I woke to silence and a stream of sunlight, the last few leaves clinging to the sycamore tree throwing their silhouettes against the tarnished sky.
The storm had passed.
And my feet were cold.
And a quick examination of my heart revealed old scars and fresh wounds and Oh God, what have I done? There was nothing for it. I pulled the duvet over my head. Yesterday’s fears seemed small and far away, and I was feeling more than usually like an utter fool. I’d rejected a man twice over . . . for nothing. Because I was worried he might leave me one day.
In my dark little burrow, I put my hands over my mouth to stifle a sound that was half-sob, half-giggle. The sheer absurdity was its own agony. Though I couldn’t deny that, gripped by confusion and pain, my actions had made a certain deranged sense. To me, at least. Probably not to Adam. Oh, what must he think of me now? A man to whom he had shown some of his own hurt, and I had very literally slammed my door in his face.
Mrs. Chankseliani had said I remembered everything, and once it had been true. I knew how to be a friend, a lover, a partner. I knew how to make someone feel cherished and seen and listened to—everything I had myself always so desperately wanted and been afraid I might never have because I was so used to being overlooked. So used to requiring care and patience, when what I wanted was passion and connection and truth . . . everything Marius had given me once, and Adam had tried to offer me now.
How had I forgotten? How had I become so careless, so cruel, so locked inside my own uncertainties? I had allowed hurt to gain such ascendancy over me. Given it so much power. But I had come, at last, in the middle of a flood, to some fresher, deeper truth that was simply this: love is stronger than grief.
I loved Marius. I always would. He had given me ten years of his life, a gift I would hold dear until the day I died. But I liked Adam too. I liked him so very much. And I wanted to know him, to be with him, to learn him and understand him. It was exciting to imagine that I might one day know Adam as I had known Marius, and that possibilities lay before me—before us—of a journey we might take, a relationship we might build, together, whether it lasted a day, or a year, or a lifetime.
Assuming, of course, that I hadn’t fucked it up abominably before we’d even begun.
I threw off my covers, and hurried downstairs to dress. My house smelled of stagnant water, and when I eased my way past my sofa, I flinched at the state of my hall. It wasn’t so terrible—just the carpet and the floor, the door frames and the skirting boards—but it was going to take time and money and probably an insurance claim to fix. And the insurance claim would likely entail telephone calls, and telephone calls meant being treated like an idiot and, and, and—
And if I managed it properly, I could fit some basic flood proofing at the same time. Water-resistant wood for the doorways. Perhaps a stone floor, like Mrs. P.
I drew in a sharp breath, a little dizzy suddenly. Because there it was.
That was what the future felt like.
I stared at the mess, expecting to be . . . frightened or sad or helpless or overwhelmed.
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t.
I pulled on my coat and my scarf and my wellies. Stepped carefully down the hall and over my sandbags. I waved to Mrs. P. as I waded past her living room window and made my way up to the top of the street, where the water levels were highest. There were several pumps lined up by the side of the road, and most of the houses here stood with their windows wide, and their doors ajar, thick cables trailing out of them, carrying the water away. Adam’s team were hard at work, flashes of yellow and orange amid the grey and brown.
I recognised him at once, by his height and his hair, and the electric yearning in my skin. I had lain in bed this morning, pondering the sweetness of knowing him, but there were other things I wanted too. His mouth on my mouth, the taste of his freckles beneath my tongue, those big hands of his gently overwhelming me, all the exciting ways his body could seek the accommodation of mine.
I allowed myself a small, private shiver, remembering Marius’s portrait. Perhaps I had been there all along: the man he had forgotten how to see.
Adam was handing out protective gloves and talking to a small group of residents.
“Good news is,” he was saying, “this is as bad as it’s going to get. The sky’s apparently out of rain and the water levels are stable, so it’s all about control and clean-up from here on out.”
A ragged little cheer went up from the group.
“Remember, flood water is nasty—so wellies and gloves at all times and windows open to keep things ventilated. And here’s a couple of tips for dealing with your insurer: I think most of you have stone floors, but if you do have damaged carpets, cut a square out and stick it in a bag for later. And mark the wall to show the water level. That’ll help the plasterers.” At that moment, his mobile rang, cutting shrilly through the rasp of the ventilators and the pumps. “Good, that’s the agency. I’ll have some more news for you in a bit.”
It was almost a relief as Adam turned away. It gave me a moment to compose myself and also to reflect that he probably had more on his mind right now than his love life. On the other hand, if I ran away back home, I could very easily never see him again. Not without staging another flood or knocking on every door in Deddington.
