19. Teddy

I woke up the next morning far too early again to the sound of Ned pottering around in the kitchen. Something was being vigorously whisked in a bowl, making his arm muscles flex in the bright light as his tongue poked out between his lips.

I stayed still, allowing myself the treat of just watching him from the darkness of the living room. His hair hung long and messy around his face, and the thermal top stretched over his chest.

Then there was butter going into a frying pan and…oh yes.

"I hope you're making pancakes," I called huskily, my voice full of smiles.

"Of course I am. You did mention them yesterday, so I thought I'd grab the chance to impress you. Pancakes it is. Coffee's just brewing."

"This is so nice."

I almost blushed saying it, but it was. Having someone here to share my space, a hot cup of coffee, a kiss as I stumbled out into the kitchen looking for my socks.

"Gotta get those brownie points in. I'm actually really handy to have around. I can build beds, fluff pillows and make pancakes. All useful life skills."

"According to Violet, you also scored one hundred per cent on your animal first-aid exam. She was bragging on our group chat."

"Just an online thing. Not that hard, really."

"Well, it's something useful, isn't it? "

"It makes me feel competent. I mean, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm starting to get the hang of things. Not asking so many stupid questions. I actually know what I'm supposed to be doing first thing in the morning now. Shovelling shit and sand, and the heifers kind of all have their own personalities. Like, I have hundreds of chick-cows in there who kind of dig me. It's cool."

"Cool?" I smiled, tugging myself back into my thermals. The wind howled outside. Sitting at the table, I loaded up my schedule on my iPad, sliding it into the waterproof cover as Ned served me up a small stack of perfectly golden pancakes.

"You don't have any syrup."

"Nah. But I do have…"

He already had his head in the fridge. "Lingonberry jam?"

"No. Not for pancakes. There should be some other kind of jam in the back?"

"We should go shopping. Drive to that big cash-and-carry on the main road because we can't keep living off Violet's leftovers and stuff in your freezer. Even Violet says we should start shopping properly. The big supermarket on the road going north is the best. It's got everything."

"We can go shopping in—"

"January," he filled in and bent down to kiss me. "But it would be nice to stock up for Christmas. Get some goodies in. Chocolates and stuff. I'll take you one evening for a little trip out. Stock up on fruit and veg so we can actually eat something remotely healthy. Like—"

"Meatballs."

"You can never go wrong with meatballs."

I loved his laughter. Almost as much as I loved these pancakes that I pretty much inhaled in time for another batch to land on my plate.

"Teddy?"

"Yeah?"

"This? It's insane, but the insane part is how much I love living here with you."

What did you say to that? I had no clue, so I just grabbed the front of his top and yanked him my way so I could kiss him.

The days seemed to fly past as we did our thing, a slow-burning way of life as I got myself through the most stressful month I think I'd ever had. Not even last year had felt this busy, but then my head had been elsewhere. The stress had been a relief back then; this year, it was just constant.

When it had been me and Dad, we'd shared the workload. Now it was just me, and in one way, I was coping. At the same time, I had to manage living with Ned, which was not actually a help because I didn't get as much sleep as I needed, lying awake in bed long into the night, relishing his skin against mine.

That evening, I stumbled through the front door ready to collapse in a heap on the bed, only to be dragged straight out into Violet's van and forced to take a road trip to the big supermarket, which gave me palpitations even before we'd managed to negotiate parking and snag a shopping trolley. But he made me laugh, holding my hand and awkwardly tried to steer the trolley one-handed through the aisles.

"Did you bring a list?" I asked him because I was here against my better judgement, being dog-tired and a little stressed at being yanked out of my routine. I also had stuff to do at home, and if I was truly honest, I was starving and ready for bed. Now I had to go shopping with Ned, who was all cheerful and happy and bouncing around asking too many questions.

"What's this flavour?" He held up a packet of something as I struggled to focus.

"Flavour?"

"Yeah?"

