Into the Fire
11 of 12
By S. Faith, © 2010
Words: 75,406 in total, 6,378 this part.
Rating: M / R
Summary, Disclaimer, Notes: See Chapter 1.
Chapter 11.
The rest of July passed far too quickly. He was swamped at work and she was busy putting those things she had with her into boxes in order to move into the flat by the first. He still made time to see her at least twice during the week in the evenings, and they spent a lot of time together on the weekends, mostly at Tom's, helping her to pack, or helping her to move things into the new flat via his car once she'd gotten a key.
It was a pretty good size for a first flat, he decided, with a living room, a distinct kitchen area and a separate bedroom. Though it was rather bare at the moment he liked how comfortable it was. He liked its personality.
"You hate it," she said during this first visit.
"I don't," he said. "I see the potential."
"Potential for what, exactly? Raising livestock?"
He laughed, putting a box down. "No. For making it your own."
"Not even the furniture is mine," she said glumly.
"Doesn't matter," he said. He put his arm around her. "It's your own space."
He looked down, saw the hint of a smile on her face. "Yeah."
When she moved in officially as of the first of August, they cooked supper together in the kitchen, had great fun working out how to light the fireplace, and spent the evening together on the marvellously comfortable sofa, kissing and relishing the fact that she had her own flat, one that felt more like home to him in some ways than his own imposing abode.
It was on that same sofa after supper at her flat again, this time to celebrate having been together for one month, that she sighed in a rather unhappy fashion.
"What is it?" he coaxed.
"Oh, it's nothing," she said. "Just have a lot on my mind."
He didn't quite believe her, but he let it go. "I understand." He planted a kiss into her hair; they had both been so busy lately. "Maybe we can go out this upcoming weekend, a real dinner-and-a-film sort of date, to take your mind off of everything."
She stiffened a little. "I, uh, can't."
"You can't?"
She didn't say anything.
"Bridget. What's going on?"
"Nothing."
He lifted his hand and turned her face to his. She did not meet his gaze.
"Bridget."
She looked up at last. "I'm going out of town."
"What?"
"I'm taking the train up."
"Train—" It occurred to him exactly where this train was going. "To Grafton Underwood?"
She nodded. "I want to get the rest of my things. My dad offered to drive me back."
"Bridget, that's insane. I could drive you there and back."
She shook her head. "I'd rather you didn't."
A drive to Grafton Underwood was not the true point of contention, and he knew it. The subject of their relationship still needed to be broached with their parents, and that in travelling with him to get her things she knew it could no longer be avoided… and she wished to avoid it as long as possible. He wanted, on the other hand, to get it over with. Conversations with his own mother had been somewhat stilted in not discussing the biggest change to come into his life.
"Bridget," he said gently. "This can't be dodged forever."
"Why not?" she said. "They don't have to know everything about my life."
"That's true, they don't," he said. "But it's not as if you have anything to be ashamed of. It's not as if I'm a Nazi torturer."
The absurdity of his statement got her to chuckle, at least. "But I can't bear the thought of them reacting badly, or thinking badly of you for obviously 'taking advantage of a sweet, innocent young girl just out of university'." The latter part she said in an imitation of her mother's voice. "What they don't know won't hurt them."
He understood. She wanted the blessing of her parents. Given his respect for her father and her age, he would have preferred parental blessing too. The truth was, though, that he just didn't know if he'd get it from them. He liked to think his own parents would react rationally, but he wasn't sure they wouldn't accuse him of the very same thing.
"We can tell them together. If they can see how happy we are together… I'd like to think they'd be reasonable."
She smiled, her eyes very glossy.
"And… if the worst came to be," he went on, a knot in his own stomach, "it's your life and you have to do what makes you happy, regardless of what other people think, particularly if they're wrong. Even if they are your parents."
A tear spilled down over her cheek. He reached up and brushed it away.
"So," he said. "I'll pick you up at eleven on Saturday?"
Her mouth formed the word Okay, even though no sound came out. He pulled her into an embrace.
"It'll be all right," he said with a confidence he didn't actually feel, drawing broad arcs on her back with his fingertips to comfort her.
The drive to Grafton Underwood on Saturday morning was positively funereal in its silence. Not even the playing of the lively CD she had made for him once upon a time could lighten her mood. Mark had resolved to talk to her parents immediately upon arrival, then his; he'd called his mother in advance and told her he was bringing someone for a late lunch.
