Words, Darling, use them. “Look, when we talked before, I panicked for a lot of reasons,” he began. “Some of it was—well, not feeling good enough, one way or another. And I suppose that’s my problem, but it’s mostly your problem.”

“It is?”

“Well, I don’t listen to you when you’re saying you’re not good enough for me,” Will pointed out. “You’re a grown man, you can decide who you want to be with. Use your own damn judgement.”

“Very fair,” Kim said, with a gravity in his voice that didn’t match the spark in his eyes.

“The rest of it, that was harder. You said a future, a forever, and that felt too big to wrap myself around. But I’ve been thinking about it, about what a future might look like, and I reckon I’ve worked it out.”

“What does it look like?” There was a tiny tremor in Kim’s voice, just a hint of nerves.

“Dark eyes, dark hair. Gorgeous mouth.” He ran a thumb over Kim’s lips, then down his bare arm, over the faded scars. “White lines, white stains. That’s what I want. I don’t care if it’s in the bookshop, or a palace, or the south of France. That’s just trappings. But you and me? I want that.”

Kim’s eyes were locked on his. Will had never seen an expression like that on his face, too often guarded by stillness or irony. Now he was bare and raw, and Will found speech coming more easily in the face of that look. “The way you talk to me, the way you think, the ways you lie, even. Every damn thing about you. You drive me out of my mind, Kim. It’s been months and I can’t think of anything but you. And I suppose all that means I love you, but that—the words—”

“Not right?”

“Not enough. What it comes down to is—” He couldn’t find a better way to say it. “I don’t like it when you aren’t there. It pisses me off; I think it always will. Don’t piss me off?”

“Oh, Jesus,” Kim said, and lunged for him, knocking Will onto his back again. He wrapped his legs round Kim and kissed him, hands and limbs everywhere, in desperate need for closeness and contact and as much touch as two bodies could have. Breathing him in, and breathing into him, and finally feeling those old, hard tangles in his chest ease apart. They’d been so impossible and viciously thorned for months, and now they felt like the silk tie of Kim’s summer dressing gown, the knots slithering apart at a touch.

A decision made, a future claimed. Giving it up to Kim. He could do that.