Chapter Text
The train rattles in that steady, hypnotic way that should be calming but absolutely is not because my brain has decided that today is not a day for calm. Instead, today is a day for what ifs and oh my gods and this is either the best idea I’ve ever had or the worst one in recorded human history.
I’ve got three books spread across the little table in front of me – well, two and one half-open on my lap – all of them recommendations from Violet, all of them apparently “so you, Ridoc, you’ll love them”. I believe her, I really do, but I’ve read the same paragraph in each of them about six times and couldn’t tell you a single thing that’s happened because my brain keeps skidding off into entirely different directions like a shopping trolley with a dodgy wheel. Thankfully the train is pretty empty and there’s no one sharing the table seeing my book disaster.
I try again.
New book.
Different font, maybe that’ll help.
It does not help.
Fuck, I really should have listened to Violet’s advice and got a Kindle rather than carrying three stupid books around with me. What an idiot.
Because now I’m stuck carrying three books around with me, and every time I get about two sentences in, my brain goes: you’re going to see them.
And then: what if it’s not the same?
And then: what if it was just a holiday thing?
Which is ridiculous. Obviously ridiculous.
We’ve texted, we’ve called, there have been… other things, very memorable things, extremely distracting things over video call, but this is different. This is their space. Not neutral ground, not sea air and sand and sunburn and too much cider and late nights that make everything feel a bit softer around the edges. This is real life. This is their house, their routines, their everything, and I’m just… turning up with a backpack and three unread books and far too many thoughts.
I pick up the first book again. Read a sentence. Forget it immediately.
Right. Brilliant.
I’ll have to stare out the window, then. Fields blur past in that patchwork way that the countryside does so well – green on green on green, hedgerows stitching everything together, the occasional cluster of houses that look like they’ve been there longer than memory itself. It’s pretty. It’s also not helping.
I check my phone. No new messages. Of course there aren’t. It’s been thirty seconds. I place the phone face down on the little table in front of me, pretending it doesn’t exist.
What if it was just a holiday thing?
What if I’m just a holiday thing?
I groan quietly and thunk my head back against the seat. No. No, we’re not doing that. That’s not helpful. That’s not productive. That’s–
My phone buzzes.
It’s pathetic how quickly I grab it to look.
Liam:
I’m here btw. Platform 4.
I have snacks.
I grin despite myself, something warm and immediate spreading through my chest. Of course he does. Of course he’s early. Of course he has snacks.
Okay. Okay.
This is fine.
*****
The train pulls in with that long, screeching sigh and I’m up before it’s even properly stopped, grabbing my bag, nearly leaving one of the books behind. I double back for it (Violet would kill me), then hopping off onto the platform like I’ve got somewhere urgent to be – which, I mean, I do.
I spot him immediately.
Liam is exactly where he said he’d be, leaning against one of the pillars, talking animatedly to a completely captive-looking stranger who’s nodding along like they’ve been swept up in a conversation they don’t know how to escape from with a gorgeous man they literally just met. Lucky them. And then Liam sees me, lights up – properly lights up, like someone’s flicked a switch – and abandons the stranger mid-sentence.
“Ridoc!” he calls, already moving, already grinning.
And then he’s there, hands on my shoulders, looking me up and down like he’s checking I’m real. “You’re here. Obviously you’re here, I can see that, that’s how eyes work, but – two hours, was it two hours? Did you get a seat? Please tell me you didn’t have to stand, I would have driven–”
He’s talking a mile a minute, words tumbling over each other in that way that should be chaotic but somehow just feels like him, like sunlight and noise and warmth all wrapped into one person, and I find myself just… watching him for a second, because–
He can’t possibly be nervous, can he?
“–and Bodhi stayed back,” Liam continues, grabbing my bag before I can protest, “because he wanted to make sure everything feels perfect, which is ridiculous because it already is perfect, but you know what he’s like–”
Oh.
Oh.
That does something to my chest.
“He stayed home?” I echo, blinking.
“Yeah,” Liam says, like it’s nothing, like it’s completely normal to rearrange your entire afternoon because someone’s coming to visit. “Wanted to get everything sorted.”
So everything feels perfect.
Right. Okay. So maybe I’m not the only one whose brain is doing gymnastics today.
