He smiled, and inside something cracked open and all the feelings I’d been squashing down for three months spilled out.
‘I don’t think I can keep pretending. I don’t want to pretend. Not with you.’
‘Then you’ll have to say no,’ I breathed, amazed I had any breath left.
‘Or… we spend the next two years being utterly, excruciatingly honest with each other, and do a very good job of keeping it a secret from everyone else.’
‘I can’t feel like this about my adopted brother.’
His smile grew. ‘I don’t know how you feel.’
I ducked my head. How I felt was terrified. Embarrassed. As vulnerable as if I’d brought him the coffee dressed in my underwear.
‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t.’
He gently rested his fingers against the side of my cheek and turned my face towards his. We were so close I could have counted the flecks of dark brown in his eyes, if my brain had been functioning.
‘Tell me.’ His murmur sent shivers across my skin.
I slowly, unsteadily, moved the stupidest, most brazen few inches forwards of my life, and leant until my lips were about to touch his.
‘Jonah?’
A knock on the door sent me jerking back so quickly the dregs of my drink splashed onto the duvet.
Jonah hadn’t moved.
‘Yeah?’ he called, eyes not leaving mine.
‘I’m about to put a load of laundry on. Do you still want your jumper washed?’
Sighing, he pulled off his sweatshirt, revealing about eight inches of smooth skin as his T-shirt rode up, then opened thedoor just wide enough to shove the sweatshirt into Mum’s hand, mumbled something about getting an early night, and closed the door before she could reply.
‘I should go.’
He leant against the door. ‘You don’t sound very sure.’
I shook my head, gripping my curls with both hands. ‘I’m very not sure!’
He moved away. ‘Then you should go.’
I watched out of the window until Mum, having loaded up the washing machine, rejoined Dad in the garden.
‘Just so you know,’ Jonah said as I carefully opened his door again, listening out for Nicky chatting on the phone in her bedroom. ‘I am completely sure.’
‘That I need to go?’
‘That I want you to come back. Once you’re sure, too.’
‘I don’t want to screw things up for you.’
He reached forwards and tucked a stray curl back behind my ear. ‘I was screwed the first time I heard you sing “Wuthering Heights”.’
Nicky’s bedroom door flew open, her voice suddenly far clearer.
I did the last sensible thing I’d do before everything exploded, and fled.
