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Billy extricated himself from the group hug. “I’d better go and tell George, he’ll kill me when he finds out we didn’t wait for him.”

“Tell him I’ll make it up to him,” Lucy called after him. “See you at the reception!” She turned to Cal, tears sparking in her eyes again. “I really got it.”

And Cal, who hadn’t seen a single picture that Lucy had painted, was smiling so hard her face was hurting. Why the hell was she so happy? But the answer was simple. Lucy’s shining, radiant face, the joy in her, made it feel like Cal was walking in the clouds.

Lucy took her hand and dragged her away from the car park, twining fingers in with hers as they walked toward the beach.

“Don’t you have people to tell?” Cal asked. “Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, phoning your friends and all that jazz?”

Lucy’s hand tightened around hers. “Later,” she said. “Right now, I’m pretty happy with where I am.”

“Ah.” Cal let herself be led to the beach where they both kicked off their shoes and picked them up, Lucy never letting go of her hand. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Lucy was walking with purpose, not too fast but not strolling either. She side-eyed Cal. “I told you before that you were being unfair, and I think you are. I think that you’re blaming me for wanting a relationship and at the same time being the polar opposite, not wanting anything at all. When no one’s asked you for more than you’re willing to give, Cal.”

Cal bit her lip but stayed silent. It was a fair point.

“And I’m not playing that game with you,” Lucy went on, still walking. “We’re two adults and we like each other and that’s a rare enough thing that we shouldn’t ignore it.”

“Alright,” Cal said. She was unused to this, unused to someone else taking the lead in this way.

Partly it was her nature, she’d always been the type of person to ask for what she wanted in life. Partly it was how she saw herself. Part of her butch identity, in her eyes, had always been to play a more traditionally masculine role.

She wondered now why she’d thought that. She was a woman, Lucy was a woman, nobody needed to be a man here.

And it was nice being led by the hand, nice being taken somewhere by someone whose eyes shone like sea-smoothed glass.

There was more though, and she wasn’t too blinded by Lucy to see it. Circumstances had changed. Opening that letter had suddenly meant that Lucy was leaving too, temporarily perhaps, but maybe not. And somehow that made things more fair. There was a deadline for them both. Cal would leave when the house was finished, Lucy would leave to go to her residency. It was like a built-in end point that they both needed.

Which didn’t exactly explain what was happening now.

“Where are we going?” Cal asked finally.

Lucy nodded toward a little house perched on the side of a small cliff overlooking the sea. “There,” she said.

Cal smiled. “And what, pray tell, is there?”

“My house,” Lucy said simply.

The sand crunched under their bare feet and Cal wondered if Lucy tasted of the ocean. “And what happens when we get to your house?” she pressed on, wanting this to be fully consensual, fully in the open, wanting them both to understand what was about to happen.

Lucy did stop now. She stopped and turned and raised an eyebrow. “Do you need me to explain it to you step by step?” she asked.

Something about the way she said it, the way her lips moved, the implication behind the words, made Cal’s insides molten. Cal swallowed, not sure she could trust herself to answer. She shook her head.

“Good,” Lucy said, turning and pulling at her hand, beginning to walk again.

“Good?” Cal croaked, seeing the sway of Lucy’s body, the way the sun illuminated her silhouette under her fine sundress.

“Good,” Lucy said again. “It’ll be much more fun to show you.”

The sun caught the roof of the little house on the cliff and it shone nearly as red as Cal’s cheeks. Her heart pounded and then she was laughing, the sound mixing with the waves as Lucy pulled at her hand.

Chapter Nineteen

At least her hands weren’t shaking, which given that it felt like everything inside her was quivering with anticipation was somewhat of a miracle.

“This is my room,” Lucy said, opening the door.