"Well, this is a surprise," said Pam Jones as the door opened and she saw the pair of them standing there. Her cheery expression drooped. "My godfathers. Did someone pass away?"
He had to smile. "Sorry, no," he said. He saw Mr Jones sitting in his chair, and at the sound of Mark's voice he set his book down, lowering his reading glasses. "Good afternoon," Mark said as they came in. Pam went to stand by her husband's chair, as Mark and Bridget came to stand before them.
"What's going on?" said Colin, his brows furrowed. "What's Bridget gone and done?"
"Nothing, nothing," Mark said quickly. "It's just…" He prodded her with his elbow.
"Mum, Dad, I… um…" Bridget began.
"We have something to tell you," Mark supplied.
"We?"
"Mark and I have started dating," she said in a great rush before taking in a deep breath then exhaling.
"You… you've what?" asked her father. Mark could have sworn he saw her mother smiling.
"I can assure you, sir, that this began long after graduation," he said; it was a little white lie, since the time between Monday and the Friday immediately following could hardly constitute 'long' by any definition, but the essential truth was there.
"Well, this is wonderful!" said Pam unexpectedly. "I was so worried that she would get mixed up with the wrong sort of boy down there in London. And here you are, Mark; older, wiser, well-established, and we know you and your parents already…"
"How much older again?" Colin asked.
"I'm thirty-three," Mark said.
Pam made a dismissive sound. "Age doesn't matter. Remember Bill Dawson's widow? That boy fawned over her. Absolutely devoted."
Mark ventured a look to Bridget. She looked like she thought she was imagining the whole scene. "It's really okay?" she asked.
"This began after you were no longer in his class?" Colin asked sternly.
"Absolutely," she said, nodding earnestly. "Swear to God."
Colin turned his gaze to Mark. "May I speak to you privately?"
"Of course."
Colin rose to his feet, indicated Mark should follow. They went into the kitchen.
"I'm not wild about such an age difference," Colin said. "What exactly are your intentions?"
"To make her as happy as I can," he said without thought.
Colin studied him. "You love her."
"Yes," Mark said. "Believe me, I know how bad a difference like that looks; I spent a long time debating it in my own mind, fought it as long as I could. Please believe me when I say I did not force her into anything—"
Colin actually chuckled. "No, I can't imagine you did. It's not possible to make her do something she doesn't want to do." He let out a breath. "You're a decent man. I know that through your parents." He smiled at last. "I know you'll take good care of her."
The relief he felt was immense. "Thank you, Mr Jones."
"Oh, chuh, it's Colin." He clapped Mark on the shoulder. "Come on. I'm sure Bridget thinks I'm eviscerating you in here."
Mark laughed.
The two of them entered the living room again. Bridget still looked shell-shocked as she turned her eyes to Mark despite seeing the two men looking so genial towards each other.
"I'll bring Bridget back after lunch," he said.
She snapped out of her trance to ask him, "Lunch?"
"With my parents. I'm sure I told you."
She shook her head.
"Oh, have you not said anything to them yet?" asked Pam, looking a little smug perhaps that the Joneses had gotten the news first. "I won't say a peep."
As they went down the front walk, Bridget said, "You didn't say anything about lunch."
"Don't worry," he said. "It'll be fine."
"Are they expecting me?"
"Yes," he said.
He realised he should have been more specific in his answer—that they were not expecting Pam and Colin's daughter, but rather, were preparing to meet Mark's girlfriend—because when Elaine saw Mark and Bridget approaching the table in the back garden, she looked a bit dazed and confused herself.
"Hi, Mrs Darcy," said Bridget cheerily as she waved.
"Mark," she said, "you told me—" She then stopped, covering her mouth with her hand, turning quite pale. "Oh."
"What's wrong?" asked Bridget.
"Mother," he said. Had he so misjudged what her reaction would be? "It's Bridget I've been seeing."
Bridget seemed to understand in that moment what exactly Mark had said, and what he had omitted. She gave him a piercing look.
"What's all the hubbub out here?"
It was his father, strolling out with a pitcher of what appeared to be lemonade.
"Malcolm!" said Elaine. "Mark's girlfriend is Colin and Pam's Bridget!"
"Stuff and nonsense," said the admiral. "Colin and Pam's girl is a baby. My boy has more sense."
"Father, with all due respect, she's right here."
