Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

L uca

Anna has us both helping, and soon we're sitting down to a simple meal of steak, with a creamy garlic mash and mangetout. The dining room is still covered in plans, so we sit round the kitchen island.

"I'm sorry I missed the cherry blossom," Anna's saying. "Lu said it was really pretty."

"It was, but if you really want to see it, you should go to Japan," Jackson explains. "It's on a whole different scale and is a festival. They call it Sakura."

I'd never heard of it before, but now I have I want to see it.

"When is it?" I ask.

"Usually at the end of March and early April. It varies slightly throughout the country, as the trees bloom later in the north."

"You know a lot about it, have you been?" Anna asks.

"Yeah, a number of years ago. It's definitely something that should be on everyone's bucket list."

"I'd love to see it," I add. And Jackson gives me a big smile, like he knew I would say that.

Anna jumps up.

"I'm sorry I didn't have time to make dessert, so shopbought will have to do." She's been spoiling us, and I'm sure we won't eat half as well once she's gone.

Dinner stuff is cleared away and we head to the lounge. I feel relaxed for the first time in, well, forever. It feels like releasing a breath I didn't know I was holding. I lie on the couch with my feet in Anna's lap. I'd love it to be Jackson's, but he claims a chair and I'm too tired to sit upright. Anna and Jackson are discussing films and I'm just happy to let the conversation flow over me, occasionally adding something, but mostly content to have my best friend and a guy who I'm seriously falling for, getting on really well.

When Anna gets up to make coffee, I turn my head so I can look at Jackson.

"Will you stay tonight?" I don't think I can bear him leaving again. This feeling that I have right now can be prolonged if he's under the same roof. I'm frightened that if he goes, it'll slip away and I'll never be able to recapture it.

"I—" he starts, and looks a bit wary, like he's been cornered.

"No pressure. Separate rooms," I blurt. I've no idea where his mind is going, though he is the one who invited me into the shower. I don't want him to think that there's any expectation, whatever my cock might be telling me.

"Okay, sure." He gives a little smile.

I want to tell him how I feel about him, but Anna's question of whether I'm ready for him keeps coming back to me. I want to be—I really do.