I stare at her.
“Tea?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve just had coffee.”
“I know.”
“And breakfast.”
“I was there.”
“And you invited me up to your flat.”
Technically, she did not invite me with words. Technically, she said she lived across the road, told me to pay the bill, walked here with purpose and did not object when I followed. But I am not a fool. I understand language in several forms, including highly charged silence.
Pippa looks at me from beside the little table.
“I’m being polite.”
“No,” I say.
Her eyebrows lift.
I take one step towards her.
Not fast.
Not dramatic.
Enough.
“You’re trying to give us both something to do with our hands because this suddenly feels real.”
Her expression changes.
Barely.
But there.
“Yes,” she says.
Fuck.
The honesty of it.
I take another step.
“You can still change your mind.”
Her eyes stay on mine.
“Noted.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