"It's ham, Kitten. Just bloody ham."

"Kitten?"

"That's what I'm going to call you. Suits you."

"Kitten. Seriously?" I loved that I could make him laugh.

"Yes. Now, what was it with the ham?"

"Well, there are, like, five hundred different packets of ham. They're all called weird things. Like this—means sauna, no?"

"Doesn't mean some dude sat in a sauna carving a big chunk of ham into packets. "

Yeah. I was dry, but I kind of loved seeing him smile. He grabbed my hand again and we continued down the charcuterie aisle.

"So we have Sauna-ham and extra-smoked spotty sausage, and what else do you like on bread?"

"Cheese?" I suggested, walking towards the cheese display, which was obviously a mistake because Ned was on a roll, and now he was chatting to the guy behind the counter and asking to taste the cheeses, which was totally normal, but…

I stood there and watched him. The way his hair fell over his shoulders. His scruffy stubble and the dirt at the back of his jacket. The way he so effortlessly spoke a language that wasn't really his own. Or maybe it was. The accent still made me smile. The way he said things the wrong way around. How he was obviously a foreigner but made everyone around him smile.

And it hit me. I hadn't really thought about it because I was so awfully exhausted yet at the same time so immensely proud of him, however much I'd tried to suppress it. Not actually said the words out loud. I loved him, and I think even back at school he'd been this Ned, and nobody had ever compared to him. Maybe it was because he was the first openly gay guy I'd ever met. Maybe because I had been so in awe of his coolness—how he just opened his mouth and talked and talked and talked, and people fell in love with him. Just like that. Perhaps it was one of those things destined to happen, because I had always known how he made me feel. The way my cheeks had blushed pink whenever he'd been around, and now here he was.

I had to stop and look at him some more.

"Try this one, babe. It's really good!"

He shoved some cheese in my mouth, and I chewed automatically. I wanted to drag him out of here. I wanted to slam him up against the counter and hug the shit out of him.

Because he was mine, and I was suddenly so bloody over-emotional and upset and weirded out.

"Want a big piece? Or a bit smaller? "

I stared at him. It was like the world had shrunk, and there was only him left in my line of vision.

"Babe?"

I couldn't think straight, too tired to speak, and anyway, my mouth was full of cheese, so I just wrapped him up in a hug and held him tight, inhaling his hair as I tried to get a grip on myself.

"Hey? You okay?"

I was okay, because I was not okay.

"Come here," he whispered, circling his arms around my waist, my own wound around his neck. "I know you're shattered, but we need to get some groceries while we're here. Do you want to head over to the café? Grab a sandwich? Food? Cake? Need a cinnamon bun?"

Like a cinnamon bun could fix the chaos in my head. Here I was, twenty-eight years old, and I felt like my world had once again completely shattered, standing in the middle of a supermarket with this bloke holding me. Any normal person would have been able to cope with that, and I was normal, apart from not getting enough sleep and barely eating enough because I was always too busy, and…and…

"I love you, Ned," I whispered against his cheek, trying to get closer to him as the cheese guy lost his patience and slapped his hand on the counter.

"You having this one or not?" he barked. Rude.

"Yes, thank you." Laughing, Ned loosened his grip on me long enough to grab his bloody cheese and throw it in the trolley, and then he got back to hugging me, only this time he made me look at him by wedging his nose against mine.

"Say it again."

I didn't dare look into his eyes because I didn't want him to see the tears, feel the panic in my chest, all of this weird behaviour that was so unlike me. I didn't do shit like this in public. I certainly didn't cry in supermarkets, but I was shaking and my chest was heaving, and I just couldn't control it anymore.

"I…love you," I repeated, clearly having lost it, but I did mean it. I loved him, and right there and then, he felt like the only thing that mattered. All the stress around me had bubbled to the surface, and I just didn't care anymore. It was too much. Everything was too much. "I love you, and I'm really…not coping very well with everything, and I think…I think this has been too much and maybe I just need some time off, but…"

"Is it me?" he asked in a voice that I didn't like.

