choke out. He opens his arms and I step into them, feeling his heat and scent surround me. I bury my head in his neck, and he kisses my head.
“I love you,” he whispers. “I will never love anyone like I do you. Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to go back to being alone again, because with you I never feel like that.”
“I won’t,” I whisper. I raise my head and look at him. His face is resolute and filled with a fiercely passionate love. “I’m so sorry.” The words are tumbling out. “I’m so sorry that I’ve been a shithead. It’s just that the press is always around, shouting shit through the letterbox about you and me. And I’m not much. I’m practically broke with student loans and my overdraft. I try not to look on the internet, but there are all these comments about how you’ll get tired of me and find someone better. And I wondered what I could give you that anyone else couldn’t do a lot better.”
“A home.”
“Pardon?”
He pushes my hair back, his fingers soft with a slight tremor. I’ve frightened him, and remorse burns through me.
“You give me a home,” he says softly. “And that means everything to me, Eli. I will never jeopardise that. And I know it’s hard to trust. Fuck, I feel the same most of the time. I look at your youth and the fact that you’re a billion times more sunny-tempered than me. You could easily find someone a hell of a lot less complicated than a practically middle-aged grouchy actor.”
“I couldn’t find anyone better,” I say, amazed.
His face twists in a tender, exasperated way that makes me want to hug him. “So, how is it that you can say that and I can’t?”
“Because—” I falter. “Oh, I see what you’re doing.”
He grins and hugs me tightly. “I think only time will let us trust each other, but I don’t make promises easily, Eli, so I want you to listen to this one. I promise to love you until the day I die. I promise to remember that you’re precious to me, and I promise to talk to you about my problems and share them with you.”
His words sink into me, melting the tight knot of worry that’s been in my belly for a while.
“I promise to talk to you, too,” I say quickly. “I wanted to, but—”
“But you felt like you should be the one who steers us.”
I blink, amazed at his perspicacity. “Well, I suppose so.”
“You can’t,” he says simply. “We have to take turns steering, but I think if we both have our hands on the tiller, we won’t go too far wrong.”
“That nautical reference seems quite appropriate here,” I say softly.
“I look forward to making many more of them.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m not dismissing your fears about the money. I don’t want to diminish them, because they’re real.”
“But?”
“But what I have is yours.” He puts a hand up to halt my outburst. “Yes, I have money, Eli, but I literally have nothing else. I’ve lived in hotel rooms for twenty years. Up until last month, I didn’t even wear my clothes twice.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I want to put down roots. I want a home to come back to. I want to share that with you because it’s no fun without you. I want to pick paints and wallpaper. I want to argue over the kitchen overhaul and what curtains we’ll pick.” His face shines.
“You really want that? It’s very domestic.”
“It’s not domestic. It’s a basic need for us to have a safe place away from the world.”
“And you need to be away from the world?”
“Yes,” he says simply. “My job is very public, and I need to find somewhere that we can just be us, where our real friends and families can come. I need somewhere I can be me and not Gideon Ramsay, actor.” He looks around. “And I think this place is it.” He smiles at me. “You feel it too.”
“You really want this one?”
He nods. “I do. I felt it as soon as we came up the drive. This is our house, and I knew it as soon as I saw it. Just like I knew with you.”
“But I still can’t be on an even footing with you on money.”
“No, you can’t,” he says, and the stark simplicity of his voice stops any protests. “But do you imagine that I’m on an even footing with you?”