Work Text:
one.
The air was thick with heat from summer’s final dying gasp as we gathered at Portland Row to get ready for that evening’s mission. After months of research, plotting, and scheming, it was finally time to raid Marissa Fittes’ tomb.
Once our preparations were finished that afternoon, I found myself unsettled. The other members of Lockwood & Co. seemed to feel similarly. Everyone sought out activities that brought them comfort. Holly headed to the shops, George went to the Archives, and Kipps nipped out to the local pub for a pint. Meanwhile, I descended to the basement to duel with Lockwood.
After an hour of dodging and feinting and being bested by him more often than not, we had both worked up a sweat. Lockwood tossed me a water bottle, and we paused to catch our breath, perching on the edge of his desk. The color was high on his cheeks, and his hair was starting to fall into his eyes.
He gave me a warm grin. “Good round, Luce. Your form is really looking excellent these days.”
“Thanks.” I couldn’t help but bask in the praise. “You’re a good partner. Really keep me on my toes.”
When I looked up again, Lockwood was already gazing at me, his eyes clear and deep. When he looked at me like that, my stomach gave the familiar lurch that made me feel like I was falling. I wasn’t sure when, but we’d both unconsciously leaned into each other.
There had been numerous occasions like this over the past four months where we found ourselves sitting much closer together than strictly necessary. Usually one of us cracked in moments like this—cleared our throat, moved away, broke the tension somehow. But today, with the weight of what we were about to do hanging over us, neither of us did. Instead Lockwood shifted imperceptibly closer, then paused to gauge my reaction.
I swallowed and shuffled closer as well. Now our thighs were brushing. I was still clutching my water bottle like it was a life raft, but Lockwood carefully set his aside, never breaking eye contact.
His hand came up to cup my face, his calloused fingers angling my jaw so that I could look into his eyes. I couldn’t help but lean further into his touch. The basement now felt blazingly hot, and I was intensely aware that sweat was still dripping down my back.
“Lucy?” Lockwood asked in a hoarse whisper, his voice uncharacteristically uncertain.
I gave him a tiny nod, not daring even to breathe, fearing it would pop the delicate soap bubble of this moment.
When our lips met, it seemed less of a decision and more of an inevitably that we had been barreling towards since the first moment we saw each other. Afterwards I was never sure which one of us closed the final gap; perhaps we both did at the same moment. That would certainly explain why, instead of being a perfect first kiss like in films, my nose awkwardly smashed against Lockwood’s, just before our teeth knocked together.
Lockwood huffed a laugh against my mouth, and I hastily jerked away. All the blood flowed to my face in mortification.
“Bloody hell, I’m so sorry,” I blurted. I hadn’t kissed anyone before, and my inexperience seemed determined to make itself known. “I should have figured I’d be rubbish at this—”
As I started to pull further away, Lockwood wrapped an arm around me, keeping me close to him. “Wait, Luce,” he said quickly, his grip firm and grounding against my side. “Let’s just—give it another go? If you’d like to?”
I nodded dumbly. This time, I waited for him to move in to meet my lips. The kiss was light and delicate, his slightly chapped lips brushing mine. When Lockwood pulled away, I couldn’t help but let out a tiny sigh, already sad that it had ended.
“Better?” he asked, a soft smile coming over his face.
“Much.” His smile widened into the classic Lockwood megawatt grin. “But,” I ventured, “just to make sure we’ve gotten the hang of it, perhaps we should try again?”
“Best not to take any chances,” he agreed seriously.
I leaned in to kiss him, letting myself linger a bit longer, scarcely able to believe this was happening. The third time was the best yet—sweet and slow with a hint of something more intense underlying it. We were still pressed against each other, my hand now curled around his neck, our breaths intermingling, when the front door slammed closed above us.
The noise jolted us both out of our reverie.
“Er, we should go upstairs.” I stumbled to my feet, finally dropping the water bottle I’d still been clinging to. Whatever calm I'd recently possessed vanished, leaving me feeling shaky and more than a little hysterical.
Lockwood blinked once and the dazed look vanished from his face before he jumped up after me. “Yes, lots to do—”
“—Need to pack our bags—”
We both stopped speaking and looked at each other sheepishly. The tips of his ears had turned pink.