He looked at her, blinked as if he had never before seen her. "Well, I'll grant you she has grown up and grown up well, but you've got to have at least a decade on her, my son."
He never thought in a million years his own parents would react this way when hers had not. "Regardless," Mark said, "we've been seeing each other for over a month. We're very happy and we thought you should know."
Elaine apparently did some calendar-based calculations. "So it didn't begin—"
"No," he said emphatically.
Bridget, he realised, looked like she wanted to bolt. Elaine looked sympathetically to her. "I'm sorry, my dear. It's nothing against you; you know how much we like you. We just have to question what our son was thinking. What do your own parents say?"
"They were very supportive," she said.
"They approve?" Malcolm said.
"They do," affirmed Mark.
He watched his parents exchange a look, his mother's lips pursed. "You're just so young, my dear," Elaine said. "Aren't you a little too young to be seeing someone so much older? Aren't you afraid he might hurt you?"
"Mother!"
"I'm not saying you would try to do so," Elaine said, turning to him, obviously attempting to smooth down his feathers. "But a girl her age… she might have different expectations than you have."
"I know what I've gotten myself into," she said. "And he seems to know exactly what I need." It was so close to his own words to Patrick that he could not suppress a smile.
"Feisty," declared Malcolm. "Not afraid to say what she's thinking. A little like someone else we know, what ho?" He indicated Mark's own mother.
With this outburst from his father the increasingly intensifying atmosphere dispersed, and Mark laughed. They all did.
"Just trust me," he said, putting his arm around Bridget's shoulders.
"After all, I do," added Bridget, reciprocating with an arm about Mark's waist. "I would very much like to know you approve, too."
He saw the moment where his mother's reserve melted away, revealed by a tender smile directed at the two of them. "I would be a fool not to," she said, "seeing how willing the both of you are to make your case."
"And that you even bothered," added Malcolm. "After all, Mark could have a five-year-old child and we might never know, with as often as we get to London these days."
"I can assure you that I do not," said Mark, his peace restored.
The luncheon to follow was restful and relaxed; once the initial surprise was over, that his parents already treated her like one of the family was very telling to him. He was very happy at how things had turned out. Upon conclusion, though, he knew he had to take her back to her parents' for the packing and assembling of her things.
As they made the short drive back, she said, "I never would have pegged them for the freak out."
He laughed. "I wish I could take you straight home."
"You are."
"I mean to my home. Or yours."
"Oh." After a moment, she said, "Pull over."
"What?"
"Just do it."
He did as she asked. She leaned over and gave him a long, passionate kiss.
"That's not helping," he said; for the four days between agreeing to tell their parents and now, she had been so wound up over the impending announcement that she'd shied away from sex. He suddenly and acutely felt its absence.
"I'm sorry," she said, resting a hand on his cheek. "I've just wanted to do that all afternoon."
He placed his hand on hers. "Maybe I can help you pack."
"No, that's all right," she said. "You'll only distract me."
He smiled. "I like thinking I'm capable of distracting you."
"Oh, you are more than capable."
"Well," he said. "Get your things packed. The sooner you do, the sooner we can go back and unpack."
She grinned. "Okay."
He was not expecting her to phone that same evening to announce she was ready to go.
"Bridget," he said with a laugh, cradling his phone under his chin. "I didn't mean tonight. It's almost ten in the evening, then a two hour drive… we'll leave first thing tomorrow."
There was silence.
"I want to see you," she said at last in a low voice. "I want you."
"Pardon?" he asked, glancing to where his mother sat reading a book, his father, puzzling through a crossword.
"I want you," she repeated.
"Tonight?" He began crafting excuses to leave the house, even for a little while.
"I've got three boxes and three overly full holdalls," she said. "We can make it to London in an hour and a half if you don't drive like a little old man with a hat pulled down over his eyes. It'll be worth your while."
"I'll pretend you didn't just disparage my driving skills." He rose from his seat, went into the next room, lowered his voice. "How about a compromise?"
"What kind of compromise can you offer me that doesn't involve the back seat of your car?"
"Would you complain if it did?"
Pause. "How soon can you be here?"
After making excuses that he was sure he would never have bought in his parents' stead, he left the house, got in the car, and drove very much unlike a little old man with a hat over his eyes until he was in her parents' drive again.
"I told my mum we were going to the pub for a drink," she said, closing the door as she hopped in.
