“Come on, you tease,” I said, reaching my hands up to tickle her waist. She squirmed in my lap, making my trousers go a bit tight, so I pressed onto her hips to still her.
“Well,” she said, “you’ll have to be okay sharing me with another guy.”
I squinted at her in confusion, and she spun her phone around, a picture of Pablo appearing in front of me. It took me a moment to understand what she was saying, but when I did I grabbed the phone out of her hand, then looked back up at her.
“No!”
She nodded as she smiled, biting at her bottom lip. “We can pick him up on Tuesday when we get home.”
I looked up at her with tears in my eyes. “How did you do it?” I asked. “How did you manage to make everything so very right?”
“The same thing as you,” she said with a shrug. “I asked myself what I really wanted. The real me, not the me I’d been trying to force. And it was simple. Yes, I wanted to work in design, but I also wanted game nights with our friends. I wanted this dog. And I wanted you. And once I knew that, it felt like a no-brainer.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because if that’s really what you want, then that’s great. But if you want to go to York, if you want to live somewhere else, we can do that. Or you can do that, and I’ll support you from wherever you want me. I want you to be happy.”
She tilted her face down and rubbed her nose against mine. “Youmake me happy, numpty.”
And dammit if the tears didn’t start falling at that very minute.
Morgan sat back and laughed. “Numpty? That’s what put you over the edge?”
“Shut up,” I said, pushing as if to eject her from my lap. “Remember when you used to reward me for showing emotion?”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a baby voice, stroking my face, wiping my already-subsided tears away with her thumbs. “A million emotional XP for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, pulling her in for another kiss. “I couldn’t have levelled up without you.”
“And what about me?” she asked, sitting up straight and posing as if she was being assessed. “Grand romantic gesture in a foreign country, taking over an entire festival? What’s that worth to you?”
“Everything,” I said. “It’s worth everything.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and Morgan must have felt it, too, because she looked down at our laps.
“Save the vibes for the bedroom, babe,” she said with a laugh.
“Very funny,” I said, pulling out my phone to silence it, but not before I saw the text message that had just come through in the Wench Please group chat.
Get a room!!!!!!!!
“I mean, they’ve got a point,” I said, shrugging up at Morgan, who had read the message, too. “Actually, come to think of it, there’s definitely a tree somewhere around here that would be good enough.”
Morgan laughed and hit my arm in what I assumed was meant to be a playful punch, but the whole knight thing was clearly getting to her head, as it actually stung a bit. Even so, I could feel my grin extend not only up to my eyes but even down into my chest.
“I love you so much,” I whispered in her ear, her curls tickling my cheeks.
“Back at ya,” she said, turning to me and kissing me gently on the nose.
“God,” I scoffed, “what kind of dickhead doesn’t say ‘I love you’ back?”
Another playful punch in the same spot, and that onedefinitelystung.
“Ouch!” I cried. “Take it easy. You’re stronger than you think.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s such a cheesy line.”
Then she leaned in to kiss me properly, and all the trumpets and gallops and huzzahs faded into nothing. Because I finally knew exactly what I wanted, and I had it right here in my arms.
Epilogue
