Page 94 of When We Are Old

“Ronnie?” I’d hesitated my movements, suspended as possibility twisted around me in the seaside bedroom.

No. I couldn’t have been.

I pulled away, ready to pull back the blanket and tell Matthew, when he froze beneath me, his big hand mashing my face close to his groin.

“Hey, buddy?”

Oh shit.

“Where’s Ronnie?” Jack sounded sleepy and I could imagine him in his dinosaur pyjamas, rubbing his eyes, looking all cute and sleep ruffled.

“She’s getting breakfast.” Matthew’s chest rumbled beneath me and I tried to lay as small as I could in a ball.

“Oh.” Jack pondered this for longer than I found comfortable, stuck as I was with my nose against Matthew’s balls. “I need a poo.”

I clamped my lips together hard.

“Okay, buddy. You go along and I’ll come to wipe, but remember what Ronnie’s been teaching you about wiping, you just have to keep trying until the paper is clean.”

Oh God. My lungs couldn’t take anymore.

Matthew uncovered his legs and I launched out from under the duvet gasping for breath. “I’m dying.” I clutched at my stomach. “I’ve just seen more of your hairy scrotum then I need to in this life or the next.”

He clutched me close, his laughter brushing against my neck. “That was a tad uncomfortable, aye.” He pressed a kiss to my temple and scrambled from the bed while I fell back on the mattress, grinning at the ceiling.

Could life be more perfect than this?

Him and I, all levels of crazy, early morning wake-up sex and arse-wiping.

My laughter died as quick as it rose, because I knew that no matter how much my heart needed this, revelled in, sank into every perfect moment we could capture and create I knew it wouldn’t last.

This was a holiday and I didn’t know what our norm could be.

“How did you know I’d be at Ange’s?” I clutched his hand as we walked the harbour wall. Over on the sand, the boys showed Hannah how to look for crabs under rocks. Every so often her scream split the air and she ran with her arms above her head. Every time she did it, Matthew’s eyes danced in the sunlight.

“You’re asking me after we’ve been here for three days?”

I sighed. Three days of perfection. Reading my sigh, he pulled me around and caught my face softly in his hands, cradling me like I was a rare gem he was scared to lose. The sun slanted across his face, his dark hair lifting in the breeze, the strands of black lit with unexpected fiery hues of red. His lips lowered to mine, dark lashes fluttering against his cheekbones, and I held my breath, filled with an expectation that could make me explode. A deep and never-ending wanting that ate at my bones until I was weary with the needy ache.

“Marry me.” His question slipped into the air, rushing out to sea and mixing with the salt and brine in the air.

My chest heaved, caving with delight. I gasped a lungful of air, wide eyes meeting his.

With all my heart a yes pounded within me, it rushed in my veins, desperate to hit the surface and make itself known.

Another kiss, firmer, pushing for entry. I opened my mouth, his hot tongue slipping against mine, one of my favourite things. He cradled my head, tilting me with a mastery that made me a puppet in his hands.

I shivered, my body igniting against the fresh air.

Peppering dots of love onto every edge of my mouth, he smiled against me. “Marry me,” he whispered into his little kisses.

“Matthew.”

I could see it so clearly, me and him forever. Him with his boys, in the kitchen, Hannah looking at him with that vague level of respect she never turned in my direction. And maybe I could imagine on the kitchen counter a baby monitor, its lights flashing red, and Matthew’s smile as he turned and said, “I’ll go.”

It would be so easy.

If four hundred miles didn’t separate those dreams from our reality.