at the wall of photos she’s taken of various street art displays. They’re framed and dated, lined up perfectly from the years she lived in London prior to meeting me. It’s interesting to look back at what drew her eye then because they’re all very dark and gritty, depicting portraits of pain and anger or high contrast designs that feel just…troubled.
Then the frames stop five years ago, and below those is a new one that I recognise from our tour a couple of weeks ago. It was a giant mural on Hanbury Street in Brick Lane of a stork carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket. There was a price tag hanging on a baby’s toe that said FREE TO A GOOD HOME. It’s bright and cheery but with a tiny bit of edge to it that’s very Tilly today. Not Tilly of yesterday.
I point at it and glance over my shoulder. “Why did you pick this one?”
Tilly’s eyes are not on my face as she lays under the covers with her hands propped behind her head. “I can’t hear a word you say when you’re standing here naked in my wee bedroom.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re such a bloke sometimes.”
“You’re such a lass sometimes.” She giggles and it makes me want to kiss her.
I stalk over to the bed and slip under the covers, grabbing her body and pulling it against mine. The skin-on-skin contact is glorious. We’ve been intimate in a thousand different ways since we started seeing each other, but feeling her like this after we just made love…it’s euphoric.
I release her body and point over at the photo again. “Tell me why you chose that one.”
She moans her dissent but then rolls over to lay on my chest. Her finger traces circles around my nipple as she talks. “It made me think about my own situation.”
“With the pregnancy?”
“Aye.” When she pauses, I remain silent, waiting to hear what she wants to say without asking a question to hear what I want her to say. “I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if the baby lived. Would I have been a good mother? Would I have stayed in Dundonald? Would I have wanted to find a husband to give the baby a father?”
My body tenses at that last remark. “You didn’t want me to help you back then, that’s for sure.”
She glances up at me, her head tilting curiously. “I still don’t know why you offered what you did. I mean, to claim another man’s child, no questions asked. And you came up with that decision in seconds. You were a young, successful bloke living your best life in London. What on earth would inspire you to give up your life like that?”
It feels as if an elephant is sitting on my chest with the last question. An elephant that I’ve been living with since I had a very unexpected conversation with my nonno at only twenty years old.
I swallow the knot in my throat and tuck a strand of hair behind Tilly’s ear. “There’s a reason for that…and it’s something I’ve actually never told anybody.”
Her brows furrow and she looks at me expectantly. When I open my mouth to bare my soul, suddenly, there’s a loud slam from downstairs followed by clomping of someone’s heavy footsteps on the stairs.
Tilly’s eyes are full of terror. “Fuck, it’s Mac!”
We both scramble off the bed, darting around her room to find the remnants of our clothes. Tilly slips on a robe as she grabs my trousers up off the floor. By the time we hear the steps outside the door, I only have my boxers on as I clutch the rest of my clothes to my chest. “What the fuck do I do?”
“Get in the wardrobe!” Tilly exclaims, shoving my trousers in my hand and pointing at the door in the corner. “If my brother sees you naked, he’s going to castrate you. And he knows how because there was a farm next to grandmum’s bed and breakfast, and well…let’s just say Mac and I saw some horrifying things as kids.”
“Really? You choose to tell me that sweet story of your childhood now?” I seethe as she nearly shoves me over a box, and I crash into the doorframe to catch myself.
There’s a loud knock on the door as Mac’s voice booms, “Tilly, are you alright? It sounds like you broke something.”
“I’m fine!” she cries out, trying to shut the door on me before I’m out of