‘There’s always tea or coffee. Or I added a few new things to the artisanal non-alco list the other day. You could help me figure out how to talk about them.’
She eyeballed me. ‘How do you always make you doing something for me sound like I’m the one doing you a favour?’
‘Is that a yes?’
She held my gaze for a long moment before she nodded.
Relief, rich and potent as madeira, washed over me as I took some glasses down from the rack. ‘Hey Lex, want to taste test some drinks with me and your mum?’
‘Hmmm?’ They looked up from their spot in the window.
I repeated the question. Lex shook their head. ‘That’s okay. I’m reading.’ They took their noise-cancelling headphones out of their schoolbag and put them on.
‘Thank you,’ Fiona said.
‘For what?’ I took a bottle out of the fridge.
‘For always being so good with them.’ She nodded towards Lex. ‘And for the way you were with all the kids at the restaurant the other night. You made it so special for them.’
‘It was no trouble at all.’ I uncapped the bottle, which hissed gently as the pressure was released. ‘It was good practise.’
‘You think they’re going to bring a group of kids in for the Master Sommelier exam?’
‘They might.’ I poured a tasting measure into her glass and then mine. ‘You never know. The Court pride themselves on it being the hardest exam in the world. Surprise kids would kneecap a lot of people.’
‘Not you, though.’ Fiona accepted the glass I set in front of her. ‘The girls have started insisting that every beverage that comes out of the fridge gets presented to them. I had to do it with the milk this morning before they let me put it on their cereal.’
I had a sudden vision of it, piercing my brain in a way that was almost painful. Fiona holding the milk out, offering it to them solemnly. The girls’ giggles as she poured it.
Me coming up beside her and taking it from her.Please allow me to show you the correct technique. We have to use two hands, or we’ll spill it all over the floor.
‘—never should have taught them the wordelegant,’ Fiona was saying. ‘I was hoping I could trick them into keeping relatively quiet in the restaurant, but it’s backfired. Now everything has to be elegant, and – Satoshi, did I lose you?’
‘Sorry.’ I blinked. ‘My head’s been all over the place for the last few days.’
There was a pause before she spoke again, her voice soft, almost shy. ‘I know the feeling.’
I glanced over at Lex. They were absorbed in their book, paying no attention to us, so I inched my hand across the bar until my right index finger was just brushing Fiona’s left pinky. It was the tiniest, most plausibly deniable of touches, but judging by her swift intake of breath, I wasn’t the only one who could feel it everywhere.
‘Cheers.’ I held my glass up with my free hand.
‘Cheers,’ she replied.
We looked each other in the eye, the moment stretching far longer than the quick clink of our glasses. The flush that had receded from her face came back, the salmon pink of Provençal rosé.
‘We need to talk about this,’ she said.
I let my fingertip slide against the bed of her nail. ‘I know.’
She looked over at Lex for a moment before she spoke again. ‘I told Sadie. I kind of had to, after… you know.’
‘I do know.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’ Her colour deepened into Italian rosato. ‘Her walking in, I mean.’
‘Why are you apologising? You didn’t do anything wrong.’ I was barely touching her, but the feeling of her finger against mine was still sending all the blood rushing away from my brain. ‘If anything, I should be apologising to you. I was the one who—’ I lowered my voice, even though Lex clearly wasn’t listening ‘—shoved you up against the wall.’
‘I liked it,’ she admitted.
