But enough.
Enough that I look at her and forget, briefly, that I am holding a tiny cow token in a game I do not fully understand.
She catches me looking.
Her smile does not disappear.
It changes.
Softens at the edges.
Then Kev says, “AJ, stop staring into the middle distance and answer. Name something people pretend they understand.”
“Pension statements,” I say.
Everyone groans.
Pippa looks at me. “That is disturbingly accurate.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t say it was praise.”
“I heard praise.”
“You hear what you want.”
“Not always.”
The words come out lower than I mean them to.
Her eyes stay on mine for one second.
Two.
Then Mish says, “I’m writing parking restrictions.”
“Also valid,” Pippa says, and looks away.
But she is smiling when she does.
By half past eleven, the games begin to dissolve.
Not dramatically. The way things do on night shift, apparently. Someone yawns. Someone stretches. Someone says they are going to close their eyes for twenty minutes and is immediately called a liar because no one closes their eyes for twenty minutes. Dan and Lewis drift towards the rest room. Sal claims one end of the sofa. Rob and Kev argue over what film to put on, eventually settling on something with explosions because Kev says subtlety is for daylight.
I try to watch.
I do.
The film starts with a car chase, a man jumping through a window and enough noise to keep any ordinary person awake.
I nearly fall asleep during the second explosion.
Night shift is not just staying up late. I had known that in theory. In practice, my body is baffled and offended. It does not understand why we ate toast, played board games and are now expected to exist through the dark as if this is normal human behaviour.
I stand quietly and take my mug to the kitchen.
It is empty.
