Chapter 16 #2
“Food won’t be long,” Martha says, and gives me one last look that says she has seen everything, invented half of it and will be telling nobody only because she prefers knowing things to sharing them too quickly.
Then she leaves us in the warm hum of the back room, with the front bakery noise softened behind us and AJ sitting across from me like this is normal.
It is not normal.
That is the problem.
AJ wraps one hand around his coffee. “So this is your post-night-shift ritual.”
“Sometimes.”
“That sounded defensive.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It was a little defensive.”
“I come here because it is convenient and the food is good.”
“And because they know your order.”
“That is part of convenience.”
“And because you have a favourite table.”
I look at him. “Are you always this observant?”
“Yes.”
“Annoying.”
“Also yes.”
His smile is easy, but there is something under it now. A thread of awareness that has been there since the office. Since he put his arms around me. Since I realised that being held by him did not feel like weakness.
The waitress brings our food before I can do anything reckless with that thought.
Mine is exactly what I need: avocado smash on thick toast, bacon crisp enough to matter, and a poached egg sitting on top like a small, perfect promise. AJ gets scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast, which Martha has apparently judged appropriate for him without consultation.
He looks down at his plate. “I’ve been assigned breakfast.”
“You asked for a recommendation.”
“I feel assessed.”
“You probably were.”
“Did I pass?”
“You got mushrooms, not porridge. That’s a positive sign.”
“Good to know.”
For a few minutes, we just eat.
That may be the best part.
No radio. No crew. No alarm waiting inside the walls. No one needing me to decide anything except whether I want more coffee.
I do.
Obviously.
AJ eats with the focused gratitude of a man who has just remembered he has a body. He looks rumpled, his hair still refusing to lie flat.
The clean-shaven thing still suits him.
I wish it did not.
“So,” he says eventually. “Non-work conversation.”
I glance up. “Is that a rule?”
“A request.”
“You’re asking me for non-work conversation after a night shift.”
“I feel that gives us an advantage.”
“How?”
“Lowered defences. Less ability to lie convincingly.”
“That sounds like something a manipulative journalist would say.”
“That is exactly why I’m declaring it openly.”
“Very ethical.”
“I’m trying.”
I take a bite of toast to hide my smile.
“What do you want to know?”
“Something ordinary,” he says. “What do you do when you’re not working?”
“Laundry.”
“That’s bleak.”
“It’s honest.”
“Something that isn’t laundry.”
I think about giving him a nothing answer. Walks. Reading. Seeing my sister. All true, all safe.
But he is looking at me as if he actually wants the answer, and I am tired enough to let him have a little more than that.
“I swim when I can,” I say. “Walk. Complain about inaccurate emergency scenes on television. Read bad thrillers.”
“Of course you do.”
“I like guessing which woman should not go into the basement.”
“And is she usually aware she should not go into the basement?”
“Never. That’s why I shout at her.”
“You shout at television?”
“Only when necessary.”
“I would pay to see that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I’m terrifying.”
“Oh I can believe that.”
He says it too easily.
Like terrifying is not a warning.
I cut into the egg, and the yolk spills over the avocado. “I also have plants.”
“Plants?”
“Yes.”
“Are they alive?”
“Some of them.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“The basil died dramatically.”
“Basil does that. It’s needy.”
“You speak from experience?”
“I killed three supermarket basil plants in one summer and considered it a character flaw.”
“It might be.”
“I feared that.”
I laugh.
Loudly this time.
It surprises me, not because I never laugh, but because this one comes from somewhere I have not used much lately. Somewhere lighter. Somewhere that does not have a clipboard or a radio in its hand.
AJ notices.
I know he notices because his face changes.
Only slightly.
Softening in a way that makes me want to kick him gently under the table and kiss him in equal measure.
The conversation moves after that. Not in a straight line.
It wanders, sleep-deprived and strange, through favourite films, the worst sandwiches we have ever eaten on shift or deadline, his brief attempt at learning guitar, my brief attempt at pottery, which ended with a bowl so uneven Amanda still uses it to keep loose change in because she says it has “honest energy.”
“You made pottery?” he asks, delighted.
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked. I’m captivated.”
“It was one class.”
“Still.”
“I am allowed hobbies.”
“I never said you weren’t.”
His smile is warm and entirely too intimate for the other side of a bakery table.
“You like making things?” he asks.
I look down at my plate.
“Yes,” I say, and the answer feels more private than it should. “I’m not always good at it. But yes.”
“Plants. Pottery. Bad thrillers. Shouting at television.”
“Swimming. Walking. Being an excellent aunt.”
“Excellent?”
“Objectively. My sister Amanda’s kids think so, anyway.”
His smile warms. “What are their names?”
I nod. “Jamie and Samantha.”
He smiles. “What makes you excellent?”
“I provide sugar, dangerous amounts of glitter, and no long-term discipline.”
“Classic aunt strategy.”
“It works.”
“Do you want…” He stops, then shakes his head. “Ignore me. That’s too personal.”
I look at him.
There is a carefulness in his face that I like more than I should.
I could let him retreat.
Instead, I take another sip of coffee and say, “Children?”
“Yes.”
I set the mug down. “No.”
His expression does not change in the way people’s faces often do when I say that. No flicker of surprise. No recalculation. No tiny, patronising sadness.