Page 49 of Forever, Maybe

Chapter thirty-eight

D anny kept his word and pulled into the driveway at precisely four o’clock.

Nell, busy adding the final flourishes to a client’s website, closed her MacBook with a soft click and stood, stretching until a satisfying crack rippled between her shoulders.

From her office window, she watched him park his maroon BMW, its polished surface glinting in the afternoon light.

Her gaze drifted to her hands as she stretched her arms in front of her.

The faint map of veins beneath her skin seemed more pronounced than she remembered.

It was a small thing, but these days, every shift in her body felt like another betrayal.

Another reminder of June’s visit to the doctor—a memory branded so deeply it surfaced unbidden, a grim souvenir of how little control humans have over their fates.

It had been soon after their return to London.

Nell, feeling worn out, had reasoned that a health check was overdue.

The exhaustion, erratic weight loss, chaotic cycles, and her maddening tendency to cry at everything —even TV ads—had started to wear her down.

Sitting in the sterile confines of her GP’s office, she listed her symptoms while the doctor, a grey-haired woman with a cropped, no-nonsense haircut, nodded thoughtfully.

“Weight loss?” the doctor had asked, pausing to scribble something in her notes.

“Six, maybe seven pounds,” Nell replied.

The doctor looked up, her expression kind but serious. “We’ll run some blood tests. Check your FSH levels.”

“FSH?” Nell asked, her brow furrowing.

“Follicle-stimulating hormone,” the doctor explained, her lips forming a tight line. “Higher levels can indicate menopause and might explain some of your symptoms.”

The word menopause landed with a thud in Nell’s brain. She nodded slowly, but the meaning caught up with her in a rush, and her voice burst out before she could stop it.

“Menopause? But I’m forty-two, not fifty-two! And I’ve lost weight, not gained it! Aren’t menopausal women always complaining about that spare tyre around their stomachs? This makes no sense!”

Her voice had risen into a near-wail, and the doctor raised her hands in a placating gesture.

“Mrs Murray, please. The walls here are paper-thin.” Her tone softened, though her expression remained measured.

“We don’t know anything for certain until the results come back.

If the lab confirms elevated FSH, there are treatments we can explore.

HRT, for instance—it’s a game changer. I’m on it myself.

Give it a couple of months, and you’ll feel like a new person. ”

The GP was convinced Nell was going through menopause. Nell, however, allowed herself to doubt, clinging to the hope that cold, hard evidence might prove otherwise. When the confirmation came—a phone call delivered by the GP herself—Nell listened in a robotic haze.

“Right. So it is menopause,” she repeated, her voice hollow. “Okay. I’ll book an appointment. And I’ll need a prescription for HRT and calcium supplements, right?”

She hung up and wandered to the mirror, catching her own reflection. Only, it wasn’t entirely hers. Her mother’s face stared back—etched into her own features by time and inevitability.

I’m old. I’m on that rapid decline. I’ve achieved nothing, nothing, nothing worthwhile with my life…

When she told Danny, she braced for the heartbreak she knew was inevitable. She hadn’t changed her mind about not wanting children, but having the choice ripped away from her was something else entirely.

“No, Danny,” she said quietly, her voice flat. “There won’t be any kids. I’m sorry.”

A knot twisted itself around her chest, constricting tighter as his face fell. She couldn’t leave it there. She placed her hand beneath his chin, tipping it upward to meet his eyes.

“You’re fertile, Danny,” she said softly, the words cutting through her. “You can—”

“Don’t, Nell!” he snapped, jerking her hand away.

Since then, they’d muddled on, the ghosts of unspoken accusations lingering between them like unwelcome houseguests.

You refused to even consider a baby when we were young enough.

You worked too much!

And her rebuttal, a silent scream in her mind: But I told you from the start I didn’t WANT children! Why didn’t you listen?

The conversations they avoided hovered, a barrier they couldn’t breach.

Downstairs now, Danny opened the front door, his voice cutting through the silence. “Oi, Wifey, I’m home!”

He sounded too cheerful, the forced kind that made neck prickle. But she played along. “Up here!”

Moments later, she heard him bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time like he always did when he was trying to impress her. And then there he was, leaning in the doorway of her office, all Polo shirt and jeans, looking maddeningly like the Danny she’d first fallen for.

His gaze roamed over her—arms, breasts, hips—before locking onto her eyes with a familiar glint. “Do you remember how we used to start our nights out?” he asked, biting his lip and tilting his head in that boyish, irresistible way.

