“I’m helping.”
Mish appears behind him, takes in the situation, and removes the lasagne from my hands with calm authority.
“Kitchen,” she says. “Before this becomes an incident.”
Kev follows her with wounded dignity. “I was being useful.”
“You were being hungry.”
“That’s a type of useful.”
“It isn’t,” Pippa says, coming out of the office.
Her eyes find mine.
The station noise stays the same. But everything in me shifts towards her.
Pippa is in uniform, dark hair all messed up, face composed in that familiar working expression. She looks tired already, but not worn down. Just braced for the night ahead. She has a pen clipped to her shirt, a radio at her hip and the kind of presence that still makes everyone around her settle without noticing they are doing it.
I love her even if I haven’t told her.
That is the problem.
I have known it for weeks.
Possibly longer.
Possibly from the moment she stood in a bakery and told me she lived across the road with a look that rearranged my understanding of free will.
But tonight it sits at the front of my mouth, waiting.
She walks towards me, and there is no awkward pause now. No careful pretence. The crew know. Josh knows. Half the village probably knows, because Fellside treats privacy as a charming theory rather than a practical arrangement.
Pippa reaches me, slips one hand into the front of my jacket and pulls me down to her.
The kiss is brief because she is on duty.
But it is not hidden.
Not apologised for.
Not uncertain.
Her mouth is warm against mine, and her other hand rests for one second at my waist, grounding me there in the station she once wanted to keep me out of.
When she steps back, her eyes are softer than her voice.
“Did you bring dessert?”
“Pastries.”
Her thumb brushes the edge of my jacket before she lets go.
“Good man,” she says quietly.
I take it exactly as seriously as it deserves.
Dinner at the station is loud, warm and strangely perfect.
