make it for Valentine’s I thought we could have our own tonight. Lx’
They couldn’t make it.
Both of them knew.
Oh, God.
They were over, and both knew it.
Tonight was their goodbye, their Valentine’s. Before they took to fighting, before things turned bitter, they would end it nicely.
She wasn’t overthinking things—in the little time they’d been together they had come to know each other well.
Too well perhaps, Leo thought as he finished operating and headed to the changing rooms.
Rafael was there, getting changed to head over to the Lighthouse, he told Leo.
‘How are Abbie and Ella?’ Leo asked, but Rafael was in no mood to talk. He just gave some vague answer and then said he was in a rush.
Leo wished Rafael would speak with him but really he couldn’t blame him for not doing so. After all, the last thing Leo wanted to do was discuss his feelings for Lizzie with anyone.
Maybe Ethan?
Yeah, that would go down well.
He and Lizzie were too close for comfort, Leo thought as he drove home.
The traffic was bad, he’d have been quicker walking or at least taking the Tube, but he was actually glad of the pause before he got home to Lizzie.
Home to Lizzie.
He was growing far too used to that and Leo wasn’t used to relying on anyone.
How, in just a few weeks, had she come to be such a part of his life? Leo didn’t like it, loathed the thought that he might ever need another person.
As he pulled up his phone rang and, seeing it was Lexi, Leo took the call.
‘I need a response for Saturday,’ Lexi said. ‘I’ve been putting it off.’
So had Leo.
‘Yes, I’ll be attending.’
‘Who’s your guest?’ Lexi asked. ‘They need it for the table plan.’
He sat and stared out of the window. The wipers were still going and he watched the light bouncing off the black roads and he paused for a long moment before answering.
‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know in the morning.’
Lexi didn’t turn a hair. It was a regular response from Leo. He always left things like this till the last minute—his low attention span with women ensured that names could not be given weeks in advance.
He’d asked Lizzie, but she’d said no.
You could always go alone, a voice that sounded like his own told him.
‘Why?’ Leo said to the silence. ‘Why should I?’
Because that’s what relationships are about, that small voice told him.
Compromise.
It wasn’t something he did well.
As the door opened Lizzie’s back was towards him. He saw her putting roses in the vase, he could see her slender arms and the curve of her bottom in the fitted skirt, and he just wanted to go over, turn her around and just bury himself in her, yet he held back.
‘They’re for you.’
‘I know,’ Lizzie said, ‘but for all the time I’m at home …’ She halted, saw the brief look in his eyes and simply didn’t want go there just yet. Neither did Leo. ‘Let’s just enjoy them tonight.’
She walked towards him, smiling, and he pulled her into his arms, inhaled the fragrance of her hair, held the woman he had come home to and hated it that he wasn’t capable of making their relationship last but he just did not believe in forever.
He was hurting her. Every day that they were together would simply make the parting harder, and so instead of diving into a kiss he headed over to the dresser and, rarely for Leo, poured a drink. ‘Do you want one?’ he offered.
‘Not if I’m driving.’
He hesitated but poured two.
‘It’s not working, is it?’ Lizzie was the one who broached the subject. ‘It hasn’t been since you visited the nursing home.’
‘It’s not that.’
Lizzie didn’t believe him. ‘Leo, what my mum said about a husband and babies was a ten-year-old Lizzie she was remembering.’
‘So you don’t want that?’ Leo glanced over.
‘I do.’ Lizzie was honest enough to admit it. ‘But I know that’s not for you—I know what she said freaked you out.’
He held his breath. It had freaked him out but not in the way Lizzie was thinking—it was more that she deserved someone who could give her all that she wanted when he honestly didn’t think he could. ‘Why would it freak me out?’ he asked. ‘I already told you it’s not for me.’
They stood there and the usual response would have been, So where are we going, then? Except Lizzie had always known the answer.
Nowhere.
‘I don’t want to fight,’ Leo said. He loathed arguments more than anything, loathed the sound of raised voices as people hurtled out of control.
Leo was always in control—always a step ahead, always making sure that it never came to that.
It had possibly saved Ethan’s life.
It had certainly messed up his own.
He looked at Lizzie, so loving and warm, so where he wanted to be, yet the gap between them was a chasm he could not breach.
‘We’re not fighting, Leo, we’re talking.’
Ah, but about their relationship, he thought.
‘Can you come on Saturday?’ he asked. ‘I have to give Lexi the name of the person accompanying me by the morning.’
She could do it, Lizzie knew that. She could head down to Brighton on Friday instead of Saturday, hit the worst of the traffic, and then race back Saturday afternoon, but they had birthday cake after dinner at the nursing home. Her father would be devastated if she wasn’t there—and for what?
Another night in Leo’s bed, then perhaps another.
For a glimpse of a future, she’d do it, but he denied them both that.
‘Leo …’
As she went to answer he walked over to her. He didn’t want to hear that, no, she couldn’t come, neither