The drive to their house is a blur of Liam talking and me half-listening, half-staring at everything like I’ve never seen a city before. It’s got this mix of old and new that makes my brain itch in a good way – brick buildings with chipped paint next to bright murals, little independent shops tucked between takeaways and corner stores. There’s noise, but not overwhelming noise. Movement. Life.
We turn down a quieter street eventually, rows of terraced houses stretching out in that neat, slightly wonky way they do, all similar but not quite the same. Liam stops outside one of them and turns to me with a grin.
“Home Sweet Home.”
It looks… small. Narrow, like all of them. Brick front, a little path leading up to the door, a window with plants crowded onto the sill like they’re trying to escape.
And then I step inside.
And my brain just–
It’s bigger. Of course it’s bigger. Terraced houses are always bigger on the inside, like some kind of architectural magic trick, but still – it opens up and there’s a hallway that leads into this warm, cosy living room that immediately feels lived-in in the best possible way. There’s a sofa that looks like it’s been claimed and reclaimed a hundred times over, blankets thrown over the back, cushions in that perfect state between neat and chaos. Books stacked on surfaces – some organised, some… less so. A record player in the corner, a few vinyls leaning against the wall like they’ve been recently used. And built in bookshelves, set into a feature wall painted forest green.
Bodhi. Liam.
It’s both of them at once.
We move through into the kitchen and it’s… different. More modern. Clean lines, soft lighting under the sage green cabinets, everything in its place but not in a sterile way – in an intentional way. There are plants here too, but they’re arranged, cared for, thriving. A cafetière on the counter. Matching jars. Labels.
Bodhi.
But then I open a cupboard – because of course I do, I’m nosy – and it’s chaos. Mismatched mugs in every colour and size imaginable.
Liam.
“There’s the garden as well,” Liam says, already pulling open the back door.
Garden is generous. It’s more like a small jungle. Plants everywhere – climbing, sprawling, some in pots, some clearly having staged a hostile takeover of the space. There’s a little table half-hidden by greenery, fairy lights strung up overhead, the whole thing feeling like a secret.
My brain is doing that thing where it tries to catalogue everything at once – colours, textures, smells, the way the light filters through the leaves – and it’s too much and not enough all at the same time.
We go upstairs.
The bathroom hits me first because it’s so put together it almost makes my brain itch in that oddly satisfying way, like lining up pens by colour or getting a playlist to flow just right, except I never actually manage to do that myself, and here it just… exists, effortlessly. Everything has its place, where it needs to be, not the kind of “I’ll just shove this here for now and deal with it later” that turns into a permanent system (like at my house), but intentional, deliberate.
The towels are folded with that hotel-corner precision, thick and soft-looking, stacked in a way that makes me want to run my hands over them just to see if they’re as plush as they look. There’s a faint smell of something clean and citrusy in the air that makes the whole room feel calm in a way I don’t entirely trust but definitely appreciate. Even the little things – soap dispenser, toothbrush holder, a plant that is somehow alive in a bathroom with questionable light – are aligned, like Bodhi has come through and quietly made everything make sense.
Then the office pulls me in completely because it’s both of them at once in a way that feels almost unfair, like I’m seeing behind the curtain of how they work together, and it’s chaos and order threaded so tightly you can’t quite separate them. There are desks – plural, of course, because there are two of them – but they don’t feel divided so much as… interwoven. Bodhi’s side is all clean lines and structure - stacks of books that actually look like they’re read in a sensible order, notebooks aligned, pens where they should be. On the opposite, Liam’s side looks like a creative explosion that’s been gently nudged into semi-coherence – papers, sketches, maybe lyrics, a mug that definitely doesn’t match anything else but somehow belongs exactly where it is. And the thing is, it works, it genuinely works, like Bodhi’s order doesn’t suppress Liam’s chaos, it just… frames it, gives it somewhere to land without losing what makes it Liam, and I’m standing there staring like I’ve just discovered a new species of ecosystem.
We bypass the spare room and go up into the loft conversion, and it’s like stepping into a completely different version of the house, like the ceiling lifts and suddenly there’s space in a way that makes my chest feel lighter without me realising it needed to be. The beams are exposed, old wood against the white walls, and the light – god, the light – just pours in through the velux windows, slanted and wide and unapologetic, catching on dust motes and making everything feel warm even if the air’s a bit cooler up here in the autumn weather.