“Lucy, I—” Lockwood started to say when we were rudely interrupted for the second time.
“Lockwood?” George yelled down the stairs. “Where the hell did you put my notes that were on the table?”
“Be right there!” Lockwood called up to him. He turned back to face me and took my hand in his. “Later, Luce?” he asked softly.
I nodded in reply, unable to muster any cool, eloquent words that befit the situation. He squeezed my hand and threw a final glowing smile my way before turning to jog up the stairs.
I could hear Lockwood talking to George above me in the kitchen, but I stayed in the basement, staring at Floating Joe. The familiar dummy was still swaying slightly from when Lockwood had brushed against it in his haste to leave.
“It’s fine,” I told Floating Joe.
Adrenaline was running high at the moment. Lockwood and I both knew the risks of letting our emotions sweep us away during a sensitive operative situation. It was good that we had gotten this out of our systems before this evening. And if the kissing had only been blowing off steam to Lockwood, rather than something more, that was fine.
I nodded decisively to Floating Joe, who had, within ten minutes, somehow become both witness to the most romantic experience of my sixteen years of life and my trusted confidant.
Yes, I was quite confident that this was all fine.
And no matter what happened tonight, at least I’d carry the knowledge of what it was like to kiss Anthony Lockwood with me.
You could rightly assume that knowledge made me quite cheerful as I prepared to break into the tomb of one of the most famous women in England.
two.
After everything was finally sorted that wretched night after La Belle Dame, we all shuffled off to a series of night cabs. Back at Portland Row, normality was resumed—which meant arguments about who paid the taxi fare, three helpings of breakfast each, and George hogging the hot water in the bathroom.
Following our middle of the night breakfast, I found myself sitting with Lockwood in the library, him in his usual chair and me on the sofa. We both nursed mugs of hot cocoa. While I felt physically exhausted, somehow I was too keyed up over that evening’s events to go up to bed.
Lockwood stretched and set his now empty mug aside. He ran a hand through his already perfectly tousled hair. “It’s been a long night for both of us,” he said. “We should both have a bit of a lie in tomorrow.”
I nodded absentmindedly in agreement, but my mind was miles away.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked, glancing over at me.
“Huh?” I’d been busy ruminating about a certain scantily clad ghost whose Source I fervently hoped was currently burning to a crisp at the furnaces.
“Are you still thinking about the case?”
“Yeah.” My jaw tensed. “Tonight was almost really bad, Lockwood.”
“I know.” He leaned forward and propped his elbows against his thighs, before folding his slim fingers together and resting his chin on them. “But you were looking out for me, and it all worked out. You mustn’t worry, Luce.”
“I just—I keep seeing it—” Lockwood was quiet as the words poured out of me. “I keep seeing you and that awful, horrible ghost—” Tears came to my eyes again, and I furiously blinked until they disappeared.
“Lucy…” He shifted slightly in his seat, seemingly mulling something over before making a decision. He held out an arm in my direction and gave me a crooked smile. “You’re too far away. Can you come here?”
When Lockwood looked at you like that, you didn’t exactly tell him no. At least I didn’t.
I went over and perched on the arm of his chair. “Better?”
His arm came around my waist, and I leaned in closer. I could still smell the scent of the smoke lingering on his clothes.
“Getting there,” he allowed. I caught a brief glimpse of one of those wolfish smiles that meant he was up to something just before he pulled me into his lap, my legs dangling over the side of the chair like a gangly grasshopper.
“Lockwood!” I yelped.
“Sorry. You were still too far away.” His dark eyes sparkled with mirth now, so different from earlier when he’d been enchained.
I straightened up and glared at him, but didn’t move away. I knew a good situation when I had one, and this was possibly the closest I’d ever been to Lockwood. At least it was the closest together we’d been since we’d kissed in the basement.
Over the past two days, we hadn’t talked about what had transpired. The only time we’d been properly alone together had been when Lockwood had taken me to visit his family’s graves, and that certainly hadn’t been the moment to discuss it. There were other things on his mind, other things on my mind.
I’d accepted that perhaps we would never talk about it. That was all right. We were close friends. So what if we had snogged once? There was nothing that said it had to ever happen again.
