No One But You

She took it and topped it back up for him. “Whatever the pair of you are doing…I’m happy for you.”

I could swear my heart was going to explode if they carried on.

“I always thought she was the right girl.” She tapped Jamie’s cheek. “I’m so very happy for you both.”

Queue bashful.

“Okay, mum, we get it.”

“Get what?” His dad asked as he walked into the kitchen still sleep rubbing his eyes.

“Nothing.” Jamie and I said in unison as Willow spluttered, “They’re together.”

Blabber mouth.

Were we together? It was just The Kiss and other little kisses and a lot of hugging and holding and touching. It was like he couldn’t keep his hands to himself…more so than usual. Which I wasn’t complaining about because I’d waited long enough for it, but we hadn’t actually had enough time to determine what we were doing. If we were doing anything except for a lot more touching…and kissing.

His dad looked between the three of us before he smiled, “Oh, nice. Well done.”

He patted Jamie’s shoulder and gave mine a squeeze before taking the cold glass of lemonade that Susan offered him and waltzing into the garden with a cigar in his hand.

Every single one of us stilled and traced his steps outside and then followed the door’s trajectory as he closed it behind him. His thick more salt than pepper hair going crazy with the autumnal wind as he lit his cigar.

It was like his blasé reaction took the wind out of his wife and daughters, and just like that Susan got back to her bright white Aga that contrasted with the dark grey kitchen.

“Don’t just stand and sit around, set the table. Do something other than wait for the dinner to go cold!” She said as she pulled the roast joint out of the cooling oven and poured the juices into a saucepan for the gravy.

Jamie got down from his stool and picked me up off mine, kissing my temple as he slid me down his body to my feet. My unsteady legs wobbling slightly as his lips pressed onto mine so quickly that you would’ve missed it if you weren’t looking.

Willow’s and Dorian’s giggles filled the air as Jamie wandered outside to sit with his dad. I watched for a while as the pair of them talked and smoked.

“Oh wow, are you drooling?” Dorian smiled as she handed me one lot of cutlery.

“Shut up.”

“Hey, I think it’s cute.” She shrugged as she walked back to the cutlery drawer and started counting serving spoons.

Jamie’s eyes met mine and his lips stretched into a wide smile. My heart squeezed in response as I started laying the cutlery by the place settings on the kitchen table. I’d had dinner at this table so many times before. Countless times from when we were kids to when Jamie was in the states to today. But today, it felt different. Not in a bad way, just a different way. It was strange because I thought I’d feel a little self-conscious, but actually I just felt all warm and fuzzy. Even with all the prying, I felt at ease and at home like I always had. The only difference was that the air crackled with joy and giddiness, and not just around me and Jamie, but everyone.

And every time I thought about it, I relived The Kiss. That kiss was better than any I had ever had. It was even better than the first kiss he’d given me and somehow I knew that it had nothing on all the other kisses that were to come.

Jamie spent the next two days monitoring Jack. If he wasn’t in surgery, he was researching new techniques to try and remove what was left of the tumour. With Pippa still at Richard’s, I sat with him for hours going over everything with a fine toothcomb.

Although the little boy had woken up from the surgery he could barely open his eyes and one side of his m

outh was drooped almost like he’d had a stroke. His parents had agreed to keep him sedated, in an induced coma. Jamie had said that the weakness in his face was a side effect of where the rest of the tumour was sitting. He hadn’t said anything else, but from his notes and the techniques he was researching I knew that it wasn’t just the tumour anymore. There had to be something else. From what I could gather there was damage from the pressure of the mass.

In true Jamie fashion, he hadn’t made it home either of the past two nights. He’d come straight to the hospital after dinner at his parents and I knew that he’d spent every night since either in one of the on-call rooms or in his office. I could sense he was waiting for something to give, and by the way his anxiety was flaring I knew it wasn’t something good.

I should’ve spent Sunday sat on my parents’ sofa watching pointless television and gorging on sugar with my mother. But instead I was sat at his desk, across from him just like today, trying to find information on another particular method that was so ancient, no one seemed to know how it worked anymore. It beat me why he felt that it would help, but there was always a method behind his madness. That was the reason he was as brilliant as he was.

He rounded his desk and spun my chair to face him. My heart squeezed as I took him in, he looked tired and frustration pulled at his normally laid-back smile. He kissed the top of my head as he crouched in front of me and whispered a soft and simple, “Thank you.”

“For what?” I smiled at him.

His eyes left me and focused on the open books and files littering his desk. “Everything. This.”

“Jamie, you don’t need to thank me. You know that.”