While I was standing there, fiddling with the ends of my scarf and watching the beacon of Adam’s hair fade into the distance, a woman I thought I recognised from the other night’s impromptu sandbag party gave me a little wave.
I started and—because it was the most obvious topic of conversation—asked awkwardly if her house was all right.
She shrugged. “Oh, you know, nothing we weren’t expecting. Water in, water out. You get used to it. How about you?”
She was younger than I was, pretty. Canadian, I thought, and smiling at me. In the middle of a flood, smiling at me.
“Um, um, I’m down the street s-so I’m b-b-basically f-fine. Sorry.”
“Dude, it’s not your fault you’re fine. You don’t have to feel guilty about it.”
I tried to undo the knot I had inadvertently made in my scarf. “Habit.”
“See, this is why I married an Englishman.”
I blushed.
“I’m Marie, by the way. And that’s my husband, Mark.” She pointed at a man who was shoving a roll of wet carpet out of one of the houses.
“Ed . . . Edwin. I’m at number f-fifteen. Sorry about the f-f-flood.”
“I get to wake up every morning next to the man I love, in the house we bought together, and when I open my curtains I get to see the river. Sometimes, I even get to see the sun shining on it.”
“In England? Are you s-sure?”
“I think . . . there was a day . . . in like . . . 2008?”
“Ah, yes.” I sighed longingly. “I remember it well.”
“So, flood or not, completely worth it, is what I’m saying.”
I left her with her husband on the doorstep of their home, and wandered, waiting for Adam and gathering my courage.
It was the oddest day, still and cold, and—in the aftermath of so many sullen storms—almost painfully bright. The sky was a sheet of rumpled grey, but the low-hanging sun made everything gleam. The ripples of my footsteps in the flood shivered like shoals of silver fish in that pale and sharp-edged light.
There wasn’t much to see by the river. Just water, and more water, some signage to tell me I shouldn’t be here, and a row of partially submerged barriers.
“Footpath’s closed,” called out a familiar voice. “And the ground is very slippery. Probably best to stay— Oh, Edwin.”
Adam, mobile still in hand, was looking drawn and tired, which made his hair seem more than usually garish, as though nature had mistakenly crowned this washed-out man in too much red and gold. But all I could think was that he was beautiful and that I wanted him to want me again.
“You have been s-sleeping, haven’t you?” I asked.
“A bit. There’s a flood happening I’m kind of worried about.”
We were quiet for a moment. What I wanted to do was bury my hands in his hair, tug his face down to mine, press our bodies together, together, together. What I wanted to say was, touch me, kiss me, take me, be with me. “Adam,” I blurted out, “Adam, I’m sorry.”
His eyes widened. “You caused the flood?”
I appreciated the effort, but the joke fell flat regardless. “I meant f-for yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah. Look, petal, don’t you werrit. I came on too strong, and you’re too close to your breakup, and—”
“No.” It felt oddly good—powerful, even—to interrupt someone, not in callous disregard, but with urgency and need. “You were just right and . . . and . . . oh God . . . it’s been long enough since Marius. I don’t w-want to be with him.” I looked up. Those wet soil eyes of his, so full of warmth and life and the shine of all his thoughts. “I want you. I want to be with you.”
The silence felt like drowning.
“Well,” he said, at last. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”
“Is that . . . that’s yes, right?”
“Of course it’s yes, you daft ha’p’orth. Should I have hummed and hawed a bit more?”
“No, of course not,” I snapped. And then I realised: it was yes. My mind went blank with shock, relief, happiness. And suddenly there were no words left in the best possible way. “Gosh.”
He gave a throaty chuckle, sending heat racing wildly all over my skin. “Gosh indeed.”
I smiled at him, wondering if it was acceptable practice in suburban Oxford to climb a man like rampant honeysuckle. There must have been something quite expressive in my look because a flush smothered the freckles on his cheeks, and he cleared his throat. “Uh, I have to . . . I was going to check the fields . . . Do you want to come?”
“Yes.”
I fell into step beside him, and we walked together through the churchyard, which was a gauntlet of waterlogged gravel and puddles. At first, I went carefully, afraid of splashing, but when I realised my feet were still dry and toasty warm in the wellies, I grew bolder. Even when I was a child I hadn’t been inclined to sploosh about. Seen, not heard, hungry for my parents’ love, and always on my best behaviour, it would simply not have occurred to me it was the sort of thing you could take pleasure in. But on this cold, grey-white, sun-glinting day? With a man at my side? It was joy itself to jump among the puddles in a shower of sparkling droplets.
“Edwin.” Adam’s low growl cut through the still air. “Get back here.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to kiss you, right the fuck now.”
