Easier said than done now that all my decisions were set to stick.
Dev opened his door at the first knock. His dark hair, dark eyes and face lit up to see me and I smiled, my head full of ten days and twenty years of things I wanted to tell him.
‘Hello, stranger,’ I said.
‘Hello yourself,’ he replied. ‘I see tomorrow did come after all.’
‘At last,’ I nodded. It was all I could do to meet hiseyes, feeling twelve years old again, knocking for the new neighbour.
‘I’ve heard they’re pretty regular, these tomorrows,’ he said, grinning. ‘They happen almost every day.’
‘Almost,’ I laughed, every part of me filled with pure joy. ‘But not always.’
‘I’m glad you’re here.’ Dev grabbed his coat from a shiny silver hook beside the door and joined me on the front step. ‘I was starting to think I was imagining things yesterday. I ended up sat in my room, listening to my old CDs.’
‘Bit of Kings of Leon?’ I asked, almost fainting clean away when he laughed.
‘How did you know?’ He reached for my hand, his fingers winding through mine as our palms pressed against each other, warm and safe and full of promises. ‘So where do you want to go?’ Dev asked as we set off down the garden path.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, floating as much as walking. ‘Why don’t you surprise me?’
He paused in front of the gate, his grin fading to a soft, searching smile. Something that felt a lot like love shot through me, lighting up my darkest corners and leaving me on unsteady legs. But Dev wouldn’t let me fall. He held my face in his hands and traced my cheekbone with his thumb before leaning down to kiss me, the warmth of his breath tingling against my cold skin, the heat of his lips running up and down my spine.
‘Why don’t we surprise each other,’ he suggested. ‘See where we end up?’
‘That sounds like a very good plan,’ I replied before pressing my lips against his again.
It was a very good plan indeed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Next Christmas …
‘MERRY CHRISTMAS!’
Arthur and Artemis answered the door wearing matching festive pyjamas, out of their tiny minds on too much sugar and the unbearable thrill of Christmas Eve.
‘Auntie Gwen! Uncle Manny!’ Arthur squealed as Artemis looped her arms around my waist and squeezed tightly enough to bust an internal organ. Not my liver, I prayed as I prised her off, anything but my liver. It was needed.
‘Get out the way, I’m desperate for a piss,’ Manny shouted as he peeled them off, waving at Cerys as he ran upstairs to the toilet.
‘Good drive?’ Cerys asked, holding her arms out for the bags and bags of presents I retrieved from the back seat of Manny’s new car. RIP the Volvo. She served so well for so long but had finally gone to the great car park in the sky and Manny was taking it like a champ.
‘Terrible drive,’ I replied. ‘Is there a bottle of anything open?’
She grinned. ‘There’s a bottle of everything open. Red wine in the living room, white wine’s in the fridge. You know where it is, help yourself.’
‘I don’t,’ Drew said, walking through the door carrying his bag, Manny’s bag and my suitcase, all in one hand. ‘I need a whisky, a very large whisky.’
‘Manny was a handful on the way up,’ I explained as he set our bags down and swapped them for my niece and nephew, tossing Artemis up onto his shoulders and throwing Arthur up into the air.
‘Why change the habit of a lifetime?’ Cerys replied. She cocked her head towards the living room and Drew moved quickly, the kids clinging to him like barnacles. ‘Mum’s got the whisky open, they’re in there.’
‘How are you settling in?’ I asked, following her into the kitchen. Nan’s kitchen. The last time I was there was to pack everything up into boxes. Now, full of Cerys’s pots and pans and colourful Le Creuset pots it looked like a home again, the same but different. It was hard not to feel a little sad.
‘Oh, you know, it is what it is,’ Cerys fanned one hand in the air, opening various cupboards, pulling out tubs of peanuts and packets of crisps. ‘Artemis is doing well in the new school but Arthur’s been a bit of a terror. Someone has found his confidence. His teachers recommended I put him in drama classes. And sign him up for football. And Tae Kwon Do.’
I couldn’t help but be impressed. Who knew he had it in him?