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“Hard night?” He kissed the top of my head.
“Until now.” I threaded my fingers through his and pulled his arm tighter around me. “Thank you.”
“You haven’t seen everything yet.” He reached forward and picked up his leather duffel bag. “Turns out your mum was right about having a contingency in place in case you didn’t make it.”
He opened it and took out the biggest bar of chocolate I’d ever been that close to and put it on my lap before he dropped the bag back down on the floor and pulled me onto his lap.
“There’re other things in there, but I think this is what you need right now.” He tore open the chocolate, broke a piece and fed it to me. “If you want to talk, I’m here for that too.”
I’d never had a problem talking to him before. I’d never had a problem showing him how crappy I was feeling, and yet all of a sudden it felt like I couldn’t get anything out. It was like I didn’t want to spoil all the good he’d done for me.
“This will change things, I know that. But, it’ll never change the way you can talk to me or rely on me...turn to me. If anything, it just means that I can be there for you in every way you need.”
He shuffled up on the bed, taking me with him and sat me between his legs as he poured some juice into our plastic wine goblets. He fiddled around with his laptop until the familiar music came on.
“I know how much y
ou love this film.”
It shouldn’t have made me cry, but it was like there were so many good feelings filling me that I had to let go of the shitty ones. I expected him to hound me with questions, but he just held me tighter. Like he always had. Jamie had never pried or forced me to tell him anything, he’d just held me and waited until I was ready to let it out.
I shut his laptop and nuzzled into his neck. “I called it tonight.”
“You’ve called it before.”
“I know, but it just felt different.”
“It wasn’t, sweetheart.” He pulled my hair out of its ponytail and combed through the knotted lengths with his fingers.
“This little girl, Jamie,” I played with the watch on his wrist, “She stood no chance. She was a broken, battered mess. Every time Chloe and I fixed one thing, another would go wrong. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. She fought so hard for so long and then she was done, and I couldn’t get her back. I tried everything. Every single thing, and nothing worked.”
“Let it go.” He turned me around to face him so that I was kneeling between his thighs. “You can’t save everyone that comes through those doors. It’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Really?”
I swiped my hands down my face, clearing up all the over-emotional tears. “I’m sorry I messed up our plans.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” He smiled. “You didn’t mess anything up, you did what you had to do, baby.”
Baby.
I nodded and reached for the chocolate beside us, a smile creeping onto my face. “This is a lot of chocolate.”
“Meh, just keeping you sweet.”
“So, Steel Magnolias?”
“Probably not the best choice for tonight, but I’ve sat through it with you so many times already that I figured it wouldn’t matter if we missed parts of it.”
“It’s still my favourite. I love Ouiser, she reminds me of my nan.”
“Batshit Lizzie?”
“Don’t call her that!”
He laughed as he put the chocolate on the bedside table next to his laptop and handed me a drink. “Well, cheers to our first date.”
