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Fifty-Five

Alex typed a text to Lucy. Hot chocolate. With ALL the marshmallows!

“Good morning, Mouse.” Mark’s smiley lilt drifted over her shoulder.

Hitting send, she set her phone on the bedside table and pulled Mark’s arms tighter around her chest, inviting his warm body to spoon hers from head to toe. She giggled. “Waking up to your voice…it is a good morning.”

Kissing her shoulder, Mark curled around her. “What were you doing?”

“Texting Lucy.”

He cuddled into Alex’s hair and inhaled. “Mouse, can we just lie here and never move?”

“We can lie here, but I’m nixing the never moving part. We have eight months to make up for, Keegan.”

“It’s a good thing I have no work lined up until October…” Mark’s fingers traced the delicate Doctor Who quote tattooed on the inside of her forearm. “…since I’ll be otherwise engaged as an amateur porn star for the next month and a half—in the shower, on the floor, against the wall…”

“Promises, promises. Don’t get a poor girl’s hopes up.” Alex shimmied around to face him, her lips close to his. “Mark…there is something…”

“Yeah?” His eyelids hovered contentedly as he stroked her hip.

“Something you should know…” She bit her cheek. “No more secrets, right?”

“Right.”

“Freddie may have said, but…I want to explain.” She took in a deep breath. “This summer, there was a guy…”

Mark closed his eyes. “The guy from the Court?”

“Yeah.” She winced. “I slept with him…but it was over before it really began.”

“Lex, I can’t lie—I hate that guy. I don’t like that you were with him, but we both went off the rails, and that’s my fault—”

“Mark—”

“No. If I had been honest with you, sought help sooner, we wouldn’t have split…or slept with other people.”

“I thought I’d lost you to Fallon…”

“Fallon was the first girl I slept with, yeah, but what I felt for her as a teenager or for two fucked up weeks this spring doesn’t compare to how I’ve always felt about you, Lex. What we share—this no-one-gets-me-like-you love—is the real deal. You and me, we just make sense. We belong together.”

A breath caught in Alex’s throat. She swore her heart skipped a beat, hoping he really meant it.

He brushed the hair from her eyes. “I’m so grateful for this second chance. I’ll do everything I can not to mess it up.”

Alex wrapped her arm around him, laying her head on his shoulder. Mark reciprocated with a kiss that he held in her hair.

“I wasn’t honest about my anxiety. I hid so much…since April last year.”

“April? But…that’s when we moved in together.”

“And I quit the National, and Wink came on the scene and sent you jetting off everywhere…”

“Christ, Lex. Any one of those things is a massive change, but all at once? Fuck! I was such a shit boyfriend, not noticing what was going on with you—”

“You’re not a mind reader, Mark. I didn’t want you to worry or get distracted at work, so I lied. I would say I was fine on FaceTime and then spent the next half-hour bawling in the shower.”

“Oh, Mouse, what are we both like?” He caressed her cheek. “Hiding the truth to spare the other…”