His jaw tightens. His hand is still on my chin, his grip gentle despite the tension radiating through him.
"Tell me."
"I was trying to find Hewhay's. The bookshop. I thought maybe—" I gesture vaguely with my free hand. "Harry Potter. Platform 9¾. You run at the wall and magic happens."
Silence.
"But magic didn't happen," I continue, because apparently I can't stop talking when I'm mortified. "The wall was just a wall. And now I have a bruise. And you're looking at me like I've lost my mind, which—fair. I probably have."
He doesn't say anything. His expression is unreadable, his golden eyes fixed on mine in the mirror.
And then:
"The difference is approximately three-quarters of an inch of bruised forehead."
I blink.
His face gives me nothing. Absolutely nothing. He delivers the line like he's stating a fact, perfectly neutral, perfectly serious.
"Did you just—"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You made a Harry Potter joke."
"I made an observation about the metric distance between your expectations and reality."
"That's—" I don't know if I want to laugh or groan. "You're not funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny."
"You're definitely trying to be funny."
"I'm trying to understand why my wife thought running headfirst into a wall was a reasonable course of action."
"It made sense at the time."
"Nothing about this makes sense." But his voice has softened, and his thumb finally brushes over the bruise—feather-light, careful. "You should have told me."
"I was embarrassed."
"You should have told me anyway."
"Why? So you could mock me with Harry Potter references?"
"So I could—" He stops. His jaw works. "So I could take care of it."
Oh.
The words hang in the air between us, reflected in the mirror. His hand is still on my face. His eyes are still locked on mine. And something in my chest cracks open.
"It doesn't even hurt anymore," I say softly.
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
He doesn't answer right away. Just looks at me, his expression shifting into something I can't quite name.