But now, here I was, somehow sitting in Lockwood’s lap. That made it the second time in two days that I’d found myself in a situation I would have been shocked by a week prior. I was starting to wonder if that perhaps meant something.
“You’re insufferable,” I huffed, trying to seem unruffled by this turn of events. “You certainly don’t look sorry.”
“I don’t?” He raised a playful eyebrow in my direction. “Well, I have to say that you don’t look upset about being here.”
“Lockwood.” I wasn’t upset to be here, but I was annoyed and concerned that he was acting so nonchalant after such a narrow escape. The knowledge of how close I’d come to losing this—losing him—hit me again. I buried my face in his shoulder. “How can you joke right now?” I muttered somewhere in the vicinity of his collar. He’d already taken off his tie and discarded it, and the first button of his shirt was undone, revealing the pale skin at the hollow of his throat.
He let out a long, low breath that ruffled my hair. “I’m not trying to downplay anything, Luce. I know I scared you. I just thought that perhaps we could both use a bit of… comfort right now.”
He did have a point with that. After such a close call, it was good to feel Lockwood’s arms warm and solid around me. The fact that he wanted me here with him made me feel even better.
“Okay.” I relented and let myself melt against him, curling my body to rest fully against his torso. The tension slowly seeped out of me as I soaked up his body heat and the feeling of his heart beating in his chest.
Lockwood gave an approving little hum as his other arm joined the first to wrap around my waist. “I have to say,” he said lightly. “I much prefer this to you slapping me.”
I snorted. “You deserved it, scaring me like that.”
“I am grateful for what you did for me.” He ran hand up and down my arm in a soothing motion that made goosebumps erupt on my skin. “I hope you know that.”
“I do,” I whispered.
“Good. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to just enjoy being together right now, Luce.”
“Okay.”
A warm feeling grew in my chest, slowly pushing away some of the worry that still lingered. I lifted my head. Our gazes met, and soon enough, as if drawn together like magnets, our lips followed.
Perhaps this was what we did now, snuck in a bit of snogging whenever we had a few spare minutes or when things were tense. It wasn’t a terrible arrangement, all things considered.
I just wished the irritating voice at the back of my mind that sounded suspiciously like the skull would stop wondering if Lockwood was only kissing me because of the connection we’d developed following our shared experience on the Other Side. He and I had comforted each other a lot over these past months—sat with each other after nightmares and stayed up late talking in this very room after difficult cases—so maybe the kissing was a continuation of that. A rather unorthodox continuation to be sure, but stranger things had happened.
I hadn’t had clarity about what our closeness meant before we kissed for the first time, and I still didn’t have it now. But tonight wasn’t the time to figure that out. As Lockwood had said, perhaps right now we could just enjoy being together.
Kissing him certainly made time go all mushy and fuzzy on me. When we finally separated an unknown amount of time later, our foreheads stayed pressed together. Lockwood’s hand came up to caress my jaw in an echo of what he’d done right before he’d kissed me the first time. The gesture was so tender it made me feel like I’d been scraped open.
“Whatever comes our way, Luce,” he said softly. “I’ll be right by your side.”
I wished I could believe him.
When he leaned in and kissed me again, I almost did.
three.
As I walked downstairs into the quiet emptiness of Portland Row, I felt brittle and wrung out, like my body might disintegrate into nothingness at any moment. Lockwood had spent the last two nights at the hospital with George following his attack, and we had received little news during that time.
I made my way into the kitchen expecting to find Holly, only to see Lockwood standing at the window. He greeted me with a smile.
“Hi Lucy.”
Anxiety clawed at my chest—a dark, gapping pit I’d spent the past two days trying to stave off—as I waited for Lockwood to tell me the words I most needed to hear.
I spoke fractionally first. “Is he—?”
“George is fine,” Lockwood said. “He’s alive.” He had his long thin fingers resting on a chair back; he stared at them as if they belonged to someone else. Then he left the chair and walked around the table and put his arms about me and pulled me to him. Time did weird stuff again. We stood like that for I don’t know how long. I would have been happy for it to go on longer.
George was alive. Lockwood was home. It felt like the dawn of a bright morning after a pitch-black night. Lockwood held me in his arms, and I let mine encircle his slim waist, my hands balling into the back of his rumpled shirt. I couldn’t hold back my shaky sigh of relief.
