“I thought of you every time I read that blasted book,” Gideon said. “Every single time. I thought it was just—I don’t know. Fate being unkind.”
“No, it was me. Not me being unkind, I mean; I wrote it because it’s such a good idea. Your idea. And what I said before about another failure—I didn’t mean you made me feel incapable. I meant, you always said I just needed to find work that suited me, and I wanted to show you that I had. Ta-da, look at me, published author!” He grimaced. “This wasn’t quite how I imagined telling you.”
“But if I had paid less attention to your inability to put your clothes away and more to what you were actually doing and thinking—”
“Look, I’m a shambles,” Zeb said. “I turn up late, fail to get my hair cut, and forget everything, and it drove you mad. I doknow that.”
“You are also profoundly kind, have behaved through the nightmare of the last few days with astonishing decency and steadfast courage,andyou’re a bestselling author. And something of a shambles, granted, but right now, I cannot remember why I let that matter.”
“It does matter sometimes. I know it does. It’s not precisely entertaining always losing my things and leaving jobs undone and having people be cross or disappointed. I know it bothered you.” He took a deep breath, letting the truth bloom in his chest. “But you wanted me anyway.”
Gideon’s eyes snapped to his. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I wanted you from the moment I saw you, and that was terrifying. You changed my practical, functional, joyless life when you offered to buy me that drink, and then you built me—us—a new life, one I’d never had the nerve to reach for myself, over every day that followed. Losing what we had was the stupidest thing I have ever done.”
“We both made a pig’s ear of it. Could we stop doing that?”
“I doubt you could stop being a shambles,” Gideon said. “It seems to me an inherent part of your nature. I could approach that better.”
Zeb had to swallow a hard lump in his throat. “But you did. You helped me make my life function, so it wasn’t a sequence of small disasters, or big ones. If I’d listened to you, I wouldn’t have messed everything up.”
“If I had listened to you, neither of us would have.”
Zeb took his hand, feeling the fingers interlace, the palms connect, a shiver running up his arm. “Suppose we start again. Suppose we get out of this house, and go home, and do better this time.”
“Yes,” Gideon said. “Please.”
They stared at each other. It was cold, and the candles were guttering. Elise was dead, Wynn was deranged, and the house was a prison, but here they were, hands twined, together.
“I expect a sensible person would say, now we’ve got that out of the way, we should discuss all the terrible things,” Zeb said. “But I think you should come to bed with me, because I want to hold you and be with you, and I can’t think of anything that matters more than that.”
Gideon’s hand tightened. “Agreed.”
Nineteen
Zeb woke with Gideon’s arm heavy over him and dread heavy in his stomach. He couldn’t remember why either of those was the case for a moment, and then he did. He didn’t realise he’d made a noise, but Gideon said, “Good morning.”
“Morning.”
Gideon kissed his ear, presumably because it was all he could reach. “We’re us, today? Us again?”
Zeb didn’t know what he meant for a moment, then he remembered. The promise he’d wanted to make that wouldn’t feel like an impossible pledge. It sent a shudder of joy through him. “Still us.”
Gideon’s arm tightened. “Good.”
They’d clung to each other for what had felt like hours last night, relishing touch and skin and breath. Zeb hadn’t wanted to fuck, with Elise’s broken body downstairs, and Gideon hadn’t suggested it either. They’d just held themselves together byholding one another, letting closeness salve the little wounds and silence make promises that neither of them dared voice.
They were going to start again. Gideon still cared. Everything was going to be all right—for them, if nobody else—as soon as they could leave this bloody house.
“I’ll need my satchel,” Zeb said aloud. “I brought the manuscript of book four and it’s nearly done.”
There was a tiny pause, then Gideon said, “Keep it with you so we can leave in a hurry. Good thought.”
He didn’t sayWhat are you talking about?orCould you try to make sense?or complain about Zeb beginning a conversation halfway through. He’d just worked out where Zeb’s thoughts must be. He’d always been good at that.
“I missed you so much,” Zeb said into Gideon’s shoulder.
“So did I. Daily.”
“Will you come home with me? My landlady lets me have people sleep on the sofa for an extra ten shillings a week, not that I’d want you to sleep on the sofa. I know you have to find a new job and all that, of course, and I dare say we oughtn’t rush into anything, and I really am trying to be sensible, but—”
