He smiles his wide, open smile. ‘I’m fine, Nia. This is not a medical emergency.’
‘There are people in coffins who look better than you did just now.’
His mouth curves into one of those wide impossible-to-stop smiles as he lifts the mug of tea and takes a sip without taking his eyes off me. ‘Flipping heck, do you take a bit of tea with your sugar?’
‘Hot. Sweet. Drink up.’ I give him my most menacing look and pick up my own mug, and have to hide the shudder as the sweetness assaults my taste buds. Maybe I overdid it a little on the sugar front.
‘You should go, Nia,’ he says as I sit down on the box next to him. ‘My filter goes when I’ve taken these. Usually I take them behind closed doors so no one has to see me in this state.’
‘So no one can look after you?’
‘So no one can use it as blackmail material later.’
It sounds bitter and sad and makes me feel like an icy cold arrow has just hit my back. ‘What kind of people do you have in your life?’
‘Ones who aren’t like you, obviously.’ His wide brown eyes are blinking slower than usual. ‘Usually I start asking my Alexa barely legible things that she can hardly decipher. I keep waking up in the mornings and finding the app on my phone has got a list of nonsensical questions I’ve been asking, like: “Why do I feel cold without my teeth?” and “How many photos of encyclopaedias do I need?” And I assure you I have all my own teeth and don’t own any encyclopaedias, never mind take photos of them.’
I’ve made the mistake of taking another sip of tea and it comes out of my nose as I snort with laughter again.
He laughs too and then groans. ‘And I can’t believe I just told you that. That I ask my smart speaker nonsensical questions until I fall asleep or that it’s the most exciting thing I’ve got to talk to.’
‘Me too,’ I say quietly. ‘I mean, with the being alone thing, not with the nonsensical questions. I don’t feel cold without my teeth or take many photos of encyclopaedias.’
He giggles even though it’s obviously painful. ‘Please ignore everything I say. I’m at the stage where I’d tell you my bank login details and my mother’s maiden name and forget about it by morning, so feel free to take advantage.’
I’m sitting on his undamaged right side and I scooch a bit closer until my thigh presses against his and my arm grazes against his bare forearm.
I don’t know what it is about this man, but there’s something that makes me want to be closer than is normal with someone I only met yesterday. And I’m still not a hundred per cent sure he isn’t a giant nutcracker come to life.
I’m so distracted by my thoughts that I jump when his head flops to the side to rest on my shoulder. ‘Can I lean on you?’ he mumbles, completely missing the fact that he already is. ‘You can yell at me if I fall asleep then; it’s only going to hurt more if I hit the floor.’
I instantly stiffen because it’s been a heck of a long time since I had a man get quite this close, but he lets out a long, slow breath, and everything gets heavier as he relaxes, and after a few moments, I realise I don’t actually mind. At all. I concentrate on the spot of heat where our arms are touching.
I love how open he seems tonight. Yesterday I thought he was so uptight that we’d never be friends, but he seems different now. I know I’ve caught him at a bad moment – hurting, vulnerable, and without his walls up, but there’s something even more endearing about him tonight. Yesterday I thought he was so much of a Disney prince that he could’ve stepped out of an animated film. He seemed sarcastic and untouchable, and even though I could see there was something more than a broken arm bothering him, he’d never admit it.
But now when his head’s leaning heavily on my shoulder, his floppy hair is smooshed up in several different directions, and the dark circles under his eyes make it obvious that he hasn’t been sleeping even without him telling me, he seems even better than a Disney prince – he seems like a real guy who isn’t as infallible as he’d have people believe. And it’s all down to a nutcracker yet again. Nutcrackers keep showing up in our lives.
He’s still got his mug of tea in his right hand and he manages to sip it without moving his head from my shoulder. ‘Thank you for the cup of … well, it couldn’t really be called tea … but it’s the best cup of liquefied sugar I’ve ever had.’
‘I don’t usually drink tea like this. You know why I made it sweet.’
‘To give me such a sugar rush that I forget about the pain?’
I try to hold back the laugh because I don’t want to shake him when he’s leaning so heavily against me. ‘Obviously.’
He rests the cup on his thigh, still holding on to the handle with his good hand, and I get one of my hands behind my head and pull my hair out from where it’s trapped under his head. My grown-out bob cut is over my shoulders now and the longest layers have almost reached my armpits, and I can feel my head being pulled down by the weight of him against me.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, shifting