After a long moment, Lockwood pressed a kiss to the top of my hair. I lifted my head at the foreign sensation, and he ducked down and kissed me.
It felt as casual and familiar as my favorite chipped blue mug, like we’d shared good morning kisses in the kitchen a thousand times before. Yet it was also full of a new sort of devotion that made my chest ache with the overwhelming sense of rightness. The firm press of his lips on mine anchored me after the past days of feeling lost and adrift, and the pit in my chest slowly subsided.
As the sun streamed through the window behind him, I wove my arms around Lockwood’s neck, tugging him closer to me. What had he said that night after La Belle Dame? That we could both use a bit of comfort? As far as comforting gestures went, I was finding that kissing him was quite a good one. He seemed to know exactly what I needed—the assurance we were both still alive and that we were going to get through this together. Maybe he needed that reminder, too.
A new sense of awareness tingled at the back of my mind as I also registered that this felt like more than relieving tension or drawing comfort from each other. For the first time, I dared to hope that the closeness that had developed between us—the closeness I’d desired for so long—meant as much to Lockwood as it meant to me.
Standing there felt simultaneously like the start of something new and the most natural extension of who we’d been since long before we had donned spirit cloaks and ventured to the Other Side together. Perhaps we had grown together in ways I was only beginning to realize. Perhaps all of our shared experiences could be a foundation for more.
Even after the kiss was over, Lockwood kept his arms wrapped around me and buried his face in my hair. We both breathed each other in. My hands traced up and down his back, smoothing the cotton fabric of his shirt underneath my fingertips. He let out a low exhale, his body relaxing as he let more of his weight rest against me.
“I’m so glad to be back with you, Luce,” he said quietly. His voice was full of an unusual weariness, and I wondered when he’d last slept. A lump formed in my throat as I realized that while I needed Lockwood, maybe he also needed me just as much.
When he straightened up to his full height, Lockwood gave me a rueful smile as he rubbed the back of his neck. He’d always been tall, but we hadn’t kissed standing up before so our height difference had never been quite so apparent.
“Don’t you dare make a comment about my height right now,” I said, my voice thick with emotion.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispered. He smiled at me again and brushed my hair back from where it had fallen into my face.
On a different day, I could have spent all afternoon standing there with him, his warm gaze meeting mine, although I could already hear the skull moaning at the mere idea. But this wasn’t a time to get distracted, not when I urgently needed to know more about George’s condition. We untangled ourselves from each other, and I helped Lockwood make tea while he updated me on all that had transpired at the hospital.
When we left the kitchen, Lockwood’s hand found mine. Our fingers laced together as we walked up the stairs. He didn’t let go until it was time to push open the door to his bedroom where George was waiting.
four.
The sun was setting behind us as I stood with Lockwood in the garden. There was a brilliant, shimmering necklace in my hand—a beloved family heirloom that Lockwood had chosen to show me, a sign of his father’s undying devotion to his mother. I let the sapphire catch the light once more, then lowered it back into the box. I handed it back to him.
“It couldn’t be anything else,” I said.
“No, exactly. Anyway, Luce…” Lockwood cleared his throat. “I was going to ask if you—”
A shrill whistle came from the top of the kitchen steps. We looked up to see Kipps peering out at us. “Hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said. “Just thought you’d like to know that the Winkmans have arrived.”
Kipps disappeared back into the kitchen. We both looked at each other, the glow of golden hour illuminating Lockwood's face.
“We should go,” I said. My mouth was suddenly very dry.
Before we could shuffle back into the house, Lockwood caught my hand and drew me to him. That was how it had been since our first meeting: Lockwood always drawing me in, pulling me further into his orbit. Perhaps that was how it would always be.
I wrapped my arms around him in return, crushing him against me. He was still holding the box containing the necklace; I could feel it pressing against my lower back.
For a long, heavy moment, we just stared at each other, endless words and memories and dreams and so much more swirling around and silently passing between us as we stood intertwined. Lockwood was gazing at me so intensely, it was like he was peering into the very depths of my soul, but suddenly, I needed to be even closer to him.
