Close it.
She smiles.
Not much.
Enough to ruin me.
“There we are,” she says, and shoulders the door open.
I follow her inside.
The flat is warm, quiet and more her than I am prepared for.
I do not know what I expected. Something austere, maybe. Functional. A sofa, a kettle, a place to sleep between shifts. But Pippa’s flat is not austere. It is compact, yes, and tidy in a way that says practical rather than fussy, but it has colour and texture and small signs of a life she has built carefully because she likes things done properly even when no one else is watching.
A deep blue sofa. A striped blanket over one arm. Books stacked beside an armchair, most of them with cracked spines. A plant by the window. Two framed prints on thewall, one abstract, one a landscape. Boots lined up near the door. A hook for keys.
I notice all of it because noticing things is what I do.
Also because if I look directly at Pippa for too long, I am going to forget how to behave.
She shuts the door behind me.
The click of it is very small.
It still sounds final.
For half a second, neither of us moves.
There it is.
The awkwardness.
Not regret. Not hesitation exactly. Just the sudden, absurd reality of what happens when the charged walk across the road becomes an actual flat with actual walls and a woman standing three feet away from me looking as if she is deciding whether to take off her jacket or order me out before something catches fire.
I put my hands in my pockets.
A terrible choice.
Too casual.
I take them out again.
Worse.
“Are you nervous?” Pippa asks.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
The fact that she is not entirely steady either does something deeply unhelpful to my self-control.
She turns away and hangs her keys onto the hook.
“Tea?” she asks.
