Elden lowered himself onto the sofa with a groan, propping his socked feet on the table in front of him. A contented smile hung on his lips. The rest of them stood in the small kitchen, exchanging confused glances with each other as he prepared to settle in for a long, well-earned nap.
‘Shall I…’ Maeve trailed off. She turned, opening a cupboard at random. Glass cups sat in a neat row, covered in a faint sheen of dust. ‘Right.’
Jude watched her stilted movements, a lump of uncertainty forming in his throat.
She’d been…offon the walk here. Felix had asked them both their plans now that they were free from the Abbey, with Maeve replying that she’d like to find her family as soon as she could. Immediately, if she could help it. There was a finality in her tone; a stress on her singularity that he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined.
He’d turned her words over in his head again and again, nudging them like a sore tooth.
He wanted them to stay together. More than anything. But he needed her to choose – choosehim. To stay or to go or anything in between. He was hers entirely. He’d felt what it was like to be nearly ripped apart, and he’d come out the other side a changed man. She’d taken someone broken beyond repair and would leave behind someone… not quite whole, but getting there. It was more than he could have asked for when he’d considered what his recovery might look like.
No more running, no more hiding. Jude wanted her. In every way she would have him. And so, when Felix had asked him what his plans were, he’d replied in the simplest way he could. He wanted to gohome.
Home was Ánhaga; home was Maeve.
If she wished to hear him beg her to stay or to allow him to go with her to find her family, he would. He wouldgladlyget down on his knees and give her anything she asked for.
She just needed to look at him first.
‘There should be something to eat around here somewhere.’ Elden pushed back to his feet with a grunt. ‘I’ll go to the village tomorrow and get something that hasn’t been preserved.’
He disappeared through the back door. The sound of clanging jars and muted muttering followed. Maeve busied herself filling the kettle with water, making tea with short, jerky movements. Felix caught his eye after she closed a cupboard with startling force, raising an eyebrow.
Before he could muster a response, Elden returned with his arms full. Soon, they were gulping down bowls of sticky porridge and chewing on hunks of dried salted cod. The porridge was virtually tasteless without sugar or milk, but it eased the ache in their bellies. After their dishes were cleaned, Elden pulled blankets from a cupboard under the narrow, rickety set of stairs leading up to the loft.
‘Here,’ he shoved a quilt into Jude’s hands, eyes jumping between him and Maeve. ‘I have a bedroom, there’s the sofa and my grandmother’s old room—’ he jerked his chin up the stairs ‘—up there.’
‘I’ll sleep down here,’ Felix said quickly. His eyes danced with a faint amusement at the staunch distance between Jude and Maeve. She shifted, gaze moving to the floor.
‘I’ll be in my room down the hall,’ Elden said. ‘You two…’
Jude swallowed down the nervousness that had begun to collect somewhere behind his breastbone. Did Maeve even want to be alone with him? He risked a glance in her direction. She hadn’t looked up from the ground. Redness had begun to trace its way down her neck, disappearing down the front of her soot-stained habit.
‘There’s a bath upstairs, should you like to use it,’ Elden continued, breaking the fraught silence. With that, he spun on his heel and disappeared down the hall, clearly wanting to escape the palpable tension. Maeve startled at the faint snick of the door that followed.
He turned to her. ‘I can sleep here on the floor if you’d rather be alone.’
Dark eyes met his, faintly glassy in the candlelight. ‘Why would I want that?’
Jude shrugged helplessly.
The candle between her clenched fingers cast the stairs in a honey glow as they ascended. He was reminded of their first night together. A night full of storms, inside and out. How she’dstood in her shift made sheer by rainwater with fire in her eyes. How he’d known, from that moment onward, that he was completely and irrevocably fucked.
Maeve eased open the door. The bedroom was larger than he’d expected. Its roof was peaked in the middle, the slatted wood a faded white. A window looked out towards the sea beyond. Just under it, lit by a shaft of moonlight, was a single large bed.
Through a door on the left, he glimpsed a bathroom fitted with a sink, a mirror rusted around the edges, and a copper tub placed under a round window. It was a luxurious contraption for a sea cottage, big enough that he reckoned he could lie flat along the bottom.
He knelt beside the tub and flicked on one of the taps. After a heaving groan and a concerning amount of gurgling, water thundered down to hit the base of the tub. He tested it with his fingers, adjusting the taps until the mixture coming out was a comfortable temperature.
Clothing rustled behind him. Moonlight turned the stream to silver.
‘Jude.’
Maeve’s voice was little more than a whisper, but he flinched all the same.
He thought he knew her by now. Knew her mannerisms, her habits. How her voice sounded when she was nervous or angry or joyful. But now… he had no idea what to expect from her.
‘Jude,’ she repeated louder. Her footsteps came closer. He remained with both hands braced on the side of the tub, his head bowed in the space between them. He closed his eyes when her fingers brushed the back of his neck.
