Fen watched me with a soft smile. “I never thought of you as the paternal type, but it makes sense now—all those lags you go above and beyond for.”
“You did as much for them as I did. More, most of the time.”
A quiet hum was Fen’s only answer, and I wanted to go to him, to get up in his face and unpick the complexities clouding his gaze. But with Charlie in my arms I wasn’t that man, and the fact that I wanted to kiss him was an extra complication I didn’t need either.
I hid my face in Charlie’s sweet-scented hair, just for a moment.
When I faced Fen again, his eyes were gentle. Inviting. I stepped towards him before I caught myself. “Um…goodnight? I guess? Or is it morning?”
“Not quite.” Fen stayed where he was and a tense, strange moment passed between us. Then he smiled and the light from the nearby Christmas tree made him look like a bearded, cuddly angel. He closed the distance separating us and cupped my face with his warm hand, his thumb tracing my cheekbone with a gossamer touch.
My heart thudded. I had so many things I wanted to say, but none of them felt right.
I settled for a smile.
Fen smiled back, then let his hand drop as he stepped away. “Goodnight, Rami.”
“Goodnight, Fen.”
It was the scent that woke me first. Earth and trees. Wood and smoke. Not the diesel and weed that wafted through the vents of my city centre flat.
Then it was the fact that the hot chubby hands I’d fallen asleep with were no longer welded to my face.
Fuck! My eyes shot open, arm flailing out to the last place I remembered Charlie being—fast asleep next to me, snoring like his Uncle Paddy after ten pints.
But Charlie wasn’t there. The space beside me was empty and I bolted upright and charged out of the room without giving a single fuck that I was dressed in the jeans I’d passed out in—no socks or shirt.
I flew down the stairs, heart in my mouth, a dozen scenarios playing out in high definition, none of them good.
He’s wandered off and fallen down a well.
I forgot him altogether and he’s alone in Manchester.
Fen really was a figment of my imagination and the weirdo who lives here has kidnapped my infant nephew.
I reached the kitchen as the last, most ridiculous alternative reality flared in my imagination.
Fen was there, naturally, standing at the kitchen counter, guarding Charlie who sat in front of him eating toast.
Relief swamped me as fast as terror had ten seconds ago. I blew out a breath and leaned hard in the doorway. “I thought he liked square pieces.”
At the sound of my voice, Charlie jerked around, dropping the tiny, crustless triangle. “Rama!”
Fen lifted him down from the countertop. Charlie’s feet hit the floor and he ran at me like a midget rugby player, tacking my legs with enough force to send me reeling back if I hadn’t been smashed in the nuts enough times to be anything other than ready for him.
Laughing, I scooped him up, sensing Fen’s gaze all over me as I swung my nephew high, then settled him against my chest. “Where did you go? I thought monsters had eaten you.”
Charlie laughed. “Rama!”
“Yeah, yeah.” I set him down.
He toddled right back to Fen. “Toast!”
Fen shrugged and hoisted him within reach of his plate. The action seemed easy for him, natural, and with the only light in the room coming from the approaching dawn and his sparkling Christmas tree, he was more beautiful than ever.
“I have bad news for you,” he said when my fixation with his soft grin rendered me mute.
“Oh yeah?”
From his resumed post guarding Charlie with his strong arms, he gave me a steady look. “The snow is set in both ways on that road, up and down, so whatever your plans were, you’re stuck with me for a while.”
“Stuck with you…” The words left my lips like a prayer. I pursed them shut and drifted to the window, but it was murky enough outside that I couldn’t see shit.
“If you want to see for yourself, I put your coat by the back door. Do me a favour, though, and take my boots. Those trainers you rocked up in will give you frostbite.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t dress for mountaineering, so…”
“Maybe you should’ve, considering you were driving up, I don’t know, a mountain.”
Sarcasm usually made me want to throat punch people, but Fen spoke so entirely without malice that it was cute on him. I took his advice about the boots and stamped into the pair nearest the door before I remembered I wore no shirt.
Fen laughed and peeled his thick sweatshirt off his broad, warm body. He held it out. “Don’t worry about the boots on the floor. I’d rather a bit of muck on my tiles than drop this bairn.”
His Cumbrian accent felt brand new to me, velvet and sweet. It reeled me in. I crossed the kitchen and took the sweatshirt from him, already knowing it would feel amazing against my bare skin.
I wasn’t disappointed, but being swamped in his scent left me dizzy.
And perhaps he knew it. He said no more and turned his attention back to Charlie, leaving me to my outdoor recce in peace.
I returned to the back door and put my coat on. It helped with the Fen overload, and I stepped outside with a clear head.
Frigid cold hit me, my borrowed boots crunching on the kind of icy snow I never saw in the city. Pure white and a foot deep, it was almost as pretty as Fen.
I followed his footsteps to the gate he’d led me through in the dead of night, gathering my bearings as my geographical memories came back to me. This magical place was a Christmas tree and timber farm that had been in the same family for generations. Until five years ago, they’d owned all the property on Durdle Fell, then they’d sold the land at the very top to my sister after the death of their patriarch. Fen’s father, I presumed, though I wasn’t about to ask. On the list of questions I had for him, property dealings between our families were somewhere near the bottom. At the top, was what the hell had happened to him to bring him home, but I’d pick my moment for that, and if it never came, that was my problem, not his. I’d die of curiosity before I upset him.
I reached the gate. As promised, the snow was as thick on the road as it was on Fen’s property, and my car was still buried and useless. Fuck that car. Piece of shit. But even my brother-in-law’s truck wasn’t making it through the current blizzard, so I was being a little harsh.
Not that I cared. It was a car, not my fucking dog. I trudged all the way to it, swinging my gaze up and down the road as if I could shift an entire weather system with my discontent. Obviously, nothing happened. I didn’t even get cold, thanks to Fen’s sweatshirt and I walked back to his house warmer than I’d been inside. On the way, I passed a series of gates and paths I now remembered led to the forest, the timber yard, and the big barns. There were snow-topped trees everywhere. A sweeping horizon. Endless skies. It was breathtaking. Beautiful. If I didn’t stop to consider that the sparkly aesthetic had taken me hostage it was almost paradise.
Beyond the farm in the distance, lay a bigger house. I wondered who lived there now, or if Fen was an orphan, like me. Maybe that’s why he came back here. But as logical as that was, I knew there was more to it, and only the fact that my own life had imploded stopped me ruminating my nosiness into a migraine.