Dan fills the kettle. “He does that sometimes. Accidentally, mostly.”
I hesitate, then say, “Am I overstepping? With the cleaning.”
Dan looks at the counter again.
Then he shrugs. “Depends if you start labelling shelves.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
The pause is too long.
Dan smiles.
I point at him. “I was not going to.”
“Course not.”
“I understand boundaries.”
“Do you?”
“Some.”
He laughs quietly and switches the kettle on. “Kitchen’s cleaner. No one’ll complain unless you move the biscuits.”
“Where are the biscuits?”
“Secret.”
I decide not to ask again.
Dan makes his tea and leaves before I can accidentally interview him too.
The kitchen settles.
I sit back down.
Write more notes.
Low-level humour as permission. Crew suspicious but not cruel. Kitchen as common space. Cleaning as possible social risk. Do not move biscuits.
I stare at the last line.
Good advice in most contexts, probably.
From somewhere beyond the corridor, Pippa’s voice rises briefly, clear but not sharp. I cannot make out the words. Josh answers, lower. A door closes.
I try not to imagine her in the dress again.
I fail immediately.
It was not even a particularly revealing dress. That is the problem. If it had been dramatic, I could have dismissed my reaction as standard male idiocy and moved on. But it was just green fabric and bare arms and a quiet, unguarded version of her in the car park before work had fully claimed her.
She had looked like someone on her way to buy peaches.
Or ruin a man.
Possibly both.
