She presses a slow kiss to my neck. My breath hitches. I brush my hands up and down her arms, trying to ignore the way she wriggles in my lap, making this plan significantly more difficult.
“Come on,” I say, closing my eyes for a moment and then rolling her over, pressing a kiss to her lips as I shift off the bed. “There’s a heater out there.”
She pulls her trousers back on and follows me slowly. It’s beautiful out here. The caravan sits in a carefully mown patch of lawn bordered by the forest on all sides. Pedro has laid some pale wooden decking, with two chairs facing out to the trees. I bend to switch the lights off as Izzy settles in her seat.
I have to walk with my arms out in front of me to find my chair. Slowly, my eyes begin to adjust. The moon is half-full, bright white above the trees, and the stars are extraordinary. It’s as if someone has sown them like seeds across the sky.
“Oh, wow,” Izzy breathes, looking up. “I’ve actually never seen them looking so clear. I guess . . . less light pollution here than at the hotel.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I can barely see her nod in the darkness. I sit back in the chair, trying to find calmness in the star-soaked sky.
“How was your day?” I try.
She pauses. “You have literally never asked me that before.”
“No?”
“Nope. Never. Anyway, you know how my day was. You were there.”
It’s a rare acknowledgement of real life outside of our evenings together. I pounce on it.
“You seemed irritated with Poor Mandy this afternoon.”
“She said she’d help me find out who Goldilocks is, and then got distracted doing a reel for Instagram. I love that woman, but she gets scattier by the day, and introducing her to social media means she’s pulled in even more directions at once.”
I hear Izzy sigh. An owl hoots in the forest and another answers. Through superhuman effort, I manage not to point out that asking for help to find the owner of the last ring could definitely be regarded as cheating. The bet was between me and Izzy. But I suppose I should have known she would play dirty.
“We’re all stressed with the new year looming, I do get that,” she continues. “I feel pretty scatty, too, to be fair. The renovation work is just so . . . consuming, but in a really good way, like I feel as though I’m doing something me, and . . .” She pauses. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about work.”
“I don’t mind.”
“No, it’s . . . it’s better that we keep it separate.” She pulls her knees up underneath her, face upturned, pale in the moonlight.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying work on the renovations. Is it what you’d like to do, longer term?”
“Lucas . . .”
I am prepared for this.
“We said no talking about the past. I’m talking about the future.”
I can feel her hesitation. This conversation is making her uneasy. I wish I knew why. She’s so determined to keep me out of her life—I can’t understand it. What’s the risk? Why can’t she just try?
“Well . . . yeah. I still have a bit of a yen to do the upcycling business thing. I would never want to leave Forest Manor, though, if it still existed. It’s my home.”
“You could work part-time at both.”
“I guess.” She reaches down to pull a blanket out from under the chair, tucking it over her knees, hair swinging across her face so I can’t even see what little the moonlight gives of her expression. “But starting my own business feels so risky. It’d be safer just to get a waitressing job if the hotel goes under.”
I frown. Izzy never particularly enjoys waiting tables at the hotel.
“Time sometimes feels like it’s . . . I don’t know,” she says. “It’s just streaming by, and I’m happy, obviously, I’m so content in my life, but, like, I haven’t even thought about the upcycling project for months, and it’s been years since I first came up with the idea, and I’ve just . . .” She rubs her face. “Anyway.”
“Go on.”
“No, it’s fine, I’m all good. Ignore me.”
The oven dings.
“And there’s the lasagne,” Izzy says with audible relief.
She flicks the light on as she heads back inside, and the stars blink out, washed away by the artificial glare. I stay where I am, running over what she told me. Content, she said. As though it means the same thing as happy. But I don’t think it does.
“Oh, you burned it!” she calls from the kitchen.
I sit bolt upright, horrified. “Did I?”
I hear her snort with surprised laughter. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
I look over my shoulder as she appears in the doorway, overbaked M&S lasagne on a tray in her hands.
“Sorry, I just had to see your face, Mr. Perfectionist.”
She’s grinning. Her hair is half tucked into the neck of her jumper. Izzy always seems at home wherever she is, but right now she looks particularly comfortable. This is good. This is progress. When we’re in bed together, Izzy relaxes, but when we’re not, she’s usually wary, as if I’m about to sprout devil horns.
“What?”
“You just cannot handle messing anything up, can you?” she says, teasing.
I eye the lasagne. It is very dry and brown at the edges. Pedro’s oven must be more powerful than mine. Izzy starts to laugh.
“You are ridiculous. It’s a lasagne! Nobody cares.”
“I care,” I say. “I want you to have the best things.”
She sobers at that, looking at me, round-eyed.
“Lucas,” she says, softly now. “You can relax. It’s just me.”
It’s just me. Like she isn’t fucking everything.
“After all, what’s the point in having a fling with someone you don’t care about if you can’t let things hang a bit, you know?” she calls over her shoulder as she heads back inside. “Just enjoy the fact that you give no shits about what I think of you, and try not being perfect for once.”
I look back at the sky and then close my eyes as the caravan door swings shut behind her. Ai, porra. We’re getting absolutely nowhere.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
She doesn’t stay over at the caravan. I spend the whole next day fearful that I’ve scared her away, but then, at one minute past five, my phone buzzes, and my heart leaps in response, like Pavlov’s dog salivating. A message at this time almost always means the same thing. Come to mine later? it says.
I wolf down my dinner at home and check my reflection on my way out, trying not to notice the tension in my jaw. Every time we do this, things get better and worse all at once. There’s no way to argue that this is anything other than foolishness—I am clearly going to get hurt. I’m getting hurt already. And still I knock on her door, feeling that double kick in the gut when she opens it dressed in delicate, pale pink lingerie.
“You look incredible.” My throat is dry.
She blushes at the compliment; it touches her shoulders and throat, and I lift my hand to trace the heat on her skin, feeling her pulse quicken under my touch. She pulls me inside and into the bedroom, onto the covers, under them, into her, and just like every time, I let myself believe that she’ll ask me to stay the night.
Her phone rings when she’s close, almost there, sweat beading on the skin between her breasts. Her head is tipped back so I can see the full bareness of her throat. These moments are always the ones when I am most hopeful. When she comes apart in my arms, she’s absolutely herself, hiding nothing. If she’s ever going to really see me, then I sometimes think it’ll be in a moment like this, as we teeter, eyes locking, bodies letting go.
“Look at me,” I whisper.
And she does. The phone rings out, and she gasps against my lips just as I gasp against hers. She grips me so fiercely, and I hold her just as tightly, and for a moment I wonder if she might not want to let me go.
The phone rings again, and this time she groans, loosening her grip and rolling away to answer it.
“Grigg,” she says, reaching for her dressing gown. “Do you mind if I answer? You can just chill here if you want.” She hesitates. “Or go, if you’d rather . . .”