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“Do you—did you ever wonder what would’ve happened to us if we’d stayed together after my eighteenth birthday?”
I grabbed the port. This called for fortified tea and added a splash. What the hell was I doing asking her things like this?
“Yeah, I did.”
I caught her gaze. I couldn’t look elsewhere, seeking answers from four years ago in the depths of the firelight in her eyes. We stared like that for the longest moment as the fire crackled and a gust rocked the hut.
“I was gutted getting your messages,” Rosie murmured. “Telling me to go be with other guys.”
Something tiny, but cold and hard, shifted inside me and melted away. The last of the resentment and hurt I’d carried all this time. “Same here, when I got yours dumping me.”
And we kept staring, until I grabbed our mugs. “Tea. I promised tea.”
What did that mean for now?I wanted to scream but instead, handed her a steaming mug of sweet hot tea, and then hesitated, taking in how domestic this all looked, even in a ramshackle hut.
Rosie blanched, and not from how I’d made her tea.
I sucked in my cheeks, stifling a smile. “I can read every thought on your face.”
“That’s very disconcerting,” Rosie replied primly. “What, exactly, were my thoughts, Mr Soothsayer?”
I nodded to my pillow. “One bed. Two people.”
“Temperatures are going to drop very soon. It’s right on dusk. And we only have the fire and my sleeping bag. Are you comfortable sharing it?”
Thank god for the low light in the hut. I knew I was blushing hard.
“I know you don’t want to share the bed with me. I’m so sorry you’ve been put in this situation.”
I shook his head slowly. “Oh Rosie, it’s not that at all.”
She frowned.
“It will be torture to lie beside you,” I murmured.
Rosie’s mouth parted, looking away. “Right. I see.”
I sat on the bed and reached up to cup her cheek, turning her back to look at me. “Rosie.”
Her breath hitched as my thumb smoothed her cheek.
“You’re not hearing me,” I murmured. “I don’t mean the kind of torture where I’m disgusted or revolted.”
“What do you mean?” she rasped.
I couldn’t say how much I longed for her. But I could share why tonight meant something. For me at least. “I’ve never woken up with anyone I’ve ever slept with. Never did sleep overs. And now knowing you’d thought about what could have happened to us, if Amanda hadn’t intervened, and having to share this rudimentary bed with you, I’ll be waking up beside you tomorrow.”
I scrubbed my face with a sigh, feeling spent.
“The torture is putting you in an uncomfortable situation when it was something I always dreamed about four years ago. Waking up beside you was all I wanted.”
* * *
Rosie
A tear escaped and I quickly wiped it away.
What torture, indeed, to lie beside me.
