Tuesday

Delilah saw Ash through the restaurant window and nearly laughed at the relief of finding him exactly where she’d asked him to be.

She was two minutes late. He had a glass of water in front of him and the menu closed beside it. When he saw her, he smiled before standing. She went straight to him and kissed him, one hand at the back of his neck, without waiting for the waiter to find somewhere else to look.

“Hello,” he said.

“I hoped you hadn’t read anything.”

“Only the fire exit.”

“Sensible.”

He helped her with her coat because she handed it to him. The new button caught briefly in a strand of her hair. They freed it together, smiling, and she sat opposite him in the small pool of light cast by the lamp on their table.

For most of the afternoon she had been working for somebody who did not know Ash existed. A straightforward piece of research, a question with an answer she could send before five. She had sent it, put on earrings and left her flat without checking Sable’s public page. The world had continued in her absence. It might learn to manage.

“Did you send the estimate?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And now you’re here.”

“And now I’m here.”

They read the menus. Delilah chose a dish she had never cooked and Ash asked whether the soup came with enough bread to become dinner. The waiter said it did if he wanted more than one basket. Ash did. She liked him for asking the actual question.

The restaurant had a narrow window looking onto the pavement. Beyond it people went home with shopping bags and folded newspapers, carrying whole lives neither of them needed to investigate. Delilah watched a woman stop to retie a shoe while the person beside her waited. There were so many ways to make room for somebody. Most could not be entered in a report.

“What?” Ash asked.

She turned back. “I was thinking about how much time I’ve spent being difficult to accompany.”

“You’ve become quite direct about vegetables.”

“Not those arrangements.”

His smile faded into attention. She could see the old instinct in him, the preparation to solve what she was about to say. Then he put both hands around the glass and waited.

She had practised a beginning on the way here. It concerned November, the end of the commission, what he had done. All of it was true and all of it led around the thing she wanted to tell him.

“I love you,” she said.

Ash set the glass down. The movement was small and careful, as if the table had shifted beneath it.

Delilah breathed. She had said it. The room still smelled of bread. The waiter was carrying somebody else’s dinner past them. Nothing had paused to protect her from the answer.

“I love you,” he said. “Delilah, I do.”

She smiled, then found her eyes hot in a way she had not prepared for. He reached across the table, palm open. She placed her hand in his.

For a moment neither spoke. He looked as moved as she felt, and far less able to hide it than he would have been a month ago. She was grateful for every day that had taught him he need not hide it from her.

“I had more sentences,” she said.

“You can still have them.”

“They seem excessive now.”

He laughed softly. “I would listen.”

She turned her hand in his until their fingers fitted together. “I don’t mean I’m finished being angry about every part of the beginning. I don’t think loving you means I have to improve it.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I mean I want you in what comes next. Not until things are settled. Not only while there’s something difficult we can help each other endure. I want the part where we buy the wrong dinner and have to eat it anyway.”

His thumb moved slowly over hers. “I’d like a chance to buy the right one occasionally.”

“You’ll have it.”

“And I’d like you in mine. The empty weeks as well as the full ones. I don’t want to keep you outside until I’ve made myself easier to explain.”

The exactness of it loosened something beneath her ribs. She had not needed a man with no mistakes. She had needed one who would stop asking her love to turn the mistakes into virtues. He had given his account to people free to disbelieve it. He was here without asking whether their judgement had made him safe to choose.

“Good,” she said. “Because I’m not applying for a role.”

“There isn’t one.”

“There is some room, though?”

He smiled then, fully. “A considerable amount.”

The food arrived. They let go of each other reluctantly, then began eating because the meals were hot and neither wanted this evening to become too sacred for dinner. Ash gave her a piece of bread before she asked. She offered him a taste of her food and watched him discover he had chosen the wrong thing.

“It’s good soup,” he said, defending nobody in particular.

“I’m sure it is.”

“I chose it freely.”

“And may continue eating it.”

He laughed. She gave him another forkful from her plate. Wanting to share no longer frightened her into calculating what she had left. He was not going to empty the plate unless she kept offering, and she was allowed to stop.

