Then AJ shifts his weight, and his T-shirt pulls slightly across his shoulders, and my brain supplies an extremely vivid memory of another of his T-shirts on my bedroom floor.
Not fine.
I turn around and nearly walk into Mish.
She catches the movement with one eyebrow. “All right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re very yes tonight.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I yet.”
Brilliant.
Mish folds her arms and looks past me towards the bay.
I follow her gaze.
AJ is now crouching beside an open compartment while Dan points at something. Kev is pretending not to be listening from three feet away, which means he is definitely listening.
“He’s done all right,” Mish says.
I look back at her. “AJ?”
“No, the ghost of the kettle. Yes, AJ.”
“He has.”
“Better than expected.”
“Yes.”
“Less annoying too.”
“That’s generous.”
“Not by much,” I grin.
Mish studies me for a moment. “You’ll miss having him around.”
My face goes carefully still.
There is nothing in her tone. No implication. No slyness. She means the station. The feature. The fact that AJ has become part of the rhythm in a very short space of time and tomorrow he will not be here cleaning mugs, asking questions and irritating everyone with practical filing suggestions.
That is all.
Still, the sentence lands badly.
“I’ll survive,” I say.
“Didn’t say you wouldn’t.”
I look towards the bay again.
AJ laughs at something Dan says. Not loudly. Just enough that his head dips and the corner of his mouth lifts.