"Better than my excuse," he said, putting the car into gear and speeding away. "Some nonsense about topping the petrol."
She laughed. "I expect your brain was a bit addled."
He made a left into what he knew to be sparsely populated farmland. They drove about five minutes before he pulled off onto the side of the road. There were no artificial lights, only a silver sliver of moon and the stars above.
"Right here?" she asked.
"Do you have a better idea?"
She got out of the car.
"Come on. I know where we are."
Leading him by the hand, she took him to a soft patch of grass beneath a broad tree. She put her arms around his neck, got up onto her toes, and drew her tongue sensuously over his lips.
Indeed, it was a better idea.
The benefit of her excuse was that her changing into a dress would not have garnered questions from her mother or father, and it made what followed even easier to accomplish. From the way she moaned and cried out he hoped there were no other human beings around for miles, or at least hoped the brush and trees dampened the sound a bit. There was something almost desperate about the act, the closest (in his opinion) they'd ever come to shagging, but he wanted her so badly he could hardly be faulted for his desire.
"Oh," she said with great satisfaction in her voice upon culmination. As he moved to her side to catch his breath, he could see the pale shape of her arm slowly moving as she dragged her fingers through the lush grass. "Love the lovely warm summer night."
He pulled the hem of her dress down, smoothing it with the flat of his hand over her hip and thigh as he kissed her again.
"I feel like we're naughty schoolchildren," she said devilishly, turning onto her side to pull herself flush to him, her hand on his trouser-clad bottom; he had not seen a need to fully undress, and she had been too impatient, anyway.
"I feel like it's been weeks since we've done this."
"It hasn't."
"I know," he said. "It just feels like it has."
"Sorry to have flipped out about nothing and deprived you."
He chuckled. "I'm fine," he said, nuzzling into her neck. "I am now, anyway."
After a bit of a respite in the grass, a bit more cuddling, then a second round that was a little less hurried—"This has to last us through tomorrow, at least," she advised sagely—they righted their clothes and went back to the car, climbing in to drive away after making sure in the headlamps that she did not have clumps of dirt or grass stains on her arse or on his knees. As he dropped her off, he leaned forward and kissed her, then waited for her to get into the house before driving off.
When he arrived home to his parents' he did not expect to encounter anyone, so he was suitably surprised when his mother walked into the foyer. "Mark," she said, a bemused expression on her face. "Was just heading down for some tea."
"Ah. Well, goodnight."
After a moment's intense study of her son, she walked up to him, raised her hand, then reached and plucked what ended up being a few blades of grass from his hair. "That's one rough petrol station," she said. She then pecked him on the cheek and continued on to the kitchen. "Goodnight," she called back to him.
He was mortified, but not regretful. He loved Bridget and never wanted to go back to the way things were before she came along.
…
"You know what my mother meant by 'well-established', don't you?"
This from Bridget as they brought the last of the boxes into her flat.
"No."
"You're wealthy."
He laughed. "I'm not," he said, though he wasn't sure he wasn't.
"Trust me, Mr Darcy," she said, "you are. Not that I care about that. But I'm sure it softened the blow of learning her daughter was having a scandalous relationship with a man almost two decades older than she is."
"Thirteen years is not 'almost two decades'," he said.
"To her it is."
"And there's nothing scandalous about it."
"I refer you to last night's shagging in an open field in the country."
He allowed her the term given his thoughts at the time. "It only would have been scandalous if we'd been caught."
"But your mother—"
"She's hardly going to run to the media."
Just then her telephone rang. "Do you mind if I—?"
"No, go ahead and pick up."
As she spoke on the phone, he looked around himself. The flat had really come into its own since she'd moved in: framed photos and artwork on the walls, colourful magnets on the refrigerator, fairy lights strung up in the kitchen, mismatched throw pillows on the sofa, and there on the bookshelf amongst her things was her Monopoly game. He especially loved being there with her; it really personified her warmth and love.
"Bugger, hold on." She covered the receiver. "I totally forgot about my friend coming over tonight. Do you mind a third for dinner?"
"I don't mind; in fact, I could go if you want a night with your girlfriend."
"I want you to stay," she said. "I want you to meet her."
He grinned. "Okay."
The friend turned out to be someone she'd met through work, someone who also happened to be a friend of Tom's. Abrasive and opinionated, she regarded him warily, and every other word out of her mouth seemed to be 'fuck'. Her name was Sharon, or so Mark thought; there were several different permutations that cropped up, any one of which might have been her actual name: Shaz, Shazza, Shazzie, Shazzer. He did not want to know where the 'Z' had come into play.
