"I can't quite believe you're here."

Zoe said. Her voice was quiet and as she spoke she let herself relax back into the sofa.

Max licked the chocolate from his thumb where it had melted whilst he ate it. He looked at her.

"Having second thoughts already?"

He murmured, rubbing his thumb on the knee of his jeans.

She shook her head.

"I just can't think of anything to say..."

She said, after a moments pause, and she watched him draw in a breath, his chest expanded and he exhaled with a cough and a clear of his throat.

"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

He said.

She frowned, there must be something...all these days, weeks, of wanting to see him, to speak to him and now that he was here with her she couldn't think of a single one of those sentences that at the time of their conception had seemed so important.

"I am sorry..."

She paused and he glanced over at her again.

"For how I treated you."

He nodded and looked down at where he splayed his hands within his lap, his palms facing upwards.

"I know."

He said quietly.

"You don't have to keep apologising."

He added.

"I know."

She paused. Sighed.

"I just..."

"Zoe?"

He asked, cutting her off.

"Mmm?"

She murmured.

He looked so different, so serious...

"You know how much you mean to me. The night you left I told you that I loved you. And these past few days I've been trying to show you that..."

He looked down at his hands again, his palms pale in the light from the fire.

"I don't just want a fling, I don't just want sex, I want you..."

He finally looked back up at her.

"But I want you to tell me what you want. You've said you won't hurt me again and I believe you, but I don't want to re-start anything if I'm not certain that we both want the same thing."

He concluded.

She sat for a moment, unsure what to say. Slightly stunned by his honesty. He suddenly seemed to have grown up, thrown off his boyishness...or had she merely beaten it from him?

It was her turn to look down at her hands, her fingers, her ring...she twisted it.

"What I want..."

She let her words disappear, smiled, shook her head and glanced up at him.

"What I want is you."

She said.

"I've spent so long beating myself up about it. Telling myself that it was ridiculous...that I shouldn't, at my age..."

She touched her fingers to her lips.

"I just want to be happy. I don't care what everyone at work will say, not really."

She added and he smiled.

"It'll be fine, I could tell them everything and they wouldn't believe me."

He laughed as he spoke.

"Will you come back?"

She asked quietly.

"Come back?"

He asked.

"To work."

She said.

"I miss our cigarette breaks...I miss knowing you're there."

She whispered the last few words and he smiled that smile that forever made her heart beat that little bit faster.

"I don't know if there's a job to come back to."

He said and as he spoke he stretched out his legs and leant back against the sofa. She looked at how long he was, how when he leant back the hem of his jumper rose up just ever so slightly to expose a thin strip of flesh about his waist.

"I'm sure with your powers of persuasion..."

She murmured.

"Speaking of work, aren't you going to be exhausted tomorrow...today?"

He asked, looking at the time. Even now she would only have a few hours.

She followed his gaze.

"I haven't been able to sleep properly for days."

She said, and as she spoke she yawned and cupped her hand over her mouth.

"Come here."

He reached out to her with one arm, gesturing to the space next to him. She hesitated, this would seal the deal, she told herself. She looked at him, his blue eyes dark in the half-light, that little space next to him so inviting.

She shifted herself across the space in the middle of the sofa and slowly curled herself up in the crook of his arm, resting her head against the flat of his chest, his chin resting on the top of her head. She slipped an arm across his stomach, pushed her fingertips just ever so slightly beneath the hem of his jumper, just to touch him, just to feel he was really there.

"Close your eyes."

He whispered, and she felt him kiss her hair before she closed her eyes to sleep.