It doesn’t feel like a room you rush through; it feels like somewhere you slow down in, somewhere you could lie on the floor or stretch out on a bed or just exist without needing to fill the silence with anything. There’s a kind of quiet up here that isn’t empty, just… held, like the house is giving you space to breathe, and I stand there for a second too long, taking it in. I feel that weird, blooming sense in my chest again that I’m trying very hard not to name because if I name it, it becomes real, and if it becomes real then leaving later is going to feel a lot like tearing something out instead of just… going home.
And everywhere I look, there’s two of everything.
Two toothbrushes. Two sets of shoes by the door. Two sides to the bed.
And yet–
Space.
Space that could fit a third.
The thought hits me so suddenly I almost stumble.
We end up back in the kitchen, the tour finished, and there’s this moment where everything just… stops. The movement, the talking, the constant input. It’s just us, standing there, and suddenly I don’t know what to do with my hands, my face, my entire existence.
This is the bit I didn’t plan for.
This is the real bit.
Liam shifts, like he’s about to say something, and then apparently decides against words entirely because he just – pounces. Wraps his arms around me and pulls me in close, all warmth and familiarity and there you are.
“Missed you,” he says into my shoulder.
My brain short-circuits.
And then Bodhi is there too, stepping in, his presence quieter but just as solid, just as grounding, his arms coming around us both in a way that feels… intentional. Steady.
And we just stand there, snuggling. The three of us. In their kitchen. In this space that already feels too much like something I could get used to.
My chest tightens in a way that isn’t entirely comfortable.
Oh.
Oh, this is–
This is a mistake.
Because I’m never going to want to leave.
*****
Shocking absolutely everyone – most notably me – we don’t immediately fall into bed together.
Not that the possibility doesn’t hum in the air like static every time Liam casually brushes his fingers over the back of my neck when he passes or Bodhi glances at me in that quiet, deliberate way of his that somehow feels more dangerous than outright flirting. But instead of collapsing into a tangle of limbs and questionable decision-making, Bodhi announces that he’s making lunch in the same tone someone might announce a state visit from royalty.
“You’ve been on a train for hours,” he says, already pulling things from cupboards with frightening competence. “You need feeding.”
And apparently, because this is their house and they have Systems – which is deeply suspicious behaviour in my opinion – I somehow find myself obeying.
I perch on one of the stools by the kitchen island, elbows on the counter, chin in my hands, trying very hard not to feel weirdly emotional about the fact that they’ve just… absorbed me into the rhythm of the afternoon without hesitation. Liam is tidying while Bodhi cooks, except “tidying” for Liam seems to involve dramatically singing half the chorus of some early 2000s indie song while carrying mugs to the dishwasher and getting distracted halfway through because he spots a plant that “looks sad” and starts misting it.
“I watered that yesterday,” Bodhi says without even looking up from chopping vegetables.
“She needed emotional support,” Liam replies solemnly.
I snort so hard coffee nearly comes out my nose.
And that’s the thing.
They’re so natural together.
There’s no performance to it. No weird relationship theatre where people suddenly become unbearably couple-y in front of other people. No overcompensating or checking in every five seconds or silently trying to impress each other. They just… fit. Liam leans into Bodhi absentmindedly while waiting for the kettle to boil, resting his chin on his shoulder for exactly four seconds before wandering off again. Bodhi nudges Liam out of the way with his hip when he’s blocking a drawer and gets a lazy grin in return. It’s thoughtless, instinctive closeness, like breathing.
And somehow – somehow terrifyingly – I keep getting folded into it.
Bodhi brushes past me to grab plates and his hand lands briefly on my shoulder like it belongs there. Liam passes behind me and absentmindedly ruffles my hair before nicking a crisp off my plate like we’ve known each other forever, not a matter of a few months. At one point Bodhi slides a bowl closer to me without asking because apparently he already knows I’ll want the extra dressing.
Nobody makes a thing of it.
Nobody hesitates.
I’m not being accommodated.
I’m not visiting.
I’m…
Oh.
I’m slotting in.
Which is honestly a dangerous revelation to have before lunch.
Because once your brain starts whispering you could get used to this, it becomes very difficult to shut it up.
Lunch itself is criminally good – grilled halloumi wraps with roasted vegetables and some kind of dressing Bodhi refuses to explain beyond “I eyeballed it” – and afterwards Liam claps his hands together.
“Right,” he says brightly. “Time to show you our city.”
Our city.
God. That does something weird to my chest. Because our could mean them, but… but maybe it could also include me?