"How typical," she said upon first meeting him, eyeing him up and down. "Now you're in your thirties you want someone younger, someone who can't think for herself."
"Shazzer," Bridget replied, obviously upset that her friend would so blatantly offend her and her boyfriend in one fell swoop.
"Well, of course you can think for yourself," said Sharon, trying to mollify her. "But he doesn't know that."
"I've had ample occasion to see Bridget think for herself," said Mark, "and speak for herself, to my detriment at times."
"Plus your last boyfriend was thirty-five," said Bridget indignantly, "and you're twenty-seven."
"That's because I prefer more mature men," she sniffed.
Mark chuckled, incensing Sharon visibly.
"Shaz," she said, laughing too, "you're being a bloody hypocrite. Just drop it."
"Fine," Sharon said, still looking disgruntled.
Bridget was able to deftly manoeuvre the conversation to something more neutral: their mutual friend Tom. "He's amazing on stage," Sharon said. "I know he had that pop hit back in the day, but he really can sing. He's got a real Lana Turner vibe."
"That's it exactly," said Mark suddenly, snapping his fingers as he realised it was that very name he had struggled to think of the night of the show. The two women turned simultaneously to him.
"You've seen Tom's show?" said Sharon.
"It was our first date," said Mark.
Sharon's brows raised in disbelief at this admission. "Well. You could knock me down with a feather."
Bridget burst out with a laugh.
They had a nice enough time that evening over supper, though Bridget was naturally the conversational pivot point; Mark rarely if at all spoke to Sharon directly except to offer the salt. Sharon at least did have the sense to leave soon after supper without being frogmarched out, and when she did, Bridget turned to Mark looking somewhat sad.
"I'm sorry," she said, then added a bit defensively, "Obviously you don't like my first real new female friend in London."
"It's not that I dislike her," he said.
"Then what is it?"
"I just don't see that she's the best choice to fill that void in your life."
"'Void'?" she asked, fire flaring in her eyes.
"You know. Best girlfriend."
Her mouth dropped open a little. "You are unbelievable," she said after a moment. "'Best girlfriend'? What am I, seven? And even if you had the right to dictate to me who could or could not be my best girlfriend, which you don't—" Her irritation and level of offence were rising with each passing second. "—why is Sharon so bloody objectionable? And what is this 'void' nonsense?"
Mark started to feel the first twinges of regret. "Maybe not so much a 'void' as a 'role'. It seems clear you want a close female friend, but she… uses very coarse language."
"You're kidding me."
"She's overly suspicious," he went on. "She questions my motives and does not trust you to know what you're doing."
"Mark," she said in a brisk staccato, hands on her hips, halting his nascent rant. "She cares about me. From her perspective as an older single woman who's lived in London since she was eighteen, she sees a just-out-of-uni friend and colleague taking up with an older man… and older men usually only want one thing from younger women. She just wants to be sure about you. She'll come around." She let her hands drop to her sides. "The question is: will you?"
He would very likely walk across fire for her, but offered a modest, "I will give it my very best."
She cracked a small smile. "Thank you. And?"
He blinked several times. "And… what?"
She raised her eyebrows, moving her hand in encouraging circles. When he did not say anything, she frowned. "Mark," she said dangerously.
It then occurred to him what he had not done.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly but sincerely.
She appeared unmoved.
"I care about you," he added, babbling a bit, "and I want the people in your life to treat you as you deserve to be treated because you deserve the best."
Her frown transformed into a smile. "Apology accepted." Then she chuckled. "You know, this might be our first real row."
"Well, first row as a couple anyway."
She held out her arms. "Mmmm. Make up time."
He knew that she probably meant make-up sex, but to his mind falling into bed for any given reason only seemed to prove Sharon's point. He feigned ignorance. "We already made up."
"You prat," she said, then leapt forward and put her arms around him.
He gave her a tender kiss, holding her close to him. "How about a bit of dessert? My treat."
She raised her brows, then smiled. "Yes."
They walked to a patisserie just up the street, one reputably loaded with charm, ambience and amazingly delicious sweets, and enjoyed, in comfortable, romantic silence, coffee and dessert—light, fluffy angel food cake with an almond cream frosting and surprisingly no chocolate in sight—before returning to the flat.
