Commitment Issues by Ali Ryecart

Epilogue

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER

Freddie

The first sight of the sea always makes my heart beat faster. Excitement, pulsing through my veins. The sea’s part of who I am, and always will be, even though my life’s centred in London. But this isn’t the North Sea pounding at the flat Suffolk shoreline, it’s the Atlantic and this is Devon, way to the west.

I throw a glance at Elliot. He’s tense. I can see it in the set of his jaw and in the tight grip he has on the steering wheel. But I know he’s excited, too. We both are, because we’re visiting the cottage we’ve only seen online, in Love’s Harbour, the small coastal village where Elliot spent his childhood summers.

“I hope this one lives up to expectations,” he says, bringing the car to a stop in the carpark of the little hotel we always stay in when we visit.

I squeeze his thigh, trying to reassure him. “It will be, I can—”

“Feel it in your water?”

It’s my dad’s favourite saying, and we both laugh.

But I do have a good feeling about the cottage we’ve arranged to view. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say I can feel it in my water, but even before we’d finished watching the virtual tour, I just knew this was the one.

“It’s got to be better than that so-called barn conversion,” Elliot says, shaking his head. “I think a more accurate description would have been tarted up garden shed.”

“Or the romantic sounding old fisherman’s cottage — I swear I could smell rotten pilchards.”

We both laugh, and I’m glad, because it breaks the tension. We’ve been disappointed in the properties we’ve seen so far, but I know this one will be different.

I’ve been back from Oslo for almost six months. I made friends there I know I’ll have for life, and the cachet of spending a year at the Institute has helped me secure a junior lecturer post in my old department at university, my first real step towards world domination. Well, domination of the Norse Studies world, that is. It was a wonderful, amazing year and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But coming home, and moving in with Elliot, was so much better, because home is Elliot and always will be.

It doesn’t take us long to sort ourselves out in the hotel. Minutes later we’re heading back out, hand-in-hand, along the narrow lane that takes us into the tiny beating heart of Love’s Harbour.

We’ve got an hour to spare before we meet the estate agent, so we do what we always do when we come to The Harbour, as the locals — and we — call it, and that’s get a bag of chips and sit on one of the benches overlooking the tiny harbour cut between the red-coloured rocks.

“I hope Jasper’s all right,” Elliot says, between chips. “Do you think we should check?”

“He’ll be fine. We’ll be back tomorrow, and in the meantime he’s got Cosmo to keep him company and overfeed him treats.”

“If you’re sure…”

Jasper, the mad hound, took a heavy tumble out on Hampstead Heath and broke one of his front legs, which is now swathed in plaster. Like me, Cosmo grew up in a houseful of dogs, and didn’t bat an eyelid when I asked, at short notice, if he could help out.

On the water, a few boats bob up and down, all of them scruffy, battered working boats. It’s early spring, and Easter’s a couple of weeks off, so the tourists and holiday makers have yet to arrive. Not that there will be masses of them. The coastline here is rocky, the glorious Devonian sandy beaches a few miles away. Love’s Harbour and the surrounding area is a place for walkers and nature lovers, rather than buckets and spades and sandcastles.

There’s a light breeze on the air, and even though there’s no hint of chill, it’s the perfect excuse to snuggle up against Elliot. I let go of a long sigh as he drapes his arm around me and pulls me in close.

Neither of us speak as we gaze out to the open sea. The water’s calm, and gulls rise and fall all around us, and the watery clouds shift and break to let in shafts of bright sunlight. It’s a good omen, I know it is, and I smile as I snuggle in closer, as Elliot holds me tighter.

Elliot

“… so I’ll leave you to it. Take your time, and drop the keys off in the shop when you’ve finished.”

Seconds later the estate agent’s gone, leaving Freddie and I in the empty cottage. Our cottage. I knew it even before the estate agent unlocked the door and launched into her sales pitch, gushing about the wealth of original features.

“It’s perfect,” Freddie says, a tremor of excitement in his voice.

I smile, I just can’t help it because he’s right. This cottage, tucked away in a tiny back street on a hill overlooking the village, is more than perfect. But not just because it’s everything we’ve been searching for, it’s perfect because this will be ours, mine and Freddie’s alone.

“We’ll have to give it a name, it can’t be plain old Number Five Rock Lane. Maybe something that combines our names,” Freddie says, laughing, as we climb the narrow wooden stairs to where two bedrooms and the bathroom are found.

“What, like Elleddie, or Frelliot? Sounds like a twee B&B.”

“You’ve no romance in your soul. I rather like Elleddie. We could have a plaque made, and have it spelled out in fancy script on a piece of slate. Very smart.” We walk into the master bedroom, at the end of the short hallway. “Oh, wow!”

Two little words, an exclamation, it’s the exact response as when he walked into my house that first time and looked out at the city, spread out below. And he’s right, but this time it’s the sea, gun metal grey against the blue sky.

“The view — it’s spectacular,” he says, his eyes wide and bright.

“It’s perfect, isn’t it?” I wrap my arms around him.

“It is.” He nods. “This is it, isn’t it? This is the one. We’ve found everything we’ve been looking for.”

He turns in my arms and we hug each other tight. Freddie’s right, and my heart flips. We have found what we’ve been looking for, but it’s so much more than a cottage in a tucked away little village.

When he eases back, his eyes are glittering, and he blinks away the tears that threaten to fall. He’s felt the truth of his words and I brush a soft kiss across his lips.

“We’ll make the offer today, set everything in motion.”

“Yes, because there may be others who—”

I press a finger to his lips, and see the question in his eyes.

“Don’t worry about anybody else, we’ll offer at the full asking price if we have to.”

“Then what…?”

My heart rate picks up, and I lick my suddenly dry lips.

“I want this to be in both our names. Not mine, not yours, but ours.”

“What? But I don’t have the money to put into it.” His eyes cloud, as though he’s seeing his dream fade.

“Freddie, listen to me. I’m not asking you to buy it with me. I was always going to get a place down here, somewhere to escape London when needed. You know that.” He nods, but his eyes are still troubled. “You were talking about naming the cottage, something that was a mix of us both.”

“I was only joking.” A light flush washes over his face, and he drops his head forward to hide his shy smile.

“But I’m not. We put our names on this together. It’s us, Freddie, you and me going forward as one.”

“As one?” he says, slowly.

I nod. “Yes, now and forever. That’s my commitment to you, Freddie, now and forever. Come on.”

We’ve got deals to make and papers to sign, setting the wheels in motion as we put our names to the future.

And I think I rather like the idea of Elleddie.