A slow, lazy smile spread across her face, softening her features. “Oh, I remember.”

He dropped into her chair, patting his lap with a wolfish grin. “Come here.”

She straddled him, their bodies falling into the rhythm of familiarity. “Like this,” she murmured, her voice low and inviting.

For a moment, the weight of unspoken words, of fractured dreams and regrets, faded into the background. There was only the two of them, clinging to what they still had.

He hitched up Nell’s skirt as she tugged his trousers and boxers down just far enough. His hands gripped her bottom with a familiar urgency as she moved against him, her breaths quickening in tandem with his.

Afterward, still tangled in each other’s limbs, he tugged her toward the bathroom. “Shower,” he said, grinning, a spark of their old rituals flickering back to life. Under the warm spray, he lathered shampoo into her hair, his fingers firm yet tender against her scalp.

“We could just stay in,” she murmured, tilting her head back, her body relaxing under his touch.

He kissed her wet shoulder, his lips trailing to her neck, pressing himself against her back.

She felt the unmistakable stir of another erection.

Surely only the newly besotted have the energy for sex outside the bedroom , Nell reflected, gripping the edge of the bathtub as Daniel slid into her from behind.

Still, if this recaptured something they’d lost, it was worth the indulgence.

His groans filled the steamy air as he pulled out, guiding her upright. One hand slid down between her legs, his fingers finding her clitoris with practiced precision.

She tilted her head, meeting his gaze with a raised brow. “Can I lie down for that?”

He burst into laughter, his forehead resting against her shoulder. “Aye, good idea. Honestly, I could do with a lie-down myself. I’m too old for this nonsense.”

Even so, afterwards he insisted they were still going out.

Lying naked on the bed, she watched him dress, every movement unhurried yet deliberate. He pulled on his favourite jeans—the narrow-leg ones that clung perfectly to the muscles of his thighs and backside—and layered a white tee under a plaid shirt, leaving it half-buttoned.

“Come on, Mrs Murray, we’re hitting the town,” he declared, fully dressed.

Before she could protest, he hauled her to her feet, his hands cupping her bottom as he kissed her deeply. Then, with a sharp slap to her rear, he laughed at her indignant squeal.

“Vite, vite! The night, like us, is young!”

He rummaged through her wardrobe and plucked out an ancient grey silk slip dress, one she kept more for nostalgia than practicality.

“I can’t wear a bra with that!” she protested, holding it up.

He closed one eye in a cheeky wink. “Aye, that’s the point.”

Sliding the dress over her body, she noted with relief that it still fitted, the recent weight loss and HRT keeping her shape intact. The silk draped over her curves as effortlessly as it had eighteen years ago.

“Taxi’s here!” Danny called, grinning as he grabbed his jacket.

And just like that, they were stepping into the night, while the faint echoes of their younger selves swirled around them.

Trashed was a cavernous barn of a place in Shawlands, a former church reborn as a bar-slash-club.

Thursday nights were student nights, and the bouncers—both thick-set and shaven-headed—eyed them with the kind of look that said, Are you sure you’re in the right place?

It almost sent Nell spinning on her heels to make a dash for the exit.

Danny caught her arm. “C’mon, Nell. Let’s relive our youth.”

Inside, the music hit them like a wall—thumping bass, the occasional rock ballad, all cranked up to ear-splitting levels.

Some things never changed. The décor, for one, was stuck firmly in the mid-2000s, blissfully unaware that the Eastern-themed design trend had long since died.

A hulking blue-and-gold Buddha squatted near the bar, glaring at the room’s occupants like an unimpressed bouncer.

Carved wooden panels adorned the walls alongside Moroccan pendant lights, while dark-red chiffon curtains framed the windows.

Matching cushions with gold tassels were scattered across the low-slung booths and chairs, their mismatched heights forcing everyone to hunch awkwardly over their drinks.

Scanning the crowd, Nell felt every one of her forty-two years. Most of the other patrons were under thirty, and she instinctively fluffed her hair, pulling her fringe forward to obscure the lines on her forehead.

They found a table near the bar—one of the few still free—and she sank into a chair while Danny went to get drinks. He returned five minutes later, holding two tequilas. Nell raised an eyebrow as he slid a shot glass across the table toward her.

“Um… you don’t drink,” she said, catching it mid-slide.