"I have to take depositions in the morning," he said as she turned the key in the door.
She paused before opening the door and entering. "Oh. Early?"
"Fairly early."
"Oh," she said again. "Do you have to leave?"
"Well," he said. "Not quite yet."
She smiled. "Good, 'cause it's my first night fully, truly moved in."
"Ah, true."
She took his hand in one of hers, cupped his face in the other, and pressed her lips to his.
"How about we navigate 'round the junk in my room and have that make-up shag?"
He swept her up in his arms. "We've been over that word," he murmured, then kissed her.
On the next few occasions where he saw Sharon, she was more genial to him, and in turn he was to her. It made him feel better to think maybe Bridget had put in a few more good words for him in private.
…
"I can't believe you didn't tell me."
Bridget sounded as wounded as he had ever heard her sound, her eyes big and wide, her lower lip nearly trembling.
"It's not a big deal," he said and to him, it wasn't. He had not thought she would feel so radically different.
"Of course it is!" she said. "I have no time to plan anything, no time to get you a present, make you a cake…"
He chuckled. "I haven't needed any of those things since I was a boy. It's just a birthday."
She made a dismissive sound. "'Just a birthday'!" she said, exasperated.
"Maybe you'll feel differently when—" He paused to reconsider his words. He couldn't think of anything that didn't sound condescending: when you're my age, when you're older…
"I know what you're thinking, and no, I won't," she declared. "It's like having a special holiday all to yourself. And it's tomorrow!"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just didn't think it mattered. Besides, it's not a special holiday all to myself. It's the—"
"Summer Bank Holiday." She made a sound of frustration. "Well, at least you're not working, and you're lucky you didn't tell me after the fact. I would have been even more cross."
"I am."
"What?"
"Working, Bridget."
Her mouth dropped open. "How can you be working? It's not like court's in session."
"You know I can't always leave my work at work, Bridget." Blessedly the times when he did bring work home were few and far between since they'd gotten together. "There is a lot of research and preparation that goes into court when it is in session."
"You're not going to work."
"I believe I just told you I am."
"It's not an observation," she said. "It's a request." She placed her hand on his arm from where she sat next to him at the dinner table. "It would mean a lot to me. And you… you said once there's more to life than over-preparing for work."
He thought about his planned work for the next day, and it was nothing he hadn't already reviewed or couldn't put off until later in the week. He could hardly believe he was considering it; the old Mark never would have. He supposed he was better for it. "Your memory is selectively too good."
"Selectively?" She raised a brow.
"I just mean 'at times', that's all." He leaned and kissed her on the forehead. "I think, though, that I probably could use the day off." This statement earned him a very broad smile and a proper kiss.
They watched a little telly then a film on DVD after supper, which kept him up a little later than usual for a Sunday night, particularly as he ended up staying the night in her slightly lumpy but cosy bed. When he woke the following morning he found he was alone under the covers. He squinted at the clock; it was just barely eight. It was not unusual that she was up first; he would often wake to find her there looking at him, attempting (in her words) to wake him with thought vibes. It was unusual, though, that she would have risen so early. Even more unusual was the discovery he made in padding out to use the loo: he was in fact alone in the flat.
He reasoned that perhaps she had gone down to the market for something for breakfast; he had not originally intended on staying over since he usually did not on Sunday night, and it was likely she had nothing to make. He went back to bed, intending on relaxing (and surprisingly enough, revelling in skipping work) until she returned, at which point he intended in lounging some more with breakfast and a cuddle in bed.
The sensation of the bed sinking beside him roused him awake from full-fledged sleep. He blinked his eyes a few times to find the sunlight permeating the room, and Bridget sitting beside him, dressed in a pretty floral frock and smiling like the cat that had gotten the canary.
"Rise and shine, birthday boy," she said tenderly, reaching out to stroke his hair with her fingertips.
Habits died hard; his eyes flitted towards the clock. Nearly eleven. "Good morning," he said, pushing himself to sit upright. It was only then he caught a whiff of coffee and something sweet. He looked to the bedside table again from his elevated position. She had indeed brought breakfast, an apricot-filled croissant and a tall paper cup undoubtedly containing a cappuccino. There was also a second plate and cup—her own breakfast, chocolate croissant and a capp—as well as a newspaper folded open then in half to the sports section.
