“Yeah? What about?”
“That we get to have this every day now. There’s no countdown hovering over our heads.”
“We do. Although technically, I had sort of quit, but I’m pretty sure you said it didn’t count. But my contract does still run out at the end of the month.” He grinned, like it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe to him it wasn’t. But I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten such an important detail. My mouth fell open like a fish, strange spluttering noises stumbling off my tongue as I tried to think of something to say.
“I-I… I… How… Shit! I’m so sorry. I need to fix that.”
“It’s fine,” Owen said. “I’m used to not having a permanent job. I think I’d kinda find it weird if I did have one to be honest.”
“But you need something!”
“You can just restart my contract in the spring or something. That doesn’t bother me.”
“I’ll talk to Alfie. He might have some idea of the best way to do it. Or he might know someone who does. I don’t want to leave you totally unemployed for the whole winter.”
“We’ll figure it out, I promise. Even if we’re closed, maybe we’ll want to do a few hours here or there. Or I can find another seasonal job.” He shrugged. “Or maybe I’ll take a few months off.That would be awesome! Plus, if we’re going to go travelling, I’m not going to need a job.”
“I guess… I just don’t want you to feel like… I don’t know, like you don’t have something to come back to. And I don’t want you to worry about money or anything.” It was hard to put my feelings into words, because our experiences were so different, as was the way we approached things. But if Owen was comfortable with this, and as long as we kept talking to each other, then we’d be able to work it out.
“I won’t, I promise. I’m good at saving and I live pretty cheaply. I travel pretty cheaply too. Hmm, that’s something we’ll need to figure out. I’m guessing you’re not super down with hostels and basic hotels?”
“Er… how basic are we talking? Because I’m too old to be sharing bathrooms. And I’d like a mattress that doesn’t totally destroy my back.” I snorted. “God, I sound so old.”
“Nah, I feel like I’m getting the same way. Remember a couple of weeks ago? When I slept slightly funny and fucked up my neck for, like, a week? I want to pretend I’m still twenty-two and invincible, but let’s be honest, that was never the case. I mean, look at my legs.”
“Yeah, well, jumping off of cliffs was never going to be a good idea.”
“It sounded like it at the time.” He grinned casually, igniting a fire in my chest which spread slowly through my body and enveloped me in warmth. It was a feeling that had been growing every time I was with Owen. At first it had been strange and unfamiliar, and I’d pushed it away as much as possible because I’d been so sure we couldn’t stay together. They were the sort of feelings I didn’t want if I couldn’t keep him… if he didn’t choose me.
But now that he had, I was ready to embrace them. Dive in headfirst like I was launching myself off a diving board.
Because even in my own head I couldn’t bring myself to consider cliff jumping.
“I love it when you smile,” I said softly.
“You make it easy, angel.”
I leant forward and brushed my lips against his, fully aware we were in the middle of the kitchen but too desperate to consider that an issue.
There was a small, pointed cough from somewhere over Owen’s shoulder, and the sound of someone loudly putting a bag down. I chuckled, keeping my arms around Owen as I tilted slightly to the side to see who it was.
“Good morning,” I said as I spotted Alfie pulling his laptop out of his bag and putting it on the rickety desk in the corner we continually prayed wouldn’t fall apart. There wasn’t much more than hope holding the chipboard together at this point.
I’d kept telling myself we didn’t have the budget for anything better, and that, if it collapsed, we’d find another for a tenner on Facebook Marketplace. But if I didn’t want to completely piss Alfie off, it would be worth making a trip to IKEA.
“Morning,” he said, glancing between me and Owen with a joyful smile. “You two look happy.”
“We are,” I said.
“Good, good. I’d assumed it was good news when you weren’t in yesterday morning. But I appreciated the message. It stopped Milo pacing.”
“Message?” Owen asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Er, yeah. I told them we’d made up but that we had lots to talk about so could they cover for us. But that we’d be in tomorrow—today—and you’d be coming back.” If they’d read any more into it, that was on them. I wasn’t going to say a word.
Mostly because I knew they’d have already filled in the blanks.
“I’m very glad you’re back,” Alfie said. He frowned. “This probably means we’ll need to sort you a new contract. We should talk about it today.”