I got back there, and he kissed me right the fuck then, and it was sweet and rough and so needy, and all for me. Afterwards, he let his forehead fall against mine, his unsteady breath harsh upon my lips.
“Sorry,” he said.
“F-for kissing me?”
“God, no. But I didn’t mean to come at you like a wild man. I’ve been imagining that from pretty much the first moment I saw you, and none of my scenarios involved vigorously molesting you in a churchyard.”
I stared at his mouth with unabashed hunger, remembering how it felt, already desperate to taste him again. “There w-were scenarios?”
“I’m an engineer. There are always scenarios.”
“I think I could s-stand to hear some of them.”
“You’ll get a full briefing later. I promise.” Then he leaned in and faffed a little with my collar, untucking it and folding it down neatly, the simple intimacy of the gesture leaving me as breathless as his kiss. “You know, with the wellies and the duffel coat, you look like Paddington Bear.”
“C-careful,” I warned him, a little sourly. “Dirty talk like that could turn a boy’s head. But if looking like a cartoon bear makes you want to kiss me, I’m not complaining.”
He grinned. “I want to do far more than kiss you, Edwin.”
I was drowning blissfully in the heat of his gaze. “W-what . . . what do you want to do with me?”
“I want to . . . drink tea with you again. Take you out to dinner somewhere and hold your hand over the table. I want to watch you with your books. I want to listen to you talk. I want you to make some more of that amazing bread. I want to know who you are.”
“I want that too,” I gasped. “I want everything.”
I’d forgotten that people could talk this way, say such things to each other. And Adam somehow made it seem effortless. This possibility of a future he unfurled for me, like a bright flag beneath the tarnished sky.
He slid an arm around my waist and pulled me close. Then he put his lips to my ear and whispered some other things he wanted to do with me, with his hands on me, my hands on him, my body under his, until I thought I might ignite on the sweetness and the wickedness of them, and how much I wanted them too.
“Yes,” I told him. “Yes. All of that.”
“Can I see you tonight? When I’m done here.”
I nodded. “Come when you can. I’ll be . . . I’ll be waiting.”
“So will I.”
We made our way to the edge of the footpath. As he’d said, it was all closed off and partially submerged. The over-spilled lake shimmered everywhere. Adam stuffed his hands in his pockets and frowned, his brows becoming dark-red warning arrows.
I nudged his elbow. “This isn’t your fault.”
“It’s definitely better than it was in 2007.” He sounded frustrated, even a little angry, but there was something oddly vulnerable about it, caring so much about something you really couldn’t control. “But better is not good enough.”
“You can’t stop it raining.”
“No, but I can do more than this half-arsed excuse for a strategy.”
“You could fix the flooding?”
“Hell, yeah.”
I couldn’t help but smile at him. He was so tired, and so full of passion.
“Stop laughing at me. It would actually be pretty straightforward.”
“If it’s s-simple, why isn’t anyone doing it?”
“The usual reason. It’s deemed too expensive.” He sighed. “Every flood like this brings the possibility of real action a little closer. But it seems like a bloody bitter way of going about it. Takes all the fun out of being right. I’m just . . .” He stared blankly at the white-curled water he was stirring with the toe of one of his boots. “It could help a lot of people.”
“Adam?” I liked his name in my mouth, the d so safely buttressed by its vowels. “You already have. You d-do know that, d-don’t you?”
“It doesn’t seem like very much right now.”
“A f-flood is just drops of water.”
He glanced at me, smiling now. “Hot and kind and slightly mysterious. How did I get so lucky?”
“Is that how you see me?”
“Everyone’s mysterious before you know them.”
“But w-when you know me, I won’t be mysterious anymore.”
“Yeah, you’ll be you, and that’ll be better.”
I stared at the ground, full of gratitude that he could take my worst insecurities and somehow transform them into the gentlest of flirtations.
We turned away from the footpath, and instead skirted down the lane to the back of the park. The fields had been swallowed whole, and the light skated over the surface of the water until it looked like glass.
Adam let out a breath. “God. What a mess.”
“Is . . . is it wrong I find it s-sort of beautiful? This . . .” oh my, too many sibilants, but I was with Adam, so I risked them “s-silent, s-s-silver world.”
“It is beautiful,” he agreed. “Feels like ours.”
I splashed through the sodden grass and climbed over the fence and into the playground. The water very nearly reached the top of my boots.
“What are you doing?” asked Adam.
“I . . . I d-don’t know, really. I just realised I could be somewhere nobody else has been.”
“You mean like when you see a patch of snow nobody else has noticed and you just have to jump all over it?”