"For me?" As soon as he asked it, he realised how silly it sounded. "I mean, of course, yes. Thank you, and thank you for getting up early just to do this."
"You're welcome—though it was hardly as if there wasn't anything in it for me." She handed him the plate and the coffee, then took her own plate and coffee and climbed back under the covers to eat with him. She held up her paper cup for a toast. "To Mark on his birthday—a day he has never considered special. Here's to changing that."
He smiled and touched his cup to hers before having a sip, then bit into the pastry. It was baked perfection, flaky yet moist and the apricot filling was not too sweet; the fruit itself was even still slightly firm to the tooth. He glanced to her, saw she was looking expectant. He smiled. "Very good choice. Thank you."
She leaned back against the wall, took a big bite of her own pastry, and still managed to look smug as she did so. "Looks like there's some interesting news about those footballers you always rant about," she said. "Thought you might like to see."
"Thank you," he said again, then sipped his coffee drink again. "I'll look in a bit." He smiled as he looked to her again; she had acquired a giant smudge of chocolate on the tip of her nose.
"What?" she asked at his look.
He reached forward and brushed it off with his thumb. "Just a bit of chocolate gone astray."
"Was saving that for later," she said with mock offence, bringing her hand up presumably to clean up the stray bits, but only succeeded in getting more chocolate on her.
"You're determined, aren't you?" he asked with a laugh as he cleaned it off again.
When they finished their respective pastries and cappuccinos, she gathered the plates and cups, set them on the nightstand, then turned to him to snuggle into his chest. He kissed the top of her head, content to stay with her like that for many minutes. As she looked up into his eyes, he reached to kiss her on the lips; after a moment of reciprocation, she reared back and said something that made him think he had misheard:
"You should get dressed."
"What?"
"Dressed."
"I thought playing hooky from work meant lazing about the flat all day."
"We can't do that," she said. "We have things to do."
"Which things?"
She smiled devilishly. "You'll see."
Luckily he had clean boxers that had gone through with her laundry, and his clothing from the day before was still presentable. He had a quick shower, shaved and dressed. As she checked her hair and makeup, he checked his mobile for messages. Nothing. It would seem he was not missed, and he was rather okay with that.
Only as she emerged was he able to appreciate how lovely she looked in that dress with her sandals, her hair flipped prettily up on the bottom. "I think we're all set," she said, slipping her sunglasses on and slinging her purse onto her shoulder. He put his hand into his trouser pocket to ensure his keys were there. She must have heard the jingling because she said, "Nope, no need to drive."
They took the Underground to South Kensington station. Emerging onto the street, she took his hand and with the flash of a smile she led him to their destination, pausing only a few times to get her bearings then led them both northward towards Cromwell Road. In a few more minutes they were standing in front of the Natural History Museum.
He didn't quite understand, and looked down to her, brows drawn together.
"You told me once that in all the time you'd lived in London you had not had the time to so much as visit a single museum," she said.
"I did? When?"
"During one of our drives."
"There's your selectively good memory again," he joked.
"I just thought it would be nice to carve out that time for you," she said. "That and I haven't been either, so we could see it together for the first time."
He was touched more by this than he had ever been by any other gift or gesture from a past girlfriend or his ex-wife. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the temple then with a smile they entered the museum together.
Upon stepping foot into the imposing building, he saw that a special exhibit was currently running that featured the little-explored deep sea environment. When he stood there reading the informational placard with obviously more than a passing interest, she asked, "Do you want to go?"
"I think I would. This looks very interesting."
"Come on," she said. "My treat."
He knew her disposable income was not that great. "You really don't have to."
"No, I want to."
The exhibit was beautifully designed; they made their way past the bathysphere, the enormous globe, the submersibles used in current deep sea exploration. When they got to the portion of the exhibit featuring the actual creatures from the deep sea—preserved and illuminated in a haunting blue light—it filled him with the skin-tingling sense of awe usually reserved for the young.
He felt her take his hand again. "I wonder what Shakespeare would have made of this," she said quietly, almost reverently. He looked to her, curious to know what had even brought that to her mind, when she met his gaze. It did not matter that there suddenly seemed to be a swarm of children hovering about them. In that moment there was only her. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"
He reached forward, placed his hand on her cheek, and bent to give her a kiss. It was a simple, sweet kiss, but when one of the nearby children erupted with an, "Eeww, gross!", both of them could not help laughing.