I pressed up to my tiptoes, took his face in my hands, and kissed him as hard as I could. Even now, with anxiety churning in my gut and adrenaline coursing through my veins, kissing him remained a heady rush unlike anything else I’d ever known. One of his hands wove into my hair while the other stayed wrapped around my waist, holding me against him.
What the kiss lacked in length, it made up for intensity. While there wasn’t time for the lingering kisses we had enjoyed together over recent days, that didn’t stop me from pouring every scrap of myself into it—everything I hadn’t ever mustered the courage to tell him, all the occasions I’d wanted to kiss him and held myself back, all the time I hoped we would have together.
As usual, everything came into sharper focus when Lockwood was around. In a sudden burst of clarity, I wondered how I’d ever doubted him, doubted what we had. I thought about all that had bound us together over the years—the lazy mornings, the long nights, the shared jokes, even the arguments and petty disagreements. How could I have ever thought that we could be limited to just one experience?
I’d always been Lockwood’s, and while we hadn’t uttered the words, for the first time, I knew that he was mine, too.
I loved him; it was as simple as that.
Lockwood kissed me back like he understood all of that, like we didn’t even need to say it to know the truth of it.
His eyes were dark when I pulled away. He took a deep breath. “There’s so much I wanted to—”
“I know.” I gave him a bittersweet smile. “Me too.”
“Luce,” he tried again. I could feel him fumbling with the jewelry box behind me. “I wanted to see if you—”
My mind was swirling again, unable to do anything but soak up this moment of closeness, so I held a finger up to his mouth, shushing him from whatever he was trying to say.
“Lockwood, later?” I said softly, echoing what he’d said to me after we’d kissed for the first time.
Promise me again that there will be a later, my heart whispered.
“Oh, Lucy,” Lockwood whispered, his voice low and so full of promise that made my heart pound, as his hands slid up to cup my face. “Later,” he agreed, pressing a final kiss to my forehead before reluctantly letting go of me. His face was resolute, as he slipped the box containing his mother’s necklace back into his pocket. “We’ll get through this together. Be careful on the steps.”
I went ahead of him back into the house. Lockwood headed to the living room, ready to assemble the troops, while I paused in the kitchen. My legs were still feeling as wobbly as a newborn colt’s. I leaned against the sink and took a few long, deep breaths as I thought of the night ahead, the unknown path before us. And then I remembered what Lockwood had told me. We would get through this together—all of us.
I squared my shoulders and followed him into the living room.
five.
In the days that followed the explosion at Fittes House, most of London was in a tizzy over the news. However, at 35 Portland Row, our focus was narrower as we worked on restoring our home.
On the fourth day, we descended to the basement, determined to begin putting the rapier room back to rights. Lockwood had been sorely missing his daily go at it with Floating Joe and Esmerelda—both of whom we’d sadly lost to Winkman and his men—but the space was still a death trap in its current state.
After an hour of shuffling around collecting debris, Holly left us to coordinate the delivery of more cleaning supplies, while George headed upstairs to work on his bedroom. Kipps was on the sofa in the living room, getting some well deserved rest.
Lockwood and I continued onwards, debating idly about the pros and cons of the various takeaway spots for dinner. The kitchen still wasn’t in any state for cooking proper meals, not that we were really complaining about it. We had a tea kettle and toaster, and a quick lunch of cold cereal never hurt anyone.
Several minutes of this had passed when Lockwood stopped abruptly, his eyes meeting mine.
“You know what I’ve just realized, Luce,” he said with some casualness that I knew was at least partly performed.
“Hmm?”
He set down his box and took a step forward. “This is the first time we’ve been alone together in some time. So, if you wanted to, we could…” He gave me a furtive look under his lashes before extending his hand.
I immediately dropped my bin bag, spilling some of the contents in my eagerness, and trotted over to him. Lockwood interlaced our fingers and grinned as he tugged me over to the corner.
As I’d learned in recent days, there were certainly worse ways to break up the monotony of household chores than a bit of snogging. However, we weren’t alone in the house today.
“What if someone comes down here—” I started to protest half heartedly before he shushed me.
“They won’t,” Lockwood whispered, kissing my temple and simultaneously guiding me back so I was pressed between him and the wall, a storage cabinet blocking us from view. “We’re quite hidden here anyway.”
