.I think I actually do live here now. I calculate quickly how long it’s been since I’ve stayed in my flat, and I can’t remember. I think it was a few weeks ago.
I’ve been back to check on Charlie regularly. I’ll always worry about him and his health, but he patently doesn’t want fussing over and on my last visit he was talking about sharing a flat with Misha. My lip twitches. That should be interesting.
Then I frown. It’s alright me thinking it’s okay to stay here, but is it with Zeb? Is he just being polite and unable to hurt my feelings enough to demand that I fuck off back to my own house? I look down at my supper and smile and shake my head. He knew I was coming back here.
When I’ve finished my food and put the pots away, I wander into the bedroom. It’s lit by the light of the moon and the streetlights outside, and the huge window is open, letting in the sounds of people moving through the yard outside.
I smile at the sight of Zeb. He’s asleep, which is hardly surprising as he’s been working all hours himself. He bought a house a few months ago with the aim of flipping it. I’d been surprised because asmuch as he loved his dad, he always seemed to shy away from any hint that he’s anything like him. I’d also been amazed by the fact that he was doing most of the work himself.
But he’s his father’s son, and he knew a lot more about it than I’d realised, and he’s thrived these last few months. He sends me off with a kiss to work before he zips off to the house, accompanied by Clarence with his head out of the truck window. Yes, Zeb now drives a dusty old truck and he dresses in disreputable old jeans and T-shirts as he goes to spend his day pulling up floors and demolishing walls. He comes home dirty and happy and it bloody suits him so much.
He promoted Felix to manager and hired someone to help him out when he bought the house, and the agency is thriving. Felix says he misses taking the piss out of him, but Zeb told me that Felix was always better at the job than him. I sometimes miss seeing Zeb in those sexy suits, but I like even more the lack of stress in his face and the way he glows these days.
Clarence huffs and jumps up onto the bed, curling into the corner of Zeb’s legs and settling down happily. I smirk. When we first got him, Zeb had sternly laid down the law on where the dog could go, which didn’t seem to be many places apart from his basket. However, Clarence is cunning and gradually circumvented Zeb’s rules until there weren’t many left.
I’d known that the dog had won when I came home and found him sitting by the side of the bath barking so that Zeb would throw water at him. The mess in the room clearly indicated a power shift that abides to this day.
Stripping off my clothes, I head for the shower and enjoy the cool water streaming down my body. Eventually clean, refreshed, and feeling as if I could sleep for a year, I pad back into the bedroom. Zeb has shifted position to accommodate The Dog Who Should Not Be There and is now lying on his side. His hair, which is longer than it’s ever been, is a tousled mess and his full lips are slightly parted.
I stare at him in the soft light from the bathroom, feeling so much love push through me. I love him so much. Every day it gets deeper, rooted as it is now in the reality of Zeb rather than the glamorous view I’d previously had of him.
I love his grumpiness in the morning and his inability to ask anyone’s advice to the extent that he won’t ask for directions, which had led us on an hour-long tour of Falmouth once. I love the way his nose wrinkles when he’s reading the paper and the way he looks at me with laughter and so much love in those bright blue eyes.
I know that this is it for me.Heis it. My person. And that will never change. I’m a man who knows his mind and heart, and they’re as full of Zebadiah Evans as they always will be.
The light catches on a piece of paper on his bedside table and I idly look at it, returning to look more closely when I see my name. I hold it up to the bathroom light and read it. Then I read it again. And again. And then I look at him and smile because it’s so Zeb that I want to laugh out loud and smother him in kisses. It’s a list in his neat writing and the subject is me moving in with him. It reads like a careful summary of all the reasons why he wants me to live with him, and I read them carefully again, feeling warmth spread through my stomach and chest.
