The houseplant has taken up residency in the corner of my bedroom, which was one of the few things we managed to achieve yesterday other than having a lot of sex, eating sushi and coming up with a few plans. It was the perfect day.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say, kissing her good morning. ‘We should mark this momentous occasion. How about we do something to celebrate you officially moving in next weekend? We could combine it with our next alphabet date.’
‘Sounds really good. I’d better go and talk to Natalie,’ she says, reluctantly inching towards the shower. I grab hold of her hand and bring her back into my arms.
‘Could it wait a little longer?’
Later that week, I take a break from heaving another round of boxes into the house and look at Alice. It’s Friday night and there’s still at least one more car-load to bring over before she officially moves in tomorrow.
‘I don’t want to be rude but I did not expect you to have so much stuff. We might actually need to find a bigger house to fit all your clothes in though I am impressed with how quickly you’ve managed to pack all this.’
‘I can be very efficient when I want to,’ she says. ‘And pipe down, I have a perfectly normal amount of stuff.’
‘You try saying that after you’ve carried boxes with things like ‘Memories’, ‘Summer Sandals’ and ‘Misc. Scarves’ written on them up two flights of stairs. How can you even fill a box with miscellaneous scarves?’
‘You can never have too many. You’re not regretting asking me to move in already, are you?’
‘Never. Are you regretting saying yes?’
‘Nope. Though it was a bit presumptuous of you to have A-Z stamped into the key fob when we’d only got to our X date …’
‘Oh really? I decided it was high time to take a chance on you.’
‘You’retaking a chance onme? Please. It’s definitely the other way around,’ Alice says, nudging me in the ribs.
‘I just asked a girl known as The Bolter to move in with me …’
‘How did you know about that nickname?’ She says, looking mortified.
‘Dylan mentioned it a while back.’
‘God he’s an idiot. It’s true though, they did used to call me that. I have never been in a relationship where I’ve wanted to stay before.’
I clear my throat. ‘I’m not sure I properly apologised for what happened after yoga a couple of weeks ago.’
‘When you ran off after breakfast?’
‘I was overthinking the key misunderstanding and I let it get to me but seeing you here on my doorstep last weekend put my mind at rest, once and for all.’
‘Funnily enough, turning up on your doorstep did the same for me,’ she says. ‘It felt so right. How about we agree not to make any more of a habit of bolting?’ Alice suggests, wrapping her arms around me.
‘I am more than happy with that.’
She pulls a photo frame out of her bag, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. I’ve seen it countless times by her bed at her house. A photo of Alice as a little girl with her mum and dad, sitting high up on a cliff, their hair whipping around their faces and their cheeks pink. Her mum is holding onto a flower crown, which Alice told me she made for her that windy day on a family holiday in Cornwall. The three of them are bunched up together on a rock, squinting into the bright sunshine, their faces creased with laughter. ‘Do you mind if I put this in your … our bedroom?’
‘Of course not. Are you okay?’
‘Just missing Mum,’ she shrugs. ‘I always get like this when something big happens. Like when I got the keys to my flower shop. I will always want to be able to share these big, brilliant moments with my mum, so they will always be tinged with sadness.’
I scoop her up in my arms and kiss her gently on the forehead.
‘Do you think she’d approve of us moving in together?’ I ask after a pause.
Alice turns to look straight at me, a smile curling at her lips. ‘Approve? She’d be beyond thrilled, Zach. She’d probably be baking us cakes and suggesting furniture options for the house. Mum always said that love was the most important thing.’
The next morning I’m awake far earlier than usual, adrenaline coursing through my veins from the minute I blink my eyes open. Today’s the day. This is the last time I’ll be waking up in this house by myself. The last time I’ll roll over to see an empty side of the bed. The last time I’ll get first dibs on the shower, no doubt. I count down the minutes until it’s an acceptable time to drive over to Alice’s, relishing the fact that this is the last of these journeys I’ll make before she officially moves in.
I pull up outside her house and Alice flings the door open, bounding over to me.