He ducked his head to let his lips trace down the side of my neck, and I had to stifle a groan at the feeling. “Sure about that?”
“Yes,” Lockwood murmured, carefully moving his hands to my hips to avoid my injured side. “And frankly, Lucy, I’ve been wanting to kiss you all day. Right now, I don’t care if someone does see us.”
While I wanted to descend into hazy bliss that always happened when Lockwood’s lips met mine, his words made everything come to a grinding halt.
Since we’d returned home, Lockwood and I had fallen into a pattern of kissing almost every day. Rather quickly, stealing a kiss in a quiet moment had become strangely, delightfully normal. We kissed now to say good morning or goodnight or I’m so glad that we’re alive. Sometimes, like now, we kissed in the middle of the day for no reason at all. I saw glimmers in those instants, of what we could be, what I now trusted we would be with time and experience under our belts.
However, in a perhaps predictable fashion, we’d been so busy that we hadn’t talked about these new developments—or determined how we were referring to each other now. I reckoned we needed to come with a more succinct title than “colleague and best friend that I also snog frequently.” After all we’d been through, the label mattered less to me than the deep certainty that I had about our commitment to each other. But Lockwood’s words made me wonder if the time had arrived for some kind of official acknowledgement of our arrangement.
“Wait a second.” I pressed my hands to Lockwood’s chest, stopping him.
He huffed a laugh. “Is something wrong?”
“No, ‘course not,” I said hurriedly.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “It’s just… do you really mean that?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you doubt that I want to kiss you?”
“No.” Lockwood’s previous enthusiasm for this activity had made it abundantly clear that he enjoyed it. “Not that. The part about someone seeing us?”
“Well, I’d obviously prefer if this stayed between us,” Lockwood acknowledged, angling his head towards my mouth again.
I batted him aside, determined to remain focused. “Obviously. But you—you wouldn’t care if the others knew about this? About” —I paused before venturing the words— “us?”
Lockwood’s brow furrowed. “No, why would I mind? I’m sure we’ll get a bit of teasing, but nothing we can’t handle.”
“Oh,” I said, swallowing hard. “I didn’t—I didn’t realize that was how you felt.”
“Luce,” Lockwood said tenderly, as he pulled me closer. “I thought we were just being… discrete. What did you think? I hope you didn’t think I wanted to hide this for any reason.”
While I’d thought we were moving towards being something, suddenly I realized that perhaps I’d been mistaken. Maybe as far as Lockwood was concerned, we were already there.
I mustered a tiny smile, but my pulse was racing like I was facing down a Limbless. “No, no, not that. But maybe that you needed more time before everyone knew… or maybe that you weren’t ready yet for this to be official?”
“Lucy, no,” Lockwood said firmly. He gave me the same look from when I suggested speaking to a Visitor in the middle of a haunting, when it was clear that he thought my idea was crazy, but he was willing to reel me back in. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Lockwood kissed me deeply then, as if determined to prove himself by his intensity. While our first kisses had been awkward and hesitant, he had grown more confident and self-assured since. It wasn’t surprising to learn that he was good at snogging. After all, he was good at most things.
I found myself clinging to him to ensure that my legs didn’t give out on me. Between my recent injuries and the sensation of Lockwood’s lips on mine, my entire body felt like jelly.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine. “I’m quite serious about you, Lucy Carlyle,” he confessed. “I’ve been sure of that for a very long time, and I’d be fine with everyone knowing it.”
My heart was alight with joy at his words. “Me too,” I whispered. Lockwood’s grin widened. I don’t know if I’d ever seen him so open and happy. I poked him in the stomach as I cast a look around at our surroundings. “So why are we snogging in the rapier room again?”
“I personally find the rapier room quite romantic,” he said lightly.
I choked back a laugh. “You would.”
“Snogging in public might cause complaints, anyway,” he said, his dark eyes twinkling at me. “And it’s unfortunately been damn near impossible to get a spot of privacy in this house.”
“That’s an understatement,” I agreed wryly, thinking of the moment the day before when Holly had almost walked in on us kissing in the kitchen.
“With everything that’s been happening, it’s also been a bit of an odd time to make any kind of announcement. I wasn’t sure if you’d want that anyway. And it’s been nice having this—you—all to myself. I assumed we’d keep it between us for now.”
