“Tell me what you want,” I said, my voice almost as strained as my dick, which was so taut that it tapped against her entrance with no help from me.
“I want you inside me,” she said, reaching down for me, but I swatted her hand away.
“You sure?” I asked. “Because I feel like you could want it a bit more.”
A perfunctory laugh burst out of her. “I beg to differ.”
I smirked. “Oh, you beg, do you?”
She shook her head, even as she pressed back into me more. “Not a chance in hell.”
I brought my right foot to the inside of hers, nudging her legs open even wider. She gasped as my hand found her clit right away.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that.”
* * *
I may not have understoodwhy Amy still felt anything but hatred for her Manchester friends, but I was determined to be supportive, especially when Amy told me a few days later that she wanted to get them a passive-aggressive wedding present regardless of whether we went or not. We were sat in the lounge during Ethel’s afternoon nap, and she’d convinced me to do a Korean skincare mask with her. It had dried completely on my face, making my skin feel tight and pinched.
“You’ve never been more sexy to me than you are right now,” I said, referring half to the green mask covering her face and half to the scheming she was doing, producing one bad gift idea after another. Maybe it was horrible, enjoying her bitchy side, but after the way they’d treated her– and the way they were still treating her, by trying to pretend nothing had happened– it was nice to see her stand up for herself, even if only in subtle ways.
Eventually, we landed on a tacky farmhouse-style wood carving with a chicken on it that could be personalised. Amy typed in “The Arden’s, est. 2024.”
I cringed. “You know there’s no apostrophe, right? It should just be an S.”
She smiled wickedly up at me. “I do know that,” she said. “And Niamh does too. And it’ll wind her up every time she looks at it.”
I bit back a smile as she placed the order. “You’re diabolical. Remind me to never get on your bad side.”
Amy laughed. “You’ve been on my shit list more than anyone else I know,” she said. “If I haven’t put you off yet, you’re probably safe.”
I grabbed her legs and pulled them around to drape over my lap. She kept looking at her computer like nothing had happened. I loved how casually intimate we were.
“We’ll be sixty,” I said, “and you’ll be filling our house with grammatically incorrect signage every time I piss you off, and I’ll still be besotted.”
She kept the rest of her face completely neutral, but I saw the moment of recognition when her eyes stopped flitting across her screen, widening slightly. It was only then that I realised what I’d said.
Every time in the past few years that I’d tried to think about my future, even casually, it had felt impossible to plan more than a few months in advance. If I’d stopped to think about what life looked like years down the road, I would have had to confront the fact that Ethel probably wouldn’t be there, at least not in the same way. And I couldn’t do it.
But since Amy and I had gotten together– for real, at least– I’d been getting glimpses of what life could look like years down the road. It was usually inspired by the things already happening around me, which I was letting myself appreciate. Starting a veg garden out back like Patricia, getting a dog like Morgan, going on holidays and road trips, maybe going on a course like Anil or back to school like Jack… it didn’t faze me the way it always had. But this was the first time my brain had jumped that far into the future, and it was the first time I was saying it out loud. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Part of me felt panicked and instantly regretted putting it out there, but another part of me felt almost relieved at my newfound ability to dream.
Amy didn’t respond– though, was it just me, or was that a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth?– and we went back to our conversation as if nothing had happened. But I didn’t forget about it. And later that night, when Amy was home and I was alone in my bed, my brain spun with all the unleashed visions of what a future together could look like. I could hardly picture one before my brain would skip to the next.
It wasn’t real yet; I knew that. No matter what Grey said, no matter how much history we had as friends, the love I felt for her now was still too new for me to be latching onto the fantasies of domestic bliss playing out in my mind. But my imagination got carried away when I was alone, and I needed an outlet for it.
I took out my phone and tapped on my Notes App, scrolling past recent shopping lists and now completed costume to-do lists to Our Lore. I opened it and scrolled up– neither of us had edited it in over a month. And I figured that if she still looked at it, if she still liked reading through the life we concocted between us, maybe she’d like reading a bit more.
So I started typing.
Chapter23
Yorick Proudhollow
It took a lot of convincing, but despite the near-catastrophe on the stake-out, Yorick finally managed to charm his way into an invitation to the ball for the whole party. They debated for hours whether to take their weapons and wear their armour, knowing they could be walking into a dangerous situation, but ultimately, they knew it would cause more problems than it would solve, so they donned their finery and walked unarmed into Nephrine Manor.
The nobles had donned their own finery, too. There were magical fibres woven into garments, amulets that had no doubt cost the lives of countless adventurers to obtain, and ornamental armour so intricate it looked almost organic. The party had done their best, and Eden looked especially stunning in a glittering gown and cloak that resembled the effect of the astral diamonds, but they were nowhere near the calibre of the average attendee. Lady Nephrine was nowhere to be seen so far, but Yorick was sure she would look even more impressive than the rest when she did arrive.
As soon as they could, the party found as inconspicuous a gathering point as possible to confer.
