Page 100 of Brighter Together

She smiles.

Then something in her expression changes.

“You’re too busy for all of that, Tommy.”

The words are teasing, but they land somewhere uncomfortable because she isn’t wrong.

My life has been Greenview and FMR for so long that I stopped noticing there wasn’t much else.

I look down at our hands.

“I’d make time for you,” I say.

Ella is quiet.

I tighten my arm around her.

“I mean it. I’m starting to wonder whether I work the hours I do because there hasn’t been anything else waiting for me when I stop.”

She turns in my arms until we are facing each other.

“What about your friends?”

“They’re family. But they’ve all got lives of their own.”

That has become more noticeable lately.

Alex goes home to Emma.

Phil to Christina and Lilly.

Nick to Charlotte.

Chris to Suzie and Max.

Rob to Olivia.

I go upstairs.

Ella traces a finger slowly across my chest.

“And you—"

“Go back to an empty bed.”

“The flat above your own hotel.”

“Efficient.”

“Lonely,” she says quietly.

I look at her.

She has said it softly, with no pity behind it.

That makes it easier to admit.

“Yeah. Sometimes.”