Page 162 of Until Now

‘I’m sorry,’ Chase says. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

I shake my head frantically. ‘I’m not upset—I mean, of course I’m upset. But I’m also...’ I don’t know what I am. ‘My dad would be so made up if he could see this.’

His arms tighten around me imperceptibly. ‘I did this with him in mind. They’re not brown like you wanted, though.’

I laugh, because he remembered our very first conversation. It warms me. ‘Thank you.’ My voice is thick. ‘You’re leaving next week.’

‘You can stay here with them,’ he suggests. ‘If you want. I don’t think my uncle is in any rush to rent out the house again.’

I have no home. No belongings bar the clothes in my suitcase. And until I meet with my dad’s executor tomorrow, I’ll have no place to stay. I’m not even sure if he’s left me anything in his will.

‘Or I can take them with me and I’ll bring them down to visit,’ he carries on.

I like the first suggestion. I don’t want Genevieve touching these cats. Claiming them. Loving them. These are my dad’s cats.

It’s then I notice the picture on the island behind him. I look at my own smiling face, the garden sprawling before me and the quaint shop in the distance. Reframed.

I take a steadying breath before I lower myself to the floor.

We feed them, and we laugh as they growl at each other. I don’t have to ask to know which is Thor—it’s obvious the one-eyed one is. And then we sit cross-legged in the living room and watch them run after a shoelace, completely ignoring the bundles of toys Chase bought. They climb up the curtains and jump on top of the fridge and tackle each other, and I could watch them all night.

They must be a few months old now, but they’re so full of energy. I hope they wake me up streaming around my room.

I grab a quick shower and change into my pyjamas as quickly as I can, excited to play with them again, but when I return to the living room, I freeze in the doorway.

Chase is in the armchair, sleeping. His hand rests on the black cat curled in his lap. Skittles is in a tight ball on his shoulder, her paws over her head. I can hear her purring from where I stand.

I watch him, unable to look away. There’s something about a man being gentle with the things he cares about. And Chaseisgentle. He’s real. Open. Vulnerable. Unapologetically himself. Like Archer, he presented me with his flaws from day one, but unlike Archer, Chase was everything I wanted without knowing I wanted it. I fell without realising I had. Unexpected and unplanned. I’m not sure if I loved him instantly or after I got to know him, but one day it just hit me, all at once.

Chase isn’t afraid to be vulnerable. He loves romance novels, and he collects band tees and guitar picks and weird irons and ancient street signs. He doesn’t insult me to make himself look good in front of his friends. He was there for me from the moment his best friend hurt me, and he’s been there for me ever since. I mean, yeah, I hate that he drinks coffee and that he lives in Provence and that he has a girlfriend and that he’s leaving in a few days, but I love everything about him, even after he’s shown me every single part of himself.

I’m keenly aware of everything he does. How he stirs his coffee as he adds milk so it makes little bubbles in the middle, how he always wears socks around the house, how his button-downs need to be hung up at all times, how his brows furrow when he concentrates, the way his eyes flit skyward as he tries to remember something, the way he disappears sometimes into his own mind, the way his face lights up when he talks about cars.

I love every soft, gentle part of him. I used to love mystery, aloofness, coldness, but that only lasts for so long. Until you want more. Until it’s not enough. Until you see the person beneath and no longer want them.

But Chase has never been any of those things. He has nothing to prove to anyone, and that’s the most attractive thing about him. That he doesn’t put on a façade to be likeable; he just is.

A part of me wished he’d never came home.

Because I know he’ll never be mine.

???

My dad leaves me his house and thirty-grand in savings under the condition I use the money to open a shop. Frank-Bees Foundation was his way of telling me, I suppose. I never even considered opening my own shop to support and educate people on wildlife conservation, but I’m going to do it for my dad. Every good decision I make for myself will be for him.

He leaves my mum thirty-grand, too, but she doesn’t look happy about getting money because her ex-husband is dead. It’s hard to be happy about lump sums and houses when the only thing you want is the one thing you can’t have.

He also left Chase his Stagg, and I can’t wait to tell him. He knew Chase only for a few weeks, but Chase helped my dad when other people hadn’t. I knew Kevin was fond of Chase, and I had a small inkling that he secretly wanted Chase and I to get married and have babies, but he never mentioned him after Chase left. I think he didn’t want to upset me, because he could see how much it ripped me apart.

When my mum and I step out onto the street, she turns to me, opening her mouth to speak, but I throw my arms around her. She makes a noise of surprise, her body tense—and then her arms come around me and hold me tight.

How many times did I hesitate about hugging my dad? How many times did I use the excuse that I wasn’t raised in an affectionate household? Nothing changes if you don’t have the courage to break cycles, so I give myself twenty seconds to break this one.

I don’t forgive my mum. But she’s still my parent. And one day I’ll regret not hugging her, not telling her how much I love her, the same way I regret waiting until my dad was dying to tell him.

We think people are going to be in our lives forever, so we take everything for granted. But I’ve learned that the time we have is a blink in the universe, a single breath, and things can change just as quickly.

And I’ll be damned if I don’t start today.

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