Always and Only You

Chapter Eighty-Five

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

Present Day

We arrive back in the living room. The estate agent is looking peeved that work is eating too far into his Saturday afternoon. From the look on Gil’s face, the man’s day is about to get worse. ‘I’ve decided to take it off the market,’ Gil tells him. ‘For now, at least.’

The estate agent shoots a look at me as if I am to blame for this unpromising turn of events – which I am – so I grip Gil’s hand and stare back at the man. In days gone past, I would have been fussing around him, apologizing profusely, but now I remain silent. I’m sorry we wasted his time, I really am, but I will never be sorry I made the trip here today and took my future in my hands.

When the estate agent has collected his papers and stuffed them in his briefcase, he makes a hasty, and much less polite, retreat, and then Gil and I are left alone in Heron’s Quay once again.

There’s lots more kissing and touching. The sky dims outside the enormous windows. Eventually, we get hungry and Gil gets up and turns a light on in the kitchen, then pulls a few ingredients from the cupboards and fridge and whips us up a simple spaghetti carbonara.

It’s too cold to eat it on the roof so we sit at the long dining table. The darkness is so complete now that we can only see our own reflections. We talk about everything, filling in the gaps in each other’s knowledge.

‘Simon told me he knew you thought I was to blame for Megan’s death,’ Gil says. ‘Yet he never put you right.’

‘I couldn’t get over that. The real problem wasn’t that he made a stupid mistake that had tragic consequences. It was the cover-up, the lies, the secrets. The cowardice. And then letting you take the fall, the one person who’d had his back over and over again.’ I shake my head, still unable to get my head around the extent of Simon’s selfishness. ‘I knew I couldn’t marry a man like that.’

‘I’m glad. That you’re not marrying him – purely for selfish reasons, you understand – but also because I always hated the fact I knew he hid things from you.’ He sighs. ‘I should have said something.’

I reach out and touch his arm. ‘No, you shouldn’t have. You wouldn’t be you if you had. Of course you wouldn’t do anything to break up your best friend’s relationship. You’re too loyal, too straight down the line.’

‘I wanted to,’ Gil says. ‘You don’t know how many times I wanted to.’

‘But you never did.’ I push my bowl of pasta away and go to sit in his lap, placing my hands on his cheeks, making him look at me. ‘That’s the difference between you and Simon; he gave in and did what was best for him but you never did, not even when it cost you.’

He looks at me seriously. ‘I shouldn’t have messaged you while you were still with Simon. That was wrong.’

‘But I wasn’t really with Simon, was I? He was seeing other girls …’

Gil’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘You know about that?’

‘Only since we broke up. Lars told Anjali and Anjali told me. For a long time I wondered why you messaged me, but when I realized I was still mooning over Simon while he’d moved on, it changed everything. I couldn’t betray Simon, and neither could you, if he’d betrayed me first.’ I sigh. ‘I was so blind.’

Gil kisses me on the nose. ‘So was I. I saw the boy who’d stood up for and protected me, not the man who threw me under the bus to make himself look good. Maybe we’ll stay in touch, maybe we won’t. Either way, we’ll never have the same friendship again.’ He sighs. ‘Or maybe we never did.’

I sense his sadness and I press my forehead against his, put my arms around his shoulders. It’s time to change the subject. Simon is in our past and I would much rather talk about our future. I stand up, take him by the hand, and lead him into what used to be my old bedroom. ‘You kept my painting. I didn’t say you could, you know.’

He tips his head and smiles softly. ‘Do you want it back?’

I pretend to consider his question, but I already knew the answer before he asked. ‘I think you should have it. That painting wouldn’t exist without you. You helped bring all that out of me with your patience, your integrity. You believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.’ I blush a little. ‘Besides, you said it was beautiful.’

‘It is. But not as beautiful as you.’

He begins to kiss me again, but this time it is slower, more deliberate. It feels as if he is unpeeling me, layer by layer. We fall onto the bed and a few items of clothing end up on the bedroom floor. I go to peel Gil’s T-shirt over his head, but he puts his hand on top of mine.

‘You don’t want to?’ I ask, slightly surprised. I know I’ve been fantasizing about this moment since I slid into that other life for a while.

He kisses me again, then props himself up on one elbow so he can look at me. ‘More than anything. But I’ve been waiting for you for so long … I know this might sound stupid, but I don’t want to skip over anything. I want to start at the beginning, and I want to do it all.’

I nuzzle into his neck and bite it gently. ‘Oh, don’t you worry. We are going to do it all .’

He laughs and pulls away to look at me again. For a while he just stares at me, smiling softly as if he can’t believe I’m real, that he actually gets to touch me, and then his expression grows more serious. I’m starting to realize I love it when Gil gets serious.

‘I mean, I want to message you for real, me as me, you as you. That I want to take you out on a first date and walk you home and kiss you at the end of the night. I want to … I don’t know … court you.’

‘Court me?’ I just about keep a straight face, even as my silly heart melts inside my chest.

Gil gives me a playful nudge. ‘Forgive me … I’m still in shock and it’s the only word I can think of, but you know what I mean.’

I smile at him. I love his earnestness, his integrity. ‘Yes, I know what you mean. I don’t want to miss any of it, either.’

‘And I want to be sure this is really what you want. I don’t want you to jump into anything after all you’ve been through and regret it later.’

‘Gil Sampson,’ I say, looking into his eyes. ‘I will never regret you. Not in a million lifetimes.’ And I kiss him again, then sneakily slide my hands up under his T-shirt, feeling bare skin. I swear I hear the moment his resolve snaps. He kisses me the way he kissed me in my dream, as if he is a drowning man and I am the only thing that can save him.

‘Why now?’ he mumbles into my neck as I roll him over and take charge. ‘How did you work out how you finally felt about me? I convinced myself it was never going to happen.’

‘Funny you should say that,’ I whisper into his ear. ‘I’ll tell you all about it later, but I had this really strange dream …’