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Aiden planted a kiss in her hair, Tilly taking her hand, and they stayed that way until Delia approached with a friend to introduce herself to Juniper properly. Chris was right about the opportunity. Aiden heard all sorts of ideas being thrown out as they went to chat in a quieter space.

She was destined for something good. He was just lucky to be able to witness it all. And lucky that, like her, he was finding his own way forward without the strings of past problems holding him back.

Thank goodness he’d discovered a new kind of art, one worlds away from his father’s ideas of it. Without pottery, he might never have gotten here. Might never have met the woman he loved and friends he could trust.

He’d never been more excited to see what the future held.

Epilogue

The evening was Juniper’s new favourite time of day. As grateful as she was for the steady stream of customers and students who wended in and out of Juni’s Pottery Studio, she loved a little moment of quiet spent in the last patch of sunlight by her throwing wheel. A moment to feel the peace she’d been searching a long time to find.

Her studio wasn’t the biggest or prettiest in London, but she didn’t mind. Wedged between a colourful fruit and veg market and a barber in Camden Town, plenty of people found her business, whether it was art lovers come to browse the work on sale or friendship groups eager to paint their own pots together. Really, the building seemed to find them rather than the other way around, as it had her not long after she’d returned from a week-long course in Limoges, France, offered to her by one of Delia’s friends. Chris had been right: winning the contest had served her plenty of opportunities that had taught her more about pottery, and herself, than ever before, and she’d poured all of it into this place, where potters who may not have the chance otherwise could sit in on weekly free lessons and hone their skills. If she would have had a place like this in Manchester,she might never have put so much pressure on her work at RACA, and she wanted to provide that for other people. Alternatives to the rigorous studying she’d felt obligated to enrol in. A safe place for artists to justbe.

‘Oh, no!’ A sudden cry filled her shop, and she dashed into the kiln room to find one of her favourite students, Carol, with a broken mug in her hands. ‘It exploded in the kiln. Goshity gosh, I’m so terrible at this!’

She tutted at herself, shaking her head until her white bob bounced against her jaw. She was one of Juniper’s eldest patrons, but had that same ageless twinkle in her eye when it came to creating things. With arthritis in her hands, Juniper had been trying to find new disability-friendly techniques to teach, but the kiln was clearly not always kind regardless, something she’d learned over the last year. No matter how skilled she was, there would always be unexpected problems. Only now, she knew how to move past them with patience and creativity.

‘Oh, Carol.’ Juniper sympathised, taking a closer look at the stoneware pieces, glazed lovely greens to resemble summer leaves. ‘You’re not terrible at all. This is lovely work!’

Carol looked at her like she’d grown too heads. ‘But it’s broken!’

‘Some of my best pieces started out broken. How about next time you pop in, I’ll show you how I put them back together? I promise, it’ll be beautiful by the end, and it’s lots of fun!’

‘Really? I shouldn’t just chuck it in the bin?’

Juniper smiled. ‘You should never, ever chuck it in the bin.’

Carol hesitated, then set the pieces down on the side. ‘Okay. If you say so. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then, love.’

‘Sounds wonderful.’ Juniper patted her arm gently, and then saw her on her way, the tinkle of the bell above the door signalling her final customer’s departure. She sighed into the new silence and prepared herself for her least favourite task: cleaning. She hoped to hire people who might be able to help her with it eventually, but for now, her only employees were Aiden, who had found a passion for teaching weekend classes, and Tilly, who also used the space for her crochet group on a Tuesday night. They weren’t far from finishing their second year at RACA, and Juniper loved hearing all about their classes, finding she didn’t miss sitting at a desk all that much. Luc had returned to Paris to study when they weren’t able to get a bursary for their second year, so they kept in contact with bi-weekly Zoom calls and had plans to meet up over summer.

The thought of her friends distracted her enough that she didn’t even realise she was wiping paint from the tables until the damp cloth cooled her palm, always a little less overwhelmed with them in mind. Of course, there were still difficult days where she felt like her noisy little brain was winning the battle, days where she didn’t want to get up, or open the shop, or talk to strangers. But they were far fewer since she’d finally been in a position to quit her part-time job at Caffé Verde a few months ago, making enough income here to support herself. Needless to say, Gianna had been delighted.

Which reminded her. She’d stayed in touch to commission some new mugs and plates for the café, and Juniper had been all too happy to accept, offering a discount for the ones she’d personally been responsible for breaking. Scratch cleaning: her fingers itched to throw.

After flipping the open sign to closed, Juniper picked up her phone to put on her favourite playlist, whose loud bass and rocky vocals probably wouldn’t be soothing to others, but were to her. She got comfortable at the wheel with her clay, centring it with far more ease than she had a year ago. Now, it moulded to her hands like air, and she soon got into a rhythm with it. So much so that she didn’t hear the door open, only felt two warm palms cover her eyes. She grinned, wobbling just slightly, but in tune enough with her craft that the clay soon steadied.

‘I thought you were studying tonight,’ she said.

Aiden placed a kiss in her hair by way of greeting as she took her foot off the pedal to look at him. He was more handsome than ever, clean-shaven, with his hair tucked into one of her scrunchies. Freedom looked sexy on him, and she’d never been more in love with him. After his dad had stopped funding Aiden’s bank account, he’d taken over her job – yes, he was better at that, too – and was already planning for life after RACA. His work placement at an art school began in a couple of weeks, chosen when he’d realised that he wasn’t only a brilliant teacher for her, but many of her customers.

‘Missed you too much,’ he confessed. ‘And I can’t trust you to remember to eat otherwise, so I brought takeout.’

Now he said it, she could smell the warm saltiness of ginger and soy sauce emanating from a white bag on the counter, bought from her favourite Chinese down the road. It was true she was usually too hyperfixated on work to remember her basic needs. Thankfully, between him and Tilly, who was now her and Cerberus’s doting roommate after moving out of halls this semester, she was never left hungry for too long. Aiden still lived in Cartwright Gardens, his aunt offering an extra discount on rent when he’d told the family about Jonathan cutting him off, but he hadn’t needed to take her up on that yet. He worked as hard as everyone else to make ends meet, even if he had savings to fall back on.

‘Have I told you recently that I love you?’ she said.

His lopsided smirk sent shivers through her, and he pulled up a stool to place another gentle kiss at the place where her apron straps met her bare shoulder. ‘Yes, but I’ll never complain about hearing it.’

Shetsked. ‘So vain.’

He turned his attention to the clay. ‘What are you making?’

‘Plates for Gianna.’

‘Well, that’s good, because I learned a new technique in class today.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ She arched her neck as he swept her hair away from her skin, heat coiling inside her when she saw the hunger in his eyes. He was often learning new techniques, but she rarely ended up finding out what they were. Every time was like the first time with them, still magnetised to each other to the point of frenzy.