“That’s not a bad plan,” I agreed.
Lockwood’s lips brushed against my forehead, my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth. “We’ve been quite busy uncovering conspiracies and solving the Problem. We wouldn’t want anyone to think we were distracted after all.”
My arms wound around his neck, directing his lips back to mine. “Definitely not.”
When we separated again a few minutes later, Lockwood’s hair was mussed from my hands, and his lips were flushed pink. It was quite a nice look on him.
He nudged his nose against mine. “For the record, Luce, I’m very much looking forward to having more time to be distracted by you.”
“Is that a proposition?” I ventured, feeling bolder than usual as I let my fingertips comb through the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
Lockwood laughed softly. “Undoubtedly.”
plus one.
“I’ve got to cut these scenes,” I said, giving a disgruntled sigh as I looked up from the most recent draft of the fifth volume of my memoirs. “They just aren’t working.”
Lockwood looked up at me from across the kitchen table from where he was reading the paper. “Which scenes, Luce?”
“The ones with us.”
“That describes 90% of your books. Care to be more specific?”
“You know which ones I’m talking about. In the last volume. The snogging scenes.”
“Wasn’t the point of writing your memoirs to ensure that the story was accurate?” he asked mildly.
“Yes, but perhaps—perhaps not this accurate. Plus, starting earlier in the day of Marissa’s tomb throws off the flow. It’s much better when I jump into the action like the other books. And our first kiss never fits quite right as a flashback. It feels too momentous for that, but without it, the other kisses don’t make sense.” I made a face and shoved the stack of papers across the table at him. “I’ve marked the parts in red ink that I’m not sure about. Take a look for me, will you?”
While Lockwood read, I made us another round of tea. He had recently switched to buying Pitkin’s loose leaf tea, instead of our old standby tea bags, swearing it tasted better. Personally, I couldn’t tell much of a difference, but it made him happy, and right now, carefully measuring out the tea leaves and putting them in the little infuser at least gave me something to do. After the water boiled, I busied myself with pouring and then doing things with milk and sugar.
I set his fresh cup back on the table just as Lockwood finished reading. “So what do you think?”
Lockwood took my hand, tugging me down to perch on his lap. He smiled at me, as he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “They’re a bit personal, aren’t they?”
“They are.” I gave him a sheepish smile. “It’s weird, I’ve shared so much, but this… well, I’m not quite sure if I want everyone knowing these things about us.”
Lockwood nodded. “I think you’re right, Luce. The story holds together without them. These bits are private. Perhaps you can save them just for us.”
“Yeah.” I brightened up at the idea, as the rightness of it settled into my mind. “And isn’t it more fun if everyone gets to imagine their own version of what happened?”
“Keeps a bit of mystery this way,” Lockwood mused. His eyes glinted with mirth. “I know you always enjoyed it when I was mysterious. Perhaps the readers will too.”
“Ah, yes, we can’t disappoint your many admirers,” I snorted.
“Well, it certainly took you long enough to realize how much I admired you.” He chuckled. “I still find it hard to believe that you didn’t realize that I was in love with you. I felt like I was practically shouting it—”
“Oh, hush,” I groaned. Once we’d made it past those fumbling early days of our relationship, Lockwood had been shocked to learn that his feelings hadn’t been obvious to me all along—and he hadn’t been the only one who had been amused at my obliviousness. “I also think I need to rewrite La Belle Dame again.”
He folded his lips in, trying to hold back another laugh and failing. “I thought we’d gone over that one.”
I scowled. “Well, I’ve changed my mind.”
“By all accounts, you looked quite cool swinging down on the trapeze.”
“Well, I didn’t feel cool.”
He gave an over dramatic sigh. “There’s always something with you tortured artists.”
I pinched his arm. “Isn’t that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black? Who exactly are you calling tortured?”
“I suppose we’ve both put our tortured teenage days behind us now.” Lockwood gave me a fond grin that made his eyes crinkle at the edges. He interlaced our fingers, his gold wedding band catching the light and making me smile back at him. Seeing it on his hand was still new, but I had already grown quite fond of it.
“I suppose we have,” I said, sighing as I leaned in to kiss him.