Page 114 of One Day Like This (Excess All Areas 1)

And that thought alone was enough to send him over the edge with her.

He buried his head into the side of her neck, where he could smell her hair and feel her pulse race beneath her skin.

“Good morning, Matt,” she whispered, her hand in his hair.

His hands were still beneath her, holding her gently as he slowly rode out the rest of the orgasm. “Morning, babe.” Matt kissed her cheek then rolled off her. After dealing with the condom, he gathered her into his arms. “Everything good between you and Luke?”

“At first I didn’t think he was going to talk to me. We ate our tea, carried on watchingGreat Canal Journeys. But then ... I didn’t realise how much responsibility Luke felt for me. I didn’t realise how much of a burden I was.”

“He said you were a burden?”

Izabel shook her head. “No. I’m paraphrasing. He told me stuff, about how tough it was to help me through college, and how proud he is of me, and how he worries about me working at the shelter, and how he knew I was keeping a secret from him, and it bothered him. And we talked about Dad. How his death is why you two dropped out of school. I always thought the band was why.”

Matt thought back to the day Luke had broken down in his room and told him that he was going to have to repeat the year because his grades had dropped so much, and was terrified he’d let his dead father down in the process. “We’d have dropped out at some point, Iz. We were already making music at the weekends and evenings when we weren’t in college. Your dad’s death just sped it all up.” He threaded his hand into her hair, letting the strands fall through his fingers.

“At some point, I fell asleep on the sofa, and he woke me at midnight to go to my old bed. Sorry I didn’t message, but my phone died because my charger is here. But I woke up with an idea. I’m going to open a fundraising consultancy business. Parlay the success of the fundraiser into something bigger. Do it as a side hustle to begin with. You were right when you pushed me to do something big. I didn’t really have faith in myself.”

“But you do now, right? That’s amazing. We should think about moving to a slightly bigger place. Perhaps with a second bedroom we can set up as an office for the two of us.”

“Is that you asking me to move in?”

“Would you hate me if I said I was telling you, not asking?”

Izabel propped her head on one elbow and laughed. “As if you have a say in what I do.”

“Fair. Perhaps I just didn’t want you to say no. I know you said you wanted some time on your own. But this. You and me. It’s really fucking good, Iz. We’ve done the sneaking around, living in different places. Now the world knows about us, I don’t want to go back to texting to find time to be together. Our lives are about to get messier with you starting your business on top of work, and the band taking off. Let’s not make it harder, because I really miss you when we aren’t together. I miss talking with you about our days. I miss having you make sense of my feelings when I can’t. I miss the faith you have in me, the looks you give me, I miss your fucking smile, Iz. So, give me a break here and say we’ll do this.”

She pressed a kiss to his lips, soft and sweet. “Yes, Matt. I’ll move in with you. But let’s make it work here for a little while and just rearrange the living room to add a long narrow desk near the window. We don’t need to spend more money or move to a bigger place.”

“Fine. It’s off to IKEA we go, then.”

“Oh, meatballs and tea lights.”

“What?”

“Did you even go to IKEA if you didn’t buy their meatballs and a bag of a hundred tea lights you don’t need?”

Matt laughed. “Luke might have been right when he called you Candle Girl. The candles were a giveaway I had company because, you know, lads aren’t lighting so many candles they become a fire hazard.”

“It’s called romance.”

“It was very romantic, but I did check the date on the fire extinguisher.”

“God, you men are dicks sometimes.” She laid her head back down on his shoulder. “What are you going to do about Jase?”

Matt reached for his phone and checked his messages. No response. “I messaged him last night. Tried to call. Went over to his place to see if he was there, and Alex says he hasn’t seen him or heard from him either. He hasn’t even been home to pick up a change of clothes. I’m going to go and see Nan today. If anyone knows, she does.”

“Hope you can figure it out, Matt.”

“Yeah. Me too. It’s more than just the spat though. We’ve fought before. It goes deeper. It goes back to when we were kids. I’m sure we could bandage us back together, find a way to set some kind of even keel so we can continue, but we’d break again. Onstage, in a recording studio, fuck, it could happen at Nan’s. I think it’s time to go deeper, but I can’t do that on my own.”

Izabel kissed his chest. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need to do to make this right.”

Matt slipped his hand from beneath her and tugged the condom off. “Let me go deal with this and I’ll make us some breakfast.”

The rain lashed against the window as they sat at the kitchen counter eating bowls of Rice Krispies. Matt thought about Jase. On a day like today, with water pouring down as if Noah and his floods were on the cards again, he just hoped Jase was safe and dry. Jase was shit with money, always needing more. What if he was stuck somewhere, broke, too proud to call him?

Matt pulled his phone out and transferred two hundred quid of his own money to Jase’s account. Enough money to get a room or a train.

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