Chapter 157 THE WRONG CONCLUSIONS - 40

Chapter 157 THE WRONG CONCLUSIONS - 40
COLE

I'd been carrying the gallery tickets around in my jacket for just over a week.
Not because I'd been waiting for the perfect moment. Mostly because buying them had felt a little presumptuous at the time, like I was quietly assuming we'd get here before either of us had actually agreed we would, and every time I'd thought about asking her, I'd reached into my pocket, felt the envelope, and decided tomorrow was probably just as good.
Until eventually the idea of ‘tomorrow’ became ridiculous.
The photographer was someone she'd mentioned once. Not because she'd wanted to go, or because she'd been dropping hints. We'd been cutting through the arcade after work one afternoon when she'd stopped for no more than a second, looked at the name on the gallery window and said, almost to herself, "She's finally got a show on."
Then she'd carried on walking. She probably didn't even remember saying it, but I did.
She realised where we were before we'd even reached the entrance. Her eyes found the sign above the gallery door, then drifted to me with the smallest smile I'd seen on her all week, the kind she looked like she hadn't meant to let escape.
"You remembered."
It wasn't really a question.
"You mentioned it."
"That was ages ago."
"It was last week."
She laughed under her breath, shaking her head.
"I can't believe you remembered."
I shrugged like it hadn't been anything worth mentioning, even though I'd remembered the date the exhibition opened before I'd remembered one of my own meetings.
"I listen."
"I know."
She said it so quietly I almost missed it.
Then, before I could think of anything clever to say back, she slipped her hand into mine as naturally as breathing and gave my fingers a small squeeze before leading me inside.
That lasted all of three seconds. Long enough to leave me smiling like an idiot through the first room.
The photographs were beautiful.
Women sitting on kitchen counters with mugs of tea. A mother braiding her daughter's hair by an open window. Someone reading alone at a bus stop while rain blurred the glass behind them.
Vivienne moved through the exhibition the way