Daydreamer

Lucy

“Wow,” I said as Felix led me into the hall, and I drew to a halt. “This is… this is different.”

“Different good?” Felix asked, turning to me, his hand still holding mine. From the moment I’d seen Felix today he’d been touching me. It was as if he was reassuring himself that I was real and that I was here with him. That, and the way he was looking at me, was at least some reassurance after I told the bastard I loved him. He responded by giving me the most glorious orgasm of my life which was great, don’t get me wrong, but what it wasn’t was him saying he still loves me too. Maybe he didn’t still feel that way anymore? Maybe that’s why he backed off?

I looked up at him and his expectant expression and studied it for a moment. There was a subtle tension around his eyes. My answer to the transformation of his house was important to him. I wasn’t sure why. I mean, the man could decorate however he wanted. Maybe he mixed it up on the reg? But this was quite the change – gone was the grey and white, gone were the clean lines. Instead, the walls were painted a warm ochre, almost orange colour, there were plants in colourful pots, an old-fashioned hat stand was next to the front door. The sideboard was the same gorgeous, polished oak as the floors.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “But I wouldn’t have said it was your taste.”

“Tastes change,” he said dismissively, pulling me on through the hallway.

“Felix,” I said as we came to a stop in the kitchen. I gave my hand a tug and he frowned as I pulled it from his. “Listen, just because I said… I mean, I know I said something in the heat of the moment. I don’t want you to feel that you have to…” I huffed and pulled my hands through my already messy hair. When I spoke again my voice was only just above a whisper. “Look, can we just forget about it?”

“No,” Felix was facing me with his arms crossed over his chest. “No, I don’t think we can.” I felt a spark of panic.

“Listen, it’s okay if you don’t feel that way now.” My voice rose as I tried to convince him. “You just have to forget about it, and we can pretend that I never—” He uncrossed his arms and came for me with a determined expression on his face. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me along back out of the kitchen and into the corridor. When we got to his study, he hesitated with his other hand on the doorknob.

“Okay, I wasn’t going to show you this yet because you might think I’m a little crazy. It’s a bit… full on.”

“Full on? What do you—?” I gasped as he opened the door and pulled me inside. “This… what did you do?”

I blinked at the walls. Felix’s boring panelling had been replaced by floor-to-ceiling shelves. Two entire walls worth, full of books. I dropped Felix’s hand and glided forward to the nearest wall. My hand trailed over the spines of the books. The shelf I was touching was all epic fantasy, including every Tolkien ever written. My eyes scanned along the entire wall – complete with a small sliding ladder for the higher shelves – and fell on the far side of the room.

“Oh, Felix,” I breathed.

All the special edition book covers for my books were framed in between the shelves. But the most spectacular element was the huge map of Minora on the remaining wall, and how it linked to the other two kingdoms in my books. I moved over to it automatically, my eyes sweeping from the rich green of the forests to the bleaker desert landscapes bordered by mountain ranges. It was so detailed. And it filled the entire wall.

Felix’s large, heavy desk had had a makeover and was now positioned so that it had a view of the garden out of the vast picture window, the seat of which was piled with cushions of all colours. A new sofa was opposite the desk – big, squashy and a warm burnt orange colour. I felt my eyes sting.

“I know it’s a bit much,” Felix muttered, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted slightly on his feet. “And a bit stalkery. I mean, I knew most of your favourite authors of course, but I might have had your mum snoop into your Kindle too. I guess I just felt like I needed to do something. Somehow if I built you your perfect room, if I made this house somewhere you’d want to be, then maybe, maybe you’d want to be here. With me.”

My eyes were still stinging, and my throat felt tight as I looked at him. His shoulders were tense as he cleared his throat and avoided my gaze to look out of the window. I couldn’t get my words past the lump in my throat, so I decided to act instead. When I burst forward Felix’s startled gaze shot back to me. His hands were only just out of his pockets in time to catch me as I jumped into his arms, my legs encircling his hips. I took his gorgeous face in both my hands and covered his cheeks, forehead, nose and finally mouth with kisses. He let out a shaky relieved laugh as I continued my attack.

“You like it then?”

I leaned back slightly to look at him, returning his smile with one of my own, even as a tear fell down my cheek. “Of course I like it, Felix. I love it.”

“I love you, you know,” he said.

“I do know,” I said through my smile as another tear fell.

“I know I’ve said it before, but I’m sorry I let you down. I promise, I swear it’ll never happen again. And you can daydream, go down a writing rabbit hole, disappear into your books; I’ll be here waiting. I’ll be here sorting the real world for you. I mean, all those times I lectured you about changing, and it was me that needed to bloody well buck my ideas up. I just⁠—”

I cut him off with a kiss then rested my forehead against his. “I couldn’t stay in my weird little dreamy comfort zone forever. Okay, maybe I don’t need to be a fully corporate animal like you, but I do need to be able to handle some public-facing stuff if I want the books out there.”

“But—”

“And I wasn’t happy, Felix. You pushed me, yes. Were you right all the time? No. But that doesn’t mean that some change wasn’t good for me too.”

He rolled his eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Well, you can keep me.”

His eyes lit, and his smile widened. “You’ll stay with me here?”

“Felix, you’ve built me a blooming library, had a map of a fictional world I made up painted on an actual wall, given me multiple orgasms, supported me in my career, tolerated my mother, let a small horse molest you endlessly and eat your belongings for me.” I softened my tone as I went on. “You made sure I was warm, you stopped me from disappearing into my world. Of course, I’ll stay with you.”

His eyes clouded for a moment. “I didn’t always make sure you were warm. I haven’t always supported you.”

“You’ve supported me since I was five years old. Nobody, not even Dad, listened to my stories like you did. I loved you then, and I love you now.”

“And you’ll stay?” he said as if wanting to clarify the situation, wanting to get some sort of verbal agreement I wouldn’t back out of. “Here?”

“Well, yes. But we have to go back to Little Buckingham on the reg. The mothers would lose their shit if we stayed away. We can stay in my shed. It’s practically a three-bed house now, thanks to you and your crazy ways.”

“I guess I can spend more time in Little Buckingham, especially now Dad’s out of the picture.”

“Plus, Legolas misses you.”

He shuddered. “I’ll spend time back home, but you have to train that fucking pony.”

“Sure.”

“You’re not going to train him, are you?”

I bit my lip. “No.”

He buried his face in my neck and burst out laughing. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him with my thighs.

“Did you decorate your bedroom?” I asked, smiling at the hundreds of books on the wall opposite.

“Of course.”

I cleared my throat. “Maybe we should…”

“Uh, uh,” he said, striding over to the sofa and lowering me down. Once we were there and I was wrapped in his arms, he kissed the top of my head. “Tell me a story.”

I snuggled into his side and let out a frustrated huff. “I’d rather see your bedroom,” I grumped, and he chuckled.

“Humour me, Shakespeare,” he said softly. I sighed but the emotion in his voice made me relent. So, I started to tell him the story of the next book I was publishing. This was about a grumpy but damaged king of a savage world who ruled with an iron fist, killing anyone standing in his way; and the half-fairy daughter of the local witch who makes him see that there might be another way to govern.

The king just happened to have dark brown eyes and a dimple on his right cheek.

Ten minutes in Felix relented and carried me to his bedroom.