“Exactly like that.”
Adam swung himself over the fence. “This should be a disaster movie. All it needs is a child’s teddy bear to go floating past.” He mimed playing a violin.
“It’s s-s-six inches of water. It would be a pretty dull movie. I mean w-what would the tagline be: ‘Some people get their feet a bit wet.’?”
“You’re selling it wrong. ‘Groundwater Exclamation Mark 3-D. Do you dare . . . to get your feet wet?’”
The top of the merry-go-round was still just above the water level, although without the base it looked a little bit like a floating cart wheel. I stepped onto the submerged platform and sat down where the spokes met, my feet dangling. Adam braced himself on the bars, watching me and smiling a little as he turned me back and forth through the water.
“Want to hear my favourite joke?” he asked.
“Abso-f-fucking-lutely.”
“Three logicians walk into a bar. The barman says, ‘So, does everybody want a drink?’ First logician says, ‘I don’t know.’ Second logician says, ‘I don’t know.’ Third logician says, ‘Yes.’”
I stared at him. “I don’t get— Oh, wait.” And then I was laughing, not because of the joke, but because it was so very, very Adam.
“What’s yours?”
“I . . . I’m not sure I’ve ever really thought about it.”
“Nuh-uh. Everyone has a favourite joke, even if they don’t know it.”
He was right, of course. Our old friend Max had one about purple-spotted pineapples that was basically a lengthy misdirect for a pun—it was epically dire, but the direness was its charm. Marius had liked the one about the master of wit and ready repartee, which was less of a joke than a performance, amusing mainly because of how he told it. I had rather envied him for being able to rattle it off so stylishly and effortlessly that people would actually request him to do it. But, now I thought about it, I realised I had my own joke. One I could tell without a single stumble. “Ask me if I’m an orange.”
His head tilted quizzically. “Are you an orange?”
“No.”
I loved his laugh. I loved being able to make him laugh.
“You know,” he said, a little breathlessly, “I was having a bugger of a day until you showed up. So thank you.”
“You c-can’t save the world, Adam.”
“I know, but sometimes I like to try anyway.”
I brought my hand to rest lightly over his. “You can s-save me.”
“I don’t think you need saving.” He interlaced his fingers with mine. “I think you’re doing just fine.”
“W-well, maybe you can save my sofa. It’s halfway up the stairs.”
“Like in Dirk Gently?”
My turn to laugh. “Well, I hope it won’t be permanently stuck there. It might severely dent the resale value of my house.”
“You want to sell?”
“Oh no. It’s my home. I want to s-stay here . . . forever.”
“I would too. It’s a great place.” He was silent a moment. Then, “Edwin?”
There was something in the tone of his voice that made me still upon the merry-go-round. “Yes?”
“When we first met, you seemed . . . wary, I guess. It made me wonder if you were shy. But you’re not, are you?”
I shook my head. “Most people think I am. But it’s more s-self-consciousness, I think. W-when I was younger, I was scared of people only listening to . . . to how I say things, not what I say. And the more you think something like that, the harder it is to risk saying anything at all.”
His eyes strayed from mine. For the sweetest of moments, I felt their focus on my mouth like the promise of a kiss. “It’s not what I’m thinking about when I listen to you.”
I swallowed. “W-what are you thinking about?”
“Now that would be telling, petal.”
“Yes. Yes, it would. That was why I asked.”
He laughed and brought fresh heat to the exposed places of my skin—the backs of my hands, my throat—as though he had touched me. And, when he spoke, it was gently. “All the same, must have been annoying. Having to worry like that.”
Annoying? Most people went for difficult in that familiar tone of pity and incomprehension. “Yes,” I told him. “It’s fucking annoying.”
“But you aren’t scared like that anymore?”
“I am, and I’m not. It’s . . . it’s complicated. I think maybe it’s just the habit of worrying. Like when you sprain your ankle, so you never quite trust putting your weight on it again.”
He nodded.
“W-when I was even younger, they kept telling me it would get better. I’d grow out of it, they said. Parents. Teachers. D-doctors. So I kept w-waiting. Every time I thought of s-something to s-say—” What the fuck? S as well? It had barely troubled me for months, and here it was again, these past few days, my relapsing, remitting s.
But I wasn’t stopping now. Nothing could stop me. Not with Adam there, listening.
I tried again.
“Every time I had something to say, I’d think, ‘Well, no, w-w-wait until you can s-say it properly.’ Except it’s never going away. It ebbs and flows, and goes away and comes b-back, and s-sometimes it’s hardly there at all, but it’s s-still there, and it’s always going to be there. And now I’m thirty, and I’ve been w-waiting my whole f-f-fu-fuck-fucking life for a chance to s-speak.”
