It could.
I glanced down at Jerry, curled up in my lap.
I had some thinking to do.
Jasper
I yawnedas I pulled up in front of Finn’s house. I loved my mum, and I was growing to really like Clive too, but they had a tendency to try and feed me whenever I went around there. Tonight, it’d been homemade apple crumble, which I was never going to turn down, no matter that I’d just eaten at Finn’s mum and dad’s.
Consequently, I was so full I felt sleepy.
What great company I was going to be tonight.
Finn met me at the door, mid-yawn. He took one look at me and laughed. “What did she feed you this time?” I may have mentioned it to him a few times.
“Apple crumble.”
“With custard?”
I smirked. It was Finn’s absolute favourite. “I ate so much I can hardly move.”
His eyes narrowed. “You brought me some though, right?”
In the six months I’d been with Finn, my mum had taken to treating him better than she treated me, I swear. “Yeah, yeah, it’s in my bag.”
His face lit up and he stepped back. “In that case, I suppose you can come in.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Like you’ve not been waiting for me to get here.”
He grunted something unintelligible and headed down the hall to the kitchen. I followed and took my customary seat at the breakfast bar as he unloaded the Tupperware containers from my bag.
“Coffee?” he asked, turning to face me, container in one hand, spoon in the other.
“I’ll make it. You finish that.” I smiled at him as he stood there, leant against the worktop, making quick work of my mum’s apple crumble. I might live at my dad’s and feel more comfortable at my mum’s now, but this was home to me.
Even though it had been months since I’d called it that.
As soon as I stepped through the door, I relaxed in a way I never could anywhere else. It held a warmth that soothed me to my bones, and when I wasn’t here, I ached to return. Not that I’d told Finn that.
He’d only feel guilty about suggesting I move out in the first place, and he’d been so right about us needing that.
I don’t think I’d feel the way I did about him now, about us, if we hadn’t had our own space in those first few months.
I missed it, though.
Missed waking up here every day, missed coming home after work to Finn cooking me tea. He still did it the nights I stayed over, which was at least three nights a week most weeks.
But it wasn’t the same.
I wanted to be here all the time. With Finn and Angus.
I just didn’t know if Finn was there yet.
“Here you go.” I slid his coffee over to him as he set the containers in the sink.
“Thanks.”
“So,” I said, turning to face him. “Did I miss much after I left?”