The first stop is a café called Riorson’s, which immediately makes me suspicious.
Bodhi gestures towards the sign with exaggerated seriousness. “No idea who owns it,” he says. “Probably a distant relative.”
Liam snorts. “Must be. Not broody-looking enough for proper family.”
I laugh, but honestly the second we walk inside I completely forget what we’re talking about because oh my god.
This place is incredible.
It’s artsy in that carefully chaotic indie way where everything somehow clashes beautifully. String lights zigzag lazily across the ceiling even though it’s daytime, trailing warm gold against exposed brick. Plants spill from every available surface – hanging baskets, shelves, little mismatched pots balanced precariously on windowsills. The menus are handwritten in chalk, all looping handwriting and unnecessarily whimsical descriptions.
The pastry counter nearly takes me out.
There are cakes that genuinely look too pretty to eat. Ridiculous things with edible flowers and icing swirls and layered fillings that probably cost more than my train fare.
I absolutely eat them anyway.
For science.
The coffee menu is deranged, in all the best ways.
Brown sugar cinnamon latte. Honeycomb mocha. Lavender vanilla cold brew. Something involving pistachio cream that sounds deeply illegal.
“The special toastie today is called a Kevin Bacon-ator and it’s three types of cheese with bacon and barbecue sauce,” Liam announces reverently, as though delivering sacred prophecy.
“Life-changing,” Bodhi agrees.
“You say that about everything with cheese.”
“Because cheese changes lives.”
Liam knows half the staff, obviously.
Someone behind the counter points at him and immediately yells, “You still owe me for stealing my chips last week!”
“Borrowing!” Liam calls back cheerfully.
“You can’t borrow chips!”
Meanwhile Bodhi steps up and orders “the usual” with terrifying efficiency, which means he is apparently enough of a regular to have a usual, and honestly I’m not sure whether that’s adorable or concerning. He passes over a loyalty card with a flourish and suddenly there’s a pang in my chest – not just because I love the thrill of completing a loyalty card – but because I want this to be My Place too. To be loyal.
Then Liam turns to me.
“We ordered for you,” he says casually.
My stomach drops.
“You what?”
“You panic-order,” Bodhi says gently, like this is simply objective fact.
“…I do panic-order.”
“And,” Liam continues, far too smug, “we remembered what you liked.”
Remembered.
Of course they remembered.
And suddenly there’s an iced coffee in front of me that tastes exactly like something I’d choose – sweet but not too sweet, caramel and chocolate and something nutty underneath – and a toastie stuffed with basically every food I’ve ever declared love for at the campsite.
I stare at it.
Then at them.
Then back at it.
“You remembered?”
Liam blinks at me like it’s obvious. “‘Course we did.”
Bodhi doesn’t say anything, just watches me take the first bite of the toastie with that soft expression he gets when he’s quietly pleased.
Which, frankly, feels unfair.
Because now I’m emotional over a sandwich.
The market afterwards is absolute sensory overload in the best possible way.
Independent shops packed tightly together, music spilling out of doorways, vintage signs creaking overhead. One second I’m dragging them into a vinyl shop because there’s Bowie playing and I need to look immediately, and the next I’m halfway into a second-hand bookshop because Violet would murder me if I didn’t inspect the fantasy section.
I don’t actually dare to buy her a book though – god, that would be terrifying – mostly because, chances are, it would either be the wrong edition, or she’d have read it already.
Or both.
Then there’s a vintage shop with outrageous jackets and rings and an entire rack of shirts that scream Liam.
“Oh my god,” I say, holding up something offensively patterned.
“You’d look amazing in that,” Liam says instantly.
“You’re enabling me.”
“Yes.”
“We should get matching ones. Bodhi would hate it.” His laughter is like sunshine on a cloudy day and I wish I could bottle it up and take it with me wherever.
I ignore the part of my brain that tells me if I just stayed…
Bodhi, meanwhile, just trails after us with quiet amusement, occasionally steering me away from walking directly into traffic because apparently overstimulation makes me forget roads exist.
The weirdest thing is they let me lead.
I bounce between things, changing direction every thirty seconds, forgetting what I’m talking about halfway through sentences, and neither of them looks irritated.
They just… follow.
Laugh.
Adjust.
Like my chaos is expected.
Like they like it.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
Later, they show me their spots, and I realise very quickly that there’s a difference between someone showing you a city and someone quietly handing you pieces of themselves and trusting you not to drop them.
