Page 104 of Dragon’s Ending

“There’s only one Dominic,” I told her.

She sighed and was silent a moment longer. Then she asked softly, “Are you happy?”

“Very,” was all I said, but my smile was in my voice.

“I’m glad for you, Ben,” she said. “Don’t forget, we still need those records. I trust you’re getting some work done in between everything else you’re obviously up to.”

I buried my face in my hand in utter mortification. Dominic, meanwhile, was cackling.

“Yes,” I said meekly, and breathed a sigh of relief as she signed off.

“What could she possibly have meant by everything else?” Dominic wondered.

“Don’t,” I begged him. And then I realised I still had to let my parents know about Dominic. I thought about taking him home to meet them, about the way Mum would keep feeding him, and Dad would quiz him about rugby simply because he was Welsh, and I wanted it. I wanted him to spend time in my unexciting, normal, loving family.

I turned back to my papers eventually, though it took rather more effort than it should have done to drag my attention away from Dominic.

The records of those long gone waited patiently for me, full of love affairs, long-forgotten quarrels, and lives lived. But for once, I found myself thinking less about the past and more about the future.

DOMINIC

The buzz of conversation was louder than usual, with those seated around the supper table obviously not yet over the excitement of having had Abimelech Mortimer visit the family.

Although Ben and I had spent almost the entire day together, I found myself lingering by his chair as he sat down, not wanting to leave him. It would be undiplomatic, to say the least, if I were to defy my father at this delicate point and sit next to Ben. I wasn’t sure I liked this sudden need I felt to be diplomatic, but neither was I going to blow everything up again for no real reason.

“Flying tonight?” I asked, my voice low against his ear as I reached past him to shake out his napkin and place it over his lap. Like the world’s best waiter, if a little more handsy.

His eyes were alight with anticipation as he looked back at me. “Yes,” he said. Simple and definite.

Just like I’d thought he’d been at the start. The things that I so loved about him now—his straightforwardness, his certainty, his solidity—had all been reasons to write him off as dull, unimaginative, and unaware. God, I’d had him so wrong.

“Dominic, Ben.” Dafydd’s voice. “D’you want to fly with us tonight?”

I paused. I’d neglected them, I knew it, and they were not only my family but my friends. But tonight—that was for Ben.

“Tomorrow,” I told him. “Tonight, Ben and I have other plans.”

I hadn’t actually meant it to sound the way it did, but no one around the table looked surprised. I guessed my reputation wasn’t entirely unearned.

Silence fell as Rhodri walked in, and I realised I was still hovering, half-leaning over Ben, rather than in my seat the way I should be before his arrival. He took in the room with one swift glance, the way he always did, and his gaze paused on me.

I straightened slowly as he sat down.

“I suppose you may stay there, Dominic, if you’re really so worried that Ben can’t locate the salt cellar without you,” he said, then leaned over to speak to Dylan.

I didn’t need telling twice.

“Budge up,” I said to Ben and Phoebe.

She made a long-suffering sound as I went to retrieve my chair from the head of the table and brought it around to my new place. Next to Ben.

* * *

The castle stood against the night sky, its ruins shadows and silver in moonlight. Ben stepped closer to the edge of the hill, breath misting in the cold air.

“Race you?” he asked.

“You always cheat,” I informed him. “You distract me.”