I was suddenly breathless, blood roaring in my ears. And Adam had been so quiet, so still, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Speak to me,” was what he said.
Just before he kissed me again.
Different this time. Gently and carefully, his hands on either side of my face, holding me like a chalice. And I opened for him so easily, his tongue slipping between my lips and into the darkness where all my words entangle.
After that, he walked me home.
He left me there by my front door, as though this was our first date, and this my good-night kiss. And long after he was gone, I stood in the hall, trembling, delirious, dizzy, my mouth shaped by his mouth, and full of the taste of him.
I spent the rest of the day on small necessary tasks. I rolled up the hall carpet. I took photographs with my phone and made notes for my insurers. In a fit of anxious vanity I had a cold but highly necessary and extensive sponge bath with the last of my preserved water. It was one thing to maybe look a little bit like Paddington, quite another to smell like him. Realistically-speaking, I was probably going to have to spend a few days in a Travelodge with Adam. Not the sort of thing that most people would find romantic.
But it would be an adventure. And I would be with him.
My boyfriend. My new boyfriend. My Adam.
It was late again when he finally arrived. In seconds, he was out of his coat and into my arms, his face pressed against my neck. I wrapped him up tightly, feeling my own strength suddenly, different to his, but there nonetheless.
Something else I could give, sometime. When he wanted it.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck.”
After a second’s hesitation, I reached up and curled my fingers into his hair. It was so soft, this fire I could hold in my hands, and I’d been wanting to touch him this way from almost the first moment I’d seen him. This beautiful man, all warmth and smiles and petal, waiting in the rain. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. It’s under control. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
I cupped his face, marvelling that I dared and that it was easy. The roughness of his jaw prickled under my thumbs. “D-do you want tea? Or to talk? Or to . . . kiss me?”
“That one.”
And he did.
He kissed me and kissed me and kissed me all the way down the hall. I only noticed we were in the dining room when my hips nudged the table, and then he was lifting me onto it, and I was twining myself around him, and it was perfect. All this heat and wanting.
“God, Edwin.” His voice was rough again, like when we had stood by the river, and it thrilled me that I could do this to him, and he would share it with me. “Touch me.”
I reached out and undid the buttons of his shirt, one by one, my fingers as unsteady as my breath. In the flickering light, he was marble and flames, shadows and secrets, and I ached with need for him. Except now my body hesitated, stumbling on the threshold of itself, like my words, all my words, stuck unspoken on my lips.
I looked up at him, foolish and pleading and lost. “I . . . H-how.”
He caught my wrists and brought my hands to his mouth, kissing the tips of my fingers, before he pressed my palms gently to his chest. Everything I’d exposed. My fingers brushed his collarbones, and I stroked my way across the ridge of them to the tender dip between. I was tentative, at first, but then he threw back his head and groaned, and suddenly I was greedy. For him, for his skin, and for all his sounds.
I explored him, inch by inch, moment by moment, freckle by freckle. The hard muscles of his upper arms. The curling, gold-tipped hair that covered his chest. The strong, smooth planes of his back. And he gasped for me, and shuddered sometimes, and muttered my name, and yes, and there, and good, and god, and yes, and yes again. When I leaned in to lick the taste of sweat from his throat, he tore himself away, and stared at me, his lips wet and slightly parted, and his eyes shiny dark with lust.
And I stared back. “I want . . .” I began, dreading the w and so surprised by its surrender I almost forgot what I was saying. “I want you s-so much.”
He smiled, and it was a dazed, slightly silly smile, but I loved it. “Believe me, you’ve got me.”
That was all it took to bring him back into my arms. His body pressed mine flat to the table, and it was a little bit uncomfortable, but in the best possible way. He took me in a deep, hard kiss, and I arched under him, moaning softly, unashamed and eager.
It was at once difficult and far too easy to imagine the picture I must have made, kiss-swollen and aroused, and sprawled on my dining room table. And, for a moment, all I felt was a terrible sadness that this ridiculous, wanton, about-to-be-ravished person was someone Marius had half-glimpsed but never truly believed was there. But it passed swiftly, and what remained was only gladness, gratitude, and excitement, because I was here now.
And I could be this with Adam.
Beneath his body, touched by his hands and his lips and his breath, I found words and set them free. They were wild words, rough words, raw and full of passion, the sort of words I’d never imagined I’d have the courage to say.
But with Adam I wanted to say them.
And I knew he heard them, and I wasn’t afraid.