Not dramatically.
But enough.
Her shoulders drop half an inch.
Her mouth softens.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
I cross the kitchen.
She meets me halfway, hands already lifting, and the kiss she gives me is nothing like the careful one at the station. This one is tired and warm and relieved. Her fingers curl into my sweatshirt. Mine slide around her waist. She leans into me as if the last twelve hours have been something she can finally stop carrying alone.
I kiss her slowly, because I can. Because she is home. Because she tastes like coffee from the station and night air and Pippa.
When she pulls back, her forehead stays against mine.
“Missed you,” she says.
It is soft. Almost sleepy.
“I missed you too.”
She lets me hold her there for a while.
Eventually, I press a kiss to her temple.
“Food,” I say.
“Then bed.”
“Then bed.”
She smiles faintly. “You’re learning.”
“I have an excellent teacher.”
“She sounds terrifying.”
“She is. I’m very fond of her.”
We eat at the little kitchen table, knees brushing because the table is too small and because neither of us moves to fix it. She gets through one bacon roll, half the fruit and two coffees before she begins to look more human and less like a woman being powered by duty and spite.
I wait.
This is something I have learned with Pippa. Sometimes care is doing. Sometimes care is not pushing. Sometimes care is letting her eat in silence until she remembers she is allowed to be a person before she has to be a conversation.
Eventually, she looks at me over the rim of her mug.
“You’ve got something on your mind.”
“Yes.”
Her gaze moves to the brochure lying on the sideboard where I moved it while cooking.
“Is it that?”
