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‘Careful. You’ll knock someone over running like that.’ A guard stepped out in front of her, holding his hands up in front of him.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Slowing down, she turned the corner and picked up speed again as she rushed down the stairs. ‘Josh!’
Just as she jumped the last three steps down onto the platform, the train pulled away, quickening its pace as it travelled further down the line.
Panting, she placed her hands on her knees and watched it speed away with Josh and any chance of a future with him. He’ll meet up with Fiona now whilst thinking that things were over with Tammy. And they’d likely get back together.
She took breath after breath, trying to regulate her breathing again. She straightened her back. She’d tried, and now she just had to trust that he’d come back to her. That was if shehadmisunderstood what he’d been trying to tell her last night.
Ian had said Josh hadn’t been making much sense. The whole thing with needing a clean break from Fiona might have been him speaking in riddles. He might have meant he wanted a clean break to start his relationship with his ex again. She pinched the bridge of her nose and turned towards the digital screen announcing train times. Where had he even been travelling to?
Sighing, she turned and made her way back up the stairs and across the bridge. She might as well go back to the bakery now. There was literally nothing more she could do here. She’d just have to wait and see if he returned with Fiona or if she had misunderstood and he came back alone.
Grabbing hold of the rail to the stairs leading back down, she bit down on her bottom lip. How could she have got this so wrong? If she had. She shook her head. She needed to speak to him. To hear it from his lips whether he wanted to be with her still or if he had actually been letting her down last night. If he had actually been breaking things off with her.
‘Tammy?’
Looking up, she froze. He was here. In front of her. Josh was standing on the stairs in front of her.
‘What are you doing here? I’ve been trying to ring you all morning. And last night. You haven’t answered any of my calls.’ Josh frowned, deep lines forming across his forehead.
‘I...’ She didn’t know what to say. Now he was right here in front of her. She didn’t have a clue how to actually ask what was going on, what his intentions were. ‘I came here to speak to you.’
He nodded as a flicker of a smile brightened his face. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. What you said last night...’
‘About Fiona wanting to get back with me?’
‘Yes, that.’ She looked behind her as the guard called down to them.
‘No loitering on the stairs.’
Raising his hand in an apology, Josh nodded before leading the way back down to the platform. He turned towards her, searching her eyes. ‘Why did you run off like that?’
‘Because I thought you were telling me you were getting back with her.’
‘No. I’m not getting back with her. I was telling you what she’d said to me. I wanted to be open with you. To be honest about what was going on and why I hadn’t been sleeping.’
‘So you’re not getting back with her then? Definitely not.’
‘One hundred per cent not. I was telling you the truth when I said we’d grown apart. I didn’t have a clue that she’d even think about getting back with me, but it doesn’t change how I feel about her. And how I feel about you.’ He tentatively took Tammy’s hand in his.
‘I thought that was what you were saying last night.’ She looked down at their hands together. ‘Then why haven’t you been sleeping?’
‘Because I’ve been trying to work out how to tell her I need her things gone. After meeting you, all I’ve thought about is building a future together and I think it’s time I had a clean break from her, that way I can make the lighthouse mine rather than be tripping over her boxes. I’ve known her so long. She’s like a sister to me and the last thing I want to do is to hurt her.’
‘And the decision? Ian said you’d been trying to decide about something?’
‘Which storage unit to put her stuff in. That’s why I’m meeting her. Or I was meeting her. She rang a few minutes ago to tell me that she couldn’t make it after all.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Tammy, it’s you I love and I want to be with. You can ask Teresa and Gavin if you don’t believe me. I was asking their advice about how to make long-distance relationships work last night at the party. Apparently, they spent a few months apart after meeting before Teresa made the decision to move down.’
He had been asking for them, not for him and Fiona. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have stayed and listened to you. I just heard that she wanted to get back and assumed the worst.’
Josh took her other hand in his and took a step closer to her. ‘I’m not like your exes. I want you. I love you. No one else.’