Not tourist places. Not the polished, Instagrammable bits people drag visitors to so they can say look, this is the cool thing we have here. No, this feels different. Softer somehow. More intimate. Like they’re pulling back curtains and saying this matters to us, so maybe it can matter to you too.
The canal path is first, tucked away enough that I absolutely would’ve missed it if left to my own devices, which is saying something because I usually wander into random places with the accidental confidence of someone who’s never considered consequences. The city noise fades strangely quickly as we walk, swallowed up by water and birdsong and the distant hum of traffic softened into something harmless, background rather than intrusion.
The canal itself stretches long and still beside us, reflecting the sky in fractured silver ribbons where the breeze skims the surface, narrowboats drifting lazily past like they’ve nowhere urgent to be. Some are bright and cheerful, flowerpots outside and fairy lights strung along rooftops, while others look weathered and practical, lived in properly. Ducks patrol the edges with deeply unnecessary confidence, tiny feathery bouncers eyeing us like we’ve interrupted some very important business meeting.
“This is where we come when everything feels too loud,” Bodhi says, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat as Liam walks backwards for three steps because apparently spatial awareness is optional for him too. “Bad brain days. Stress. Existential crises. Hangovers.”
“Mostly his existential crises,” Liam says mildly.
“I contain multitudes.”
I glance between them and something weirdly warm settles in my chest because of course they have a place like this. Somewhere quiet enough for Bodhi to breathe, somewhere open enough for Liam to untangle himself when the world gets heavy. And somehow, terrifyingly, they’ve brought me here. Like maybe they think I’m someone who gets to know where the soft places are.
The park bench comes later, after more wandering and one detour because I spotted a dog wearing a raincoat and absolutely had to say hello. It’s perched up high, overlooking the city where rooftops scatter unevenly beneath a sky threatening that particular shade of grey that feels aggressively British. It’s a rubbish bench, honestly – paint peeling, one side slightly lower than the other like it gave up structurally several years ago – but the view is ridiculous, all rolling streets and church spires and distant noise softened by height.
“We come here a lot,” Bodhi says quietly, settling down with the ease of habit.
“Mostly because he’s dramatic,” Liam adds, immediately leaning sideways into him, shoulder knocking shoulder like gravity works differently around them. “This is where Bodhi once declared me ‘statistically unbearable but somehow endearing’.”
I bark out a laugh so hard I nearly choke.
Bodhi sighs like this conversation exhausts him, but there’s that fond little twitch at the corner of his mouth. “I stand by the statement.”
“That’s basically poetry for him,” Liam says proudly, utterly unbothered.
And maybe it’s ridiculous, but I can see it then, can picture them here across years of evenings and hard conversations and stupid jokes, maybe wrapped in scarves in winter or sprawled out in summer, building something slow and solid without ever making a performance of it.
The takeaway place they swear by is tiny and tucked between shops like it accidentally ended up there, warm air fogging the windows and the smell of salt and vinegar practically grabbing you by the face the second you step inside. The owner knows them immediately.
“The usual?” he asks before they even open their mouths.
“Extra curry sauce,” Liam says.
“You always say extra curry sauce.”
“Manifesting abundance.”
The chips are genuinely offensive in how good they are even though we aren’t by the sea where this all began. They’re golden and crispy outside, fluffy enough inside to basically dissolve, the sort of food that forces involuntary noises out of you when you take the first bite. We end up sat on a low brick wall outside eating from shared paper trays while Liam steals from both mine and Bodhi’s with zero shame, and Bodhi automatically passes me the better chips like he’s been doing it for years.
That’s the thing.
They’re not really showing me where they live.
Not really.
They’re showing me them.
Their routines. Their shortcuts. Their favourite places to sit when life feels heavy. The café staff who know Liam by name, the canal where Bodhi comes to think, the takeaway they default to after long days, the park bench that apparently holds entire chapters of their relationship folded into its wonky wooden slats.
Ordinary things.
Small things.
But somehow the small things feel bigger, because those are the bits people usually keep for themselves.
And the horrible, terrifying, wonderful thing – the thing my brain keeps circling nervously like a dog trying to find somewhere safe to lie down – is that they aren’t showing me these places like I’m a guest.
They’re showing me like they want me to remember the route.
Like maybe, someday, I’ll walk it without needing directions.