"Of course it's you!" I half shouted.

"Do you want me to leave? I mean, move back up to Violet's? Is that what this is?"

Fuck. He sounded angry now.

"No! Hell no, no. Ned. No." I tangled my fingers in his hair, and I was looking straight at him, because it was time to man up, do this properly. So I kissed him, right in front of the bleeding cheese counter in the supermarket, and fuck me and all my shit. Truly.

"I just wanted to tell you that this past month has been the absolute worst, but…fuck you, Ned, because it's also been the fucking best. "

"That's it. I'm taking you for food. You're clearly losing it." He did too. Grabbed my arm and marched me past the deli section towards the shitty café at the end.

"Yeah. I'm probably losing it," I agreed.

"But for the record, I love you too. Absolutely. Even if you told me to move out now, I would refuse to because this past month has been exactly what you're saying. It's been shit because everything has been ridiculous, and had I thought about this, I would have probably done things totally differently, but at the same time…"

He pushed me down on a chair and mouthed, "Stay." Then he left me there at a table with the trolley while he strutted over to the counter and made the poor girl behind the till blush at whatever he said before coming back with two cups of coffee.

"Okay." He sat, pulled his chair in. Then he grabbed my hands and once again, made me look at him. That little smile on his face. Like I amused him.

I didn't feel amused. I felt a sense of shame and weirdness. I didn't have the energy for this .

"I know," he said. "I know this has been a-fucking-lot, but you make me happy. This whole shitshow of a life makes me happy because it's you and me, Teddy. And you're so brilliant and calm and wonderful and…I love you. If you ever doubted that, you're an idiot. See? I'm in a shitty cafeteria, and I've just ordered us something to eat, which you can bet your last krona that girl is nuking the hell out of, but that's all right, because we'll eat and everything will seem better. Then we'll buy a ton of stuff and go back home and I will put you to bed. Sleep."

"Then it starts all over again tomorrow."

"I know it does, but I'll still be there. I'll still wake you up in the morning and make you coffee and come back in the evening and nuke you some food, and do you know the best bit of all?"

"No?" I didn't actually, and him and his bloody words had me wiping my eyes again because he was right, and he was everything he said he was. My whole reason for not putting an end to this. He was my Ned, and he was…everything.

"The best part of all this is that I love you, and I know you love me too. Even better, after Christmas we're going to start to build a new life. Fix your house up and get our schedules all lined up. Give ourselves a little time off when we need it and—"

"We need to talk more," I blurted out. "Like this."

"Absolutely." He nodded so vigorously that I thought his head might snap off, and just like that I was laughing again. I was going mad. Truly so. He laughed along with me.

"Teddy, babe. You're so tired you're delirious. Sorry for dragging you out like this, but at the same time, not sorry. I get to take you out to dinner and hold your hand, and as you say, we need to do more of this. Actually sit down and talk."

"Over dinner." I smirked as two plates of food landed in front of us. Ned thanked the poor waitress more enthusiastically than was called for.

"Absolutely." He picked up his fork and tapped it against my nose. "You're the most handsome man I've ever met, and you're honest and real and exactly who you are. You're messy, and you love, so passionately. The way you love your work. Your land. The way you run the whole thing you have going on, and you run it so well. You turn up in that yard and everyone goes silent. You open your mouth and people listen. I hear things, Ted. You're respected. Admired. People are in awe of you and the way you've handled things, and you need to know that because I think in that head of yours, you don't actually see how amazing you are. You don't see yourself the way others see you, and you definitely don't see yourself the way I see you."

"How do you see me?"

Fuck the tears. He reached out and wiped them away, his thumb stroking gently at the corner of my eye.

