Unless we could get a moment alone, that was. And on Monday, as Fatima gave us a five-minute warning before starting, Morgan and I stole away, each purportedly needing bathroom breaks, so we could conduct a re-enactment of our make-out session in the guest bedroom. When Fatima called for the two of us a few minutes later, just as I was beginning to think we’d be re-enacting more than just a make-out, we had to strategically time our egress so we wouldn’t raise suspicions.
When I came down the stairs a minute or so after Morgan, Fatima was waiting for me at the bottom, her arms crossed and her foot tapping. My face flushed red, as if she’d actually walked in on us, and I wondered if this was how her students felt all the time.
“You wanted to talk?” she asked, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I’d almost forgotten that I’d asked her to pull me aside for a character chat. I’d been thinking about what she’d offered us on our weekend away at the start of the summer, and about what Chloe had said about me being a permanent support character. And I’d been thinking about making a change.
Once I’d told her what I was thinking, Fatima closed her eyes for a moment, moving her finger around, as if she were rearranging things in her mind.
“Do you want to make a big deal of it?” she asked. “Like, close the door for good? Or just quietly change over?”
“Let’s go big,” I said, and she smiled; that was a good sign. She had an idea.
“I mean, I could do it next week,” she said. “It would fit well with what I think will happen, assuming you all don’t go completely off-piste.”
“So in other words,” I said, “it could be months from now.”
“Absolutely,” she agreed with a laugh. “But I’ll try to make it happen sooner. Does anyone else know?”
I shook my head. “Nope, I thought it could be a surprise.”
“Well yeah,” she said, “we haven’t had this happen yet in this campaign. Morgan will be shocked, I’m sure.”
It took me a moment to realise that she meant because it was Morgan’s first campaign, not because I should have told her. And I had considered it; I knew she would be surprised. But it was just a game … right?
* * *
Morgan’s lunchbreaks had been slowly disappearing as the gala drew nearer, so I’d been taking her to see Pablo every weekend. Going on walks together, we felt like a little family, and it broke my heart that Morgan couldn’t take him home permanently. I’d thought more than once about adopting him myself, but the house wasn’t super dog friendly, what with the wildlife pond and the farm machinery. So instead I’d just been planning to make a large donation (large for me, anyway) to the rescue in hopes that it would help.
This weekend, we’d got special permission to borrow Pablo for longer than his usual half-hour walk.
“Thanks again for this,” I said to Lauren.
“Of course,” she said, smiling warmly and running her fingers through her short hair. I could totally see how she was Chloe’s type. “Just please have him back by three. I need to close up a bit early today.”
I narrowed my eyes. Chloe had said she had plans tonight, too. But it was probably a coincidence, and even if it wasn’t, it certainly wasn’t my place to say anything.
“Will do,” Morgan said, oblivious, walking back out into the lobby with Pablo. I hooked his lead to the back of his harness as Morgan put him down. He stood next to me, looking up at me expectantly as if to ask,where are we going, Dad?
The weather felt properly autumnal for the first time all year. Some of the maples were even starting to change colour, which was rare for mid-September, so we walked hand-in-hand up the riverside path through a patchwork of colours, Pablo trotting just ahead of us at the end of his lead. There were fewer kayakers and paddle boarders on the river than there had been when we’d gone out on it, and we even saw people in hats and scarves. It was probably a Fool’s Autumn, and we’d have another heatwave soon enough, but I for one was appreciating it whilst we had it.
As we walked, we talked about the Ren Faire. I wanted to keep Morgan’s mind off the gala, at least for the weekend, and we were getting tantalisingly close to the trip. Phil had finished her chain mail for her second outfit, and she’d even bought a few foam swords to choose from that we could share between us, her for her Morgana outfit and me for my generic outfit. We talked about other places we may want to visit, and things we might want to experience together. It was the first time I’d really thought about travelling since Aria, but with Morgan it didn’t scare me like I would have thought. We talked about other Ren Faires we might want to visit, and seeing Hobbiton in New Zealand, and even taking a trip up to the Isle of Skye next summer. I tried not to let myself get carried away with excitement at hearing her talk about next summer as if it were a given.
We took a break on a bench under the trees at the top of the path and chanced letting Pablo off lead to play with a terrier that kept coming up to him. He was beautifully behaved, and he came back every time we called.
I was finally getting to experience all the small, intimate joys I’d been yearning for whilst I’d been alone, and they were made all the better by the fact that it was Morgan I was sharing them with. Sitting next to her on the bench, watching the dog that felt like ours play in the grass, I almost blurted out to her that I loved her right then and there. She looked up at me, the human equivalent of the heart-eyes emoji, and I knew we were on the same page. I knew we had only been together for a few weeks, which was really no time at all in the grand scheme of things, and a drop in the ocean of what I hoped we’d have together. But the more time I spent with her, the more I felt certain that I was in love with her. And I suspected, or at least hoped, that she felt the same about me. That she saw a future with me like I saw a future with her. We looked out at the water, both of us, I hoped, imagining all the adventures we could have together.
I was also admiring the foliage in a nearby grove of neatly spaced beech trees, which had already started to turn for the autumn, the golden leaves on the outside blending perfectly to the verdant green at the heart. I mentally started sketching a low-lying house in the middle, no taller than the shortest of the trees, made of hard-wearing maple to match the less durable beech trees, picture windows reflecting the grove so it appeared unbroken from the river.
“Hey, question for you,” I asked Morgan. She looked up from Pablo and over at me, expectant. “What drawing programme do you use on your tablet?”
She squinted her eyes at me and then smiled; I wondered if she knew why I was asking.
She pulled her tablet out of her tote and walked me through what she was using. It seemed easy enough, and she could even download special “brushes” to create different effects and graphics. My mind ran wild with the possibilities.
Once she’d finished showing me, and I’d promised to let her give me a proper tutorial, we stood up, said goodbye to the terrier, and headed back to the rescue. The way she said goodbye to Pablo, telling him that she loved him and that she hoped he got to go home soon, made my heart break all over again that I couldn’t make him hers.
* * *
After we left,I dropped Morgan at home so she could do some freelance work, and so I could have dinner with my parents and Amy.
