He moved across the room impossibly fast, and they had their arms around one another just as quickly.
“I’m sorry,” they both said as each held tight to the other.
The power of his grip around her matched the power of hers around him.
“What can I say?” she asked softly after breathing him in to her fill. “You know I’m sorry? You know I would never hurt you on purpose?”
She tried to pull away so that she could look into his eyes, but he held her firm and she eased back into him.
“I know,” he said, his breath ruffling her hair as he spoke. “I’m sorry for this—for not staying. I knew as soon as I heard the shop’s bell going that it was wrong to leave. I should have turned back.”
“It’s alright,” she told him as she brushed her thumb along the line where his hair met the back of his neck. “The good thing is, I don’t have any other giant lingering secrets to spill, so this should be our last dramatic blowout.”
He pulled back and she was able to run her eyes over his face at last.
“That’s a promise?” he asked with a smile.
“Consider it a guarantee.”
As he leaned in to kiss her, she put her hand to his chest to stop him.
“What about you? Communicate with ghosts? Telepathic powers?”
She squinted at him as though trying to detect whether she could spot any hidden secrets of his own.
“If so, as yet undiscovered,” he said. “But you’ll be the first to know if anything changes.”
“Remember, I did tell you before we started dating that I was too much—I gave you fair warning.”
“And I was supposed to interpret that to mean you had conversations with fictional characters?” he asked skeptically.
“Fair point.”
She laughed and he pressed his mouth to hers, taking in her laughter as he kissed her.
It was some time before she pulled away to catch her breath, asking, “Home?”
“Home,” he said with a firm nod. “I was just headed back when you got here,” he added, pointing to his suitcase.
Aurelia dropped her head to his chest in relief, then she waited while he wrote out a note for Jack.
They walked back to the shop together, Oliver hoisting his suitcase under an arm as Biscuit pulled Aurelia forward. As soon as she locked the door behind them, they couldn’t keep from kissing each other and pulling at one another’s clothes. Somehow, they managed to climb the two flights of stairs and stumble into their bedroom.
Emerging a good while later, Aurelia felt wrung out from the intense feelings that had been coursing through her over the past few days, and the words and emotions they’d spilled to one another in between kisses in the dark. Oliver followed behind her, moving slowly, as though equally exhausted and relieved.
She opened a bottle of wine, and he pulled out two glasses, then she poured the wine as he foraged in the refrigerator and emerged with cheese and apples. After finding a box of biscuits in a cabinet, they made their way to the dining room table.
Oliver looked up at the clock as they sat down.
“It’s eleven,” he said.
“Is it that late?”
“Lost all track of time, I see,” he teased.
“I’ve been a bit too preoccupied to worry about things like time passing,” Aurelia said cheekily.
He took a sip of wine and then asked, “Do you want to go down and see them tonight?”
