“Uh…” I needed a moment to recover from the mini seizure happening in my brain. I wasn’t sure which question Chrissie wanted me to answer. “Liam is coming, yes. I…don’t think it should be weird? Are you planning to make it weird?”
Chrissie groaned, slumped her shoulders. “That’s not helpful at all.”
“Sorry.” What else could I say? “It probably won’t help to know that Liam asked how you were when Hugo and I were out in Malibu, either.”
“He did not.” The words exploded from Chrissie’s mouth with so much force they brought a little flurry of madeira crumbs with them. Nice. “Sorry,” she said, grabbing a napkin to wipe her lips. “I suppose I’d assumed I was just a notch on an extremely tall bedpost. Wow.”
Zac’s face made me laugh. His nose had scrunched into a ball, pulling his eyes together as he looked sideways at his sister.
“I have sex, Zac. Get over it.”
“I know that. I have sex, too.”
“Yeah? How is Thumbelina and her four sisters these days?”
“Screw you, Chris. You know who else has sex? Your mum.”
Chrissie’s head jerked back, flabbergasted. “She’s your mum, too, moron.”
“Okay, children,” I began. “I’m gonna get off, head to the shop. I really need to nail down the colour scheme before the end of the day.”
“I’ll come with you,” Chrissie said. “You can tell me more about this conversation with Liam.”
Oh, God… There really wasn’t more to it. He’d asked how she was, I’d said she was fine. The end. Still, I hadn’t seen my friends enough lately, so I agreed. After settling the bill, splitting it three ways, I said goodbye to Zac and prepared to leave. I warned Chrissie that Camera Guy would likely be lurking close by, waiting for me to return outside, and I’d been right. While it pissed me off, Chrissie loved it. For some reason, she stopped walking like a normal person and made her way to my car like she’d just stepped onto the runway at the New York Fashion Show. For her sake, I hoped someone bought and used one of the shots, because I had no doubt she’d be scouring the internet looking for herself from the second she got home so she could repost it to Instagram. The wording in the article wouldn’t even matter. Chrissie would’ve made it. She’d love it.
I woke before Hugo on the morning of his twenty-eighth birthday. For what seemed like an age, I lay curled up on my side and watched him sleep. He lay on his stomach with the duvet resting just above the curve of his bum, arms folded under his chest, head facing me. He looked so untroubled this way. Peaceful. Beautiful. Every so often, his eyelids would flutter and I’d wonder what thoughts and dreams were playing in his mind. Were they memories, imagination, hopes for the future?
The future. The possibilities seemed limitless. My belly tickled with excitement. My dreams were starting to come true now. The store was almost ready, I had more requests coming in, and I’d started working on some new designs…but as I looked at Hugo sleeping, I realised that wasn’t my dream anymore. Sure, I wanted to be successful. I planned to work hard and achieve brilliant things, but the vision of my name being tossed around at London Fashion Week wasn’t what sparked that tingle in my belly now. That came from imagining Hugo and I as a pair of wrinklies, pottering around a luscious garden, bickering over who’d watered the plants. I felt excited by the idea of us growing old together, seeing the world, spoiling grandkids maybe. I’d help him put his socks on. He could help me open the jam jar. That was my dream, now. Hugo. Really, he’d always been the dream, I’d just never believed he’d come true.
“I love you,” I whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear. My gaze wandered to his exposed back. I’d been trying to avoid it. The taut, soft skin, speckled with faded scratches from the park bushes, called to me, felt like a magnet pulling at my fingers. I couldn’t look at it and not touch…but I hadn’t wanted to wake him.
Too late. Powerless, my hand reached out automatically. My knuckles grazed his shoulder blades before tracing the length of his spine. He felt wonderful, cool against my warm hand. Soft. Strong. Spreading my fingers over his waist, I pulled myself in close, moulding our bodies together, breathing him in.
“Mmm,” Hugo groaned through a lazy smile. “G’morning.” His eyes flickered open, searched for mine.
“Happy birthday.”
My favourite smile grew wider as he reached up to tuck my hair behind my ear. “You know, I think it just might be.”
Feeling all kinds of fluttery inside, I pressed my nose to his. “Yeah?”
“It’s the first one I haven’t woke up alone. It’s already the best birthday I’ve ever had.”