Mark reached out to wipe my tears away, bringing his face close to mine.
“But then I’d sort of lost you already anyway, really, hadn’t I, by being such a dick? So when Gary told me straight out it was time I did something about it if I didn’t want to lose you altogether, I—”
I managed to spit some words out. “Gary said that?”
He nodded. “Yes. Apparently, he and Dad had several conversations over the years about it. About you and I . . . well, being made for each other and—”
“Richard thought that? That we were made for each other?”
Another tear ran down my cheek. Once again Mark stroked it away. “Apparently so, yes.”
Dear Richard. Dear, dear Richard.
“Don’t cry. I can’t bear to see you cry.”
“I can’t help it. I miss him so much.”
“I know.”
Of course he did.
“I still hear him in my head all the time. Do you?”
“Yes.” I did hear Richard—giving me encouragement, sometimes even advice—but his voice was absent now. Maybe because he thought this was up to me and Mark. Well, it was, wasn’t it?
“Rosie was there when Gary said what he said,” Mark continued, “so of course she started on at me as well, and . . .”
I opened my eyes, realising the truth. “She was never going to pop round to see me this morning, was she? It was all a fix to get me alone with you.”
He nodded. “Do you mind?”
I gave a little hiccupping laugh. “What? Mind my oldest friend tricking me, or . . . ?”
“Or me telling you I love you. Want to be with you. Can’t imagine my life without you.”
Tears again. Lots of them. I closed my eyes to try and stem the flow. It didn’t work. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that?” I asked, still feeling like hitting him, my words coming out in tearful spatters. “Do you?”
“Tell me.”
“Ever since bloody Donna Baker gave me that note for you when I was eleven years old, that’s how long.”
“What, when I had all those spots? When I was a New Order fanatic?”
“Yes!”
He frowned, remembering. “I had George Michael hair. I wore double denim.”
I laughed through my tears, remembering him looking exactly like that. “I thought you were gorgeous.”
He smiled. “I probably thought so myself at the time.”
“You did.”
His smile faded. “I wish you’d told me how you felt. Why didn’t you?”
I sighed in frustration. “Because you never gave me any hint you felt the same way. And you didn’t, did you? I was like your sister. I had to watch you work your way through all those girlfriends. Every time you split up with one of them, I’d think, Maybe now. Maybe he’ll see me now. But you never did. And then you married Grace, and . . . it broke my heart.”
He put his forehead against mine. “I am so sorry, Beth . . .”
I pulled in a ragged breath, continuing on because it all had to be said. “Then, last Christmas . . . I thought you were using me. For comfort. To feel better. And . . . and . . .” I pulled my breath in on a sob. “I couldn’t bear it.”
Mark shook his head, his face close to mine, tears in his eyes. “I would never do that to you, Beth. Never. Look, when we kissed, it was like waking up from a sleep. That’s the only way I can describe it. I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to realise how I feel. But it isn’t too late, is it? If you still feel the same way? You do, don’t you? Tell me you do.”
He kissed me then, and I melted into his kiss, desire and love thrilling through my entire body, my heart soaring.
I drew away only when I felt something wet and cold flutter onto my face. “Look!” I said, gazing up at the sky. “It’s snowing!”
“So it is. How magical.” Mark put his head back and poked his tongue out to catch the snowflakes, exactly as he’d done as a boy.
I laughed and did the same thing. Then he pulled me close again, the snowflakes melting in the heat between our lips as we kissed.
“Shall we get an Uber?” Mark suggested, his voice husky against my mouth.
I nodded. “Yes please.”
We kissed all the way back to my flat. We kissed in my hallway, our coats slipping from our shoulders to pool on the floor. We kissed as we stumbled into the bedroom. I could have kissed Mark forever, except that I wanted to do more than kissing.
We fell onto the bed, still kissing, and I reached down for his belt buckle.
Mark pulled back slightly to look at me. “Oh no. No, no, no. There’s no way we’re going to rush this, Beth Bailey. We’re going to savour it. Every last delicious second of it.”
I wasn’t about to argue.
“Did you see stars?” I asked him a long time later, lying in bed next to him, feeling as liquid and boneless as if I’d been filleted.
He sounded slightly breathless, as well he might. “About two hundred billion trillion and one of them, yes. And numbers. A long, beautiful line of numbers stretching on into infinity.”
I made a sound.
“What? You’ve got to remember numbers are my nirvana.”
“Something definitely went wrong with your wiring when you were put together. Except for just now. Your wires are in exactly all the right places just now. I didn’t know it could be like that, did you?”
He stroked my hair back from my face, laying a line of kisses down along my collarbone. “Absolutely no clue, no.” Then he sighed. “Think of all the time we’ve wasted.”
“Maybe not. Maybe we needed all that wrong stuff, all that life, to get to this perfect moment.”
“Maybe. You know, I think I first got an inkling of my feelings at the folk festival, watching you fall in love with that song.”
“‘Carrickfergus’？”
He nodded. “Yes. Your mouth was hanging slightly open. You looked as if you’d been slapped.”
“It really spoke to me. The tune. That guy’s voice. The words.”
“The man saying he’d swim over the deepest ocean to be with his love?”
“Yes.” Just thinking about it, I was coming over all swoony again.
“That’s me, you know now. I’d do anything for you, Beth. I love you so much. I know I joke around, but half the time it’s to give me something to hide behind. I adore you. You make me feel . . . I don’t know. Seen.”
“Like you have permission to be wholly you?”
“Yes.”
“That you don’t need to change a thing about yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Me too. I feel that too.”
“Of course you do. You’re perfect.”
He kissed me, pressing me to him, and it started up all over again, that great tumbling washing machine of passion which—for the moment—blocked out thoughts of absolutely anything else.
A long time later, Mark pulled the bedroom curtain aside to look out. “It’s really snowing hard now. It must have settled, I think. Fancy making some snow angels?”
“I’m not sure there’s enough space for snow angels in my garden.”