The question lands gently, but there’s no avoiding it.
“A little,” I admit.
Not a lie. Not entirely the truth either.
The waiter appears, and she orders Prosecco. Her voice is warm and easy with him, her smile natural, not forced. She belongs here in a way I never quite manage to. She belongs everywhere she stands.
I order the same, because water would be an admission of weakness and I am not ready for that yet. Not tonight. Not when she’s looking at me like this.
For a few minutes, everything is fine.
Better than fine.
She talks about the shop. About a customer who tried to return flowers because they “didn’t match her aura.” She imitates the woman’s voice with just enough exaggeration to make me laugh, and the sound escapes me naturally.
She relaxes slowly, almost imperceptibly, like she’d come prepared for rejection and is cautiously allowing herself to believe she might not get it.
She tells me about Fellside. About how different it feels from London. Slower. Kinder. She admits she didn’t think she’d stay this long, but now she can’t imagine leaving.
As she talks, I watch her hands. The way she gestures when she gets excited. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear without thinking. The way she looks directly at me when she speaks, like she isn’t afraid of what she might see there.
On the outside, I am doing it.
I am here. I am present. I am participating.
On the inside, I am losing the battle.
The alcohol shifts, moving from warmth to pressure. My thoughts don’t disappear, but they stop lining up properly. Each one arrives slightly too late or leaves slightly too early, like a conversation with a delay.
She leans forward slightly, resting her forearms on the table.
“I’m glad you asked me out,” she says.
The words land directly in my chest, bypassing whatever protective barriers I usually keep in place.
“You are?”
She smiles softly.
“Yes.”
There’s no hesitation in it. No irony. No teasing.
Just truth.
Something in me loosens.
Dangerously.
I pick up my glass and finish it without thinking, chasing the feeling, trying to preserve it.
She notices.
“Phil.”
“I’m fine,” I say quickly.
She doesn’t look convinced, but she lets it go.