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“Do it, princess,” I told her. “Get some sleep, and we’ll speak in the morning.”
It would have been the most natural thing in the world to say the three magic words, and I’m sure we both felt it, hovering there in silence with neither of us wanting to be the one to cut the call.
I love you.
So simple but so hard.
I wanted to say it. Holy fuck, how I wanted to say it. I wanted to scream it from the fucking rooftops for the whole fucking world to hear.
But I couldn’t.
Not with so much on the line for that beautiful little girl.
“Get some sleep,” I repeated, and broke the spell.
“Will do,” she said, and kept it broken.
“Good night, princess,” I whispered, and hovered my finger over the end call button.
“Good night, Miles,” she whispered back, and the line went dead.Chapter Thirty-ThreeFaithI was crapping myself to go downstairs for breakfast, absolutely dreading a whole other battle with Mum and Dad. I couldn’t even imagine how the shit would fly if they’d really been overhearing my phone call.
My cheeks were on fire as I crept out onto the landing wrapped up in my dressing gown. I took the steps down really slowly, listening out for any sign that I was walking into trouble.
Nothing sounded too ominous as I padded on through to the kitchen in my dressing down. They were both already there, and it was a crazy wave of relief to see they weren’t waiting for my arrival to tear me down. If anything they looked calm. Maybe even happy. Considerably happier than they had in the days since Holly gate.
“Did you have a nice evening?” I asked them, and Mum gave me a smile.
“Yes, sweetie, we sure did. It was lovely to have Erica and Miles over again.”
Their names felt so wrong to me in the same sentence like that, even though she said it so naturally. I had the strangest flash of desire in me. One that wanted me shouting a different set of names out loud to both of them, even if Dad was barely even listening over his newspaper reading.
I wanted the names to be ours. Faith and Miles.
Faith and Miles. Miles and Faith.
Faith and Miles Lindon.
Faith and Miles forever.
Faith and Miles, because they love each other, and the whole world needs to know it.
“Do you want a nice bowl of porridge?” Mum asked, but I shook my head.
“No, thanks. I’m not very hungry.”
That was enough to get Dad looking up from his paper, and we were back to the infant days again, both of them quizzing me over some potentially nasty tummy bug because I wasn’t up for eating breakfast right now.
I shook the conversation aside as quickly as possible. In the end opting to have a bowl of porridge anyway just to stop them being worried.
It was just as well I did do. I was only halfway through the bowl when Mum sat herself down next to Dad on the other side of the breakfast bar, and nudged him with her elbow.
The look that passed between them was a nice one. A welcome relief after such long days of dark cloud.
“We were thinking,” Dad said, and my heart picked up pace out of habit. “We’ve been hearing a lot about the cat sanctuary opening and we figured you’d be a really useful part of that.”
“I’d love to be a part of that!” I said, and didn’t hold back any enthusiasm. “I’d love to do anything I could to help them with the fundraising, I already do my bit on social media, but I just know there must be so much more!” I forced myself to take a breath. “What were you thinking? Do you think I could help out with that stuff?”
I acted so surprised when they told me they were thinking about a charity auction fundraiser that I could help organise. I told them it was a great idea and I’d love to be a part of that, then acted surprised all over again when they suggested Miles could be involved to help me.
They looked so pleased when they shared that Miles had already agreed to be a part of that, and he was willing to put in as much time outside office hours as it needed.
I made sure to pull a face and say it was going to take a lot of time outside office hours to get a charity auction off the ground in a few weeks, and Mum looked so happy as she leaned across the breakfast bar and squeezed my wrist.
“Miles will help,” she said. “He’s a great man and he’ll put in whatever work he has to. I just know it.”
Dad nodded with a smile to match hers, and it was so strange, how they would never seem to consider for one tiny second that there could be anything brewing between me and Miles as a man and woman.