They talked about the week. She had an early appointment on Thursday and wanted Wednesday evening to herself. He had promised Friday lunch to his old colleague and would need to work Saturday morning. None of those things threatened the words they had just said.

“Friday evening?” he asked.

“My flat. Bring something that isn’t an onion.”

“A challenging brief.”

“And Sunday we can choose November.”

“The chair with the sea attached.”

“Exactly.”

He took his phone out, then looked at her before opening the diary. She nodded. He entered the evenings, not as a joke or a guarantee, simply so he would keep the time. She entered them in hers. The arrangement was ordinary enough to make her want to cry again.

“I’m not ready to live together,” she said when they put the phones away.

“Neither am I.”

She smiled. “That was quick.”

“I’ve thought about wanting to. I’ve also thought about how much I like being invited.”

“You will be.”

“So will you.”

They ordered dessert because neither wanted to leave. One between them became two when they disagreed about what counted as a proper ending to dinner. Delilah chose the lemon cake; Ash chose something warm with a great deal of custard. They ate half of each. The compromise required no argument at all.

She paid because she had invited him and wanted to. He thanked her without offering to repair the balance before they reached the door. Outside, he held her coat while she found the sleeves. The blue wool was warm where it had hung beside the radiator.

“A walk?” she asked.

“Yes.”

They went toward the river. The pavement shone from rain that had fallen while they were inside. At the crossing he offered his hand and she took it, remembering another evening when they had missed the light because she wanted his mouth more than she wanted to get anywhere. Tonight she stopped beneath a shop awning and pulled him toward her on purpose.

He came smiling. She kissed him until the smile became something less composed, until his hand settled firmly at her back and she could feel how much he wanted to stay there with her. The cool air made the warmth between them sharper. When she lifted her head, he rested his forehead against hers.

“I love you,” she said again, testing the pleasure of saying it when the first answer was already known.

“I love you too.”

There was no need to keep it rare so it would retain its value. She kissed him once more, then took his hand and brought him out into the open street.

The river steps were quiet. Delilah stood beside him at the wall and looked down at the water. She had been angry here, foolish with hope here, happy enough to say yes to dinner without knowing where they would eat. None of those evenings had disappeared. They belonged to the same life.

Somewhere across the city, Oona was deciding what she would accept. Other people were pursuing complaints which might take a long time and bring less than they deserved. The two clients who had chosen to keep their work apart from Delilah’s still owed her no new invitation. She did not have their ending to place beside her own. She would not borrow one.

Ash shifted close enough that their shoulders touched. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I was thinking about things I don’t get to finish.”

“We can stay a while.”

She looked at him. That was what he could give her: company while the world remained unresolved, without taking the world out of her hands or promising to mend it overnight.

“A little while,” she said. “Then I want to go home with you.”

“Mine or yours?”

She considered. “Yours. I’d like to see whether you put those seams back in the tin.”

“I kept one.”

“Which?”

“The first. The second was merely disappointing.”

She laughed and leaned against him. He drew her closer, and they watched a late boat pass beneath the footbridge without needing to decide whether its owner ought to sell it.

At his flat, Ash turned on the hall light and took her coat. She left her shoes beside his, then followed him into the kitchen to put the kettle on. He came up behind her while she searched for mugs. She turned into his arms instead of making him wait until the practical part of the evening was complete.

“The cupboard can wait,” she said.

“Mine works.”

“Then it has every advantage.”

His kiss was warm and unhurried. She slipped her hands beneath his open cardigan, feeling the familiar steady shape of him through his shirt, and felt his breath change when she drew him closer. They had a whole night. She did not need to spend it proving she could be unafraid.

Later there would be tea gone cool, a borrowed shirt, the small negotiation of a window one of them liked open. Tomorrow they would get up for separate work. On Friday he would come to her; on Sunday they would look for a place beside the sea. She knew no grander ending she wanted more.

Ash put the mugs on the counter and held out his hand.

Delilah took it. There was nothing left to explain before she could go with him.