"I see you as the boy I met at school. That quiet, strong, beautiful boy who always sat in the corner. The one who didn't make much noise, but who held all my secrets. You know that, don't you? I was out, but nobody quite got how much I was struggling on the inside. You did. I would look at you, and it would all be worth it. I think I figured you out early on, and you were what kept me going, right to the very end, and now I have no idea what I did for the ten years I wasn't here with you, because now I'm back?"

"You being out was…" I had to smile as he held up my hand and kissed my wrist.

"I know. Eat. It was you and me against the world. I wish now that I'd talked to you instead of just staring at you."

"I wouldn't have known what to say back."

"Maybe those ten years were what we needed, to grow into who we are now."

"Yeah. We just needed time to…" I smiled. "Grow up."

"I still don't feel fully grown up."

"That's probably a good thing."

"Oh, I meant to say." He shoved a forkful of glop into his mouth. "Talking of growing up, my shipment of stuff will be landing at your place sometime next week. Sorry."

"Okay?"

"You'll hate me. There's furniture and stuff and a huge sofa and tables, and I brought my gaming set-up. I have no idea why because the voltage here is different and I'm an idiot. "

"Oh, well, Gid at the garage can probably build you a converter or something."

"You think so?"

"Ask?"

"Okay, and what do you want for Christmas?"

I shoved a forkful of food into my mouth. Some kind of stew. Not that I cared what I was eating.

"We need a TV."

"Amen." He grinned. "So we buy ourselves a TV for Christmas. Good thinking. I can't believe you don't have a TV."

"Used to have one. Cat tipped it over. I just…I don't know. I was too lost at the time to figure out how to replace it. So I didn't. I didn't do anything."

"And now I'm here, and neither of us are lost anymore."

"It's not that easy."

"Teddy, it is that easy. Trust me."

I was quiet after that. Ate my food. Wondered what the hell had happened to the old me because the guy sitting here, I had no idea who he was anymore.

Ned. My Ned. I enjoyed his company. I loved the novelty of not being on my own. The way people smiled at us, sitting here grinning like the weird farmers we clearly were, sipping coffee and smiling.

"Jam," I whispered, nodding at the drip running down his chin.

"You Swedes and your jam."

I wiped it off with my finger and sucked it clean.

I perked up after that. We shopped. We drove. We unpacked and went straight to bed.

Lying in the dark with his arms around me, the hazy tiredness was back, but I still couldn't sleep. Instead, I listened to him breathing, warm breaths against my chest as he snuggled closer to me.

"Babe," he said quietly. I thought he'd fallen asleep. "Something shifted today. Changed, and it feels so good."

"Really?" I mumbled, reaching for his hand, bringing it up to my lips.

"Yeah. Like we took a step, one I didn't know we needed to take." He shuffled again, tucking the blanket in under my chin. The room was cool. The bed? Perfect. Despite Fifi meowing in disgust as we disturbed her all curled up by my feet.

"We did normal things this evening, really boring normal things, and for the first time ever, I didn't feel like I had to try, you know, to impress you, and you were just being you. Tired and grumpy, and still we…I can't even put words on it. It feels…nice. Settled in. Like we put the butterflies to bed and I can relax now. I can just be with you and I'll keep saying it but I love you, and I think things will be okay. Do you see what I mean?"

I did, actually. I saw it. Bright and clear in the darkness.

"I know what you mean."

"Also, let's make some rules. Sex."

"Sex?" I laughed into his hair. "Seriously, Kitten?"

I loved how that made him snort.

"Sex. Not every night. No heavy bottoming on weeknights because we both need to function, and yesterday was awful. I wanted to scratch all day, and all the clothing—I felt like one of the heifers, wanting to go rub up against one of their comfort brushes just to get some ass relief."

I think I was still laughing when I finally fell asleep, his face against my bare chest, my lips against his forehead.

I was more stressed than I had ever been, trying to get everything under control. My head was nowhere near in the game, but I was managing, and I was…

Happy.

And then one of the cats tipped his phone charger off the windowsill.

"Bloody kitties," he murmured sleepily.

Everything was fine. Just the way it was supposed to be.