He steps again, his voice nonetheless low whereas threading our fingers. “Can’t assist considering we had the marriage night time already.” He appears me proper within the eye and I’m again with him in my mattress, counting freckles. In my front room as properly, with a slideshow of virtually everybody I like scrolling behind him. In each spot on this land the place we’ve kissed and touched and finished greater than I ever dreamed I’d get to with him.

Then he says, “And we simply ate a few of what I needed for the marriage breakfast. Now you’re saying, ‘I do’ and I haven’t even had an opportunity to pop the query.” He tags on a quieter, “Give me time,” and for as soon as our time does really feel infinite.

“Prepared, Stef?” he lastly murmurs.

I’m.

I’m so, so prepared—and that’s what Hayden captures.

He should do as a result of Marc cradles his cellphone as soon as Hayden fingers it over, staring on the display screen as if he’s in no hurry both. He stares for thus lengthy that Hayden checks in earlier than leaving. “No good?” he asks via his truck’s lowered window. “Need me to take one other?”

“No,” Marc says, nonetheless his display screen. He wrenches his gaze away to say, “However thanks. Actually. Thanks for every thing. See you once more tomorrow afternoon once we get again to take all of it down, if in case you have time?”

“I’ve all the time acquired time for you, Marc.” That ought to prickle like gorse. It doesn’t when Hayden’s eyes meet mine. “Nevertheless it will depend on Stef, right here.” His eyes slim. “Will there be extra scones?”

“No,” I inform him as a result of I do know my baking limits. “However should you don’t care what it appears like, I can in all probability rustle you up a pasty.”

Hayden agrees, and I thank him too, glad I’m freed from my sling so I can shake with him like I imply it even when I can’t really feel it. I watch him depart, his truck bouncing over the pasture, his trailer empty, however I ponder if he perhaps ought to have stayed to take one other photograph as soon as I be a part of Marc and see what he nonetheless stares at, his head bent over his cellphone.

He holds it between us to indicate me that I’m the one man in focus.

Marc’s barely seen, caught in silhouette, the solar behind him, his face in shadow. As compared, there’s no mistaking what the solar finds on my face and spotlights. It’s what I couldn’t discover phrases for. What Mum dusted a household photograph with together with flour again within the kitchen, and proper up till this second, I believed I used to be the doppelgänger of the person whose ring she nonetheless wears on a gold chain. Now I watch Marc contact traces of her on his cellphone, and it doesn’t matter that I haven’t advised him that I like him.

His gaze says that he sees it. Or I believe so till he speaks.

“This photograph isn’t good.”

I saved him ready for 3 years as soon as. Now, Marc meets my gaze instantly on the very fringe of my land, an extended drop beneath me.

He doesn’t depart me hanging.

“It’s good.”

23

The following morning comes all too rapidly, my very own date with future speeding up just like the cliffside does as Marc drives us alongside the coast street. My abdomen doesn’t swoop at its closeness in the present day, which I’d say was progress if it didn’t dip for a special motive.

I’m nervous for Marc. That doesn’t imply I’m not anxious, however I’m additionally excited, and that’s a primary contemplating what number of occasions I’ve heard no from the financial institution. Marc, alternatively? Contemplating how pushed he’s been all week, I’m undecided I’ve ever heard him fairly as fearful.

“Three different candidates made the shortlist, Stef.”

“Yeah? What number of had been within the first spherical?”

“Eight. I kinda assumed it might be me up towards one different in the present day. Perhaps two. Three although?” He shakes his head, and never on the line of camper vans we’re caught behind. I imply, sure, he’s aggravated on the site visitors, however that’s Cornwall for you as quickly because the solar comes out. He even says, “Glad we left early,” and rolls his eyes, as a result of all locals know you’ll be able to’t get in or out of the county in a rush the minute it’s vacationer season. Actually, he’s aggravated with himself.

I see it when he glances my method once more, pale for as soon as as a substitute of pink with the fervour he’s proven me all week lengthy. It’s a reminder of a model of Marc who used to reach each summer time like a plant starved of daylight. A special individual left every September, crammed out by greater than Mum’s residence cooking, glowing with all of the methods she and Dad discovered to make him really feel needed.

That’s what I would like for him in the present day, which is why I assume this reminder of the previous Marc will get to me. So does his hair being neatly combed as a substitute of yesterday’s windswept riot. However that was when he’d been accountable for his future out on my headland. Now he sounds removed from it.

“The observe supervisor emailed us all very first thing this morning. Mentioned how good the shows appeared. All of them, not solely mine. He stated they’d by no means had such high-level functions. Every of us had impressed him.” He sweeps a hand via his hair, or tries to. It’s stiff, and he’s simply as inflexible as no matter product tames it. Now I hear why.

“There’ll be no hiding if I fuck this up.”

“Hiding? What do you imply?”

“As a result of the observe is all home windows, an previous artwork gallery on the busiest avenue on the town. It’s virtually a goldfish bowl.” He laughs however it’s a jangling sound as a substitute of his normal clear chime. “The shows can be proper there the place anybody can watch. I don’t normally get stage fright.” His fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “But when I do mess up, the entire city will get to see me do it.”

“You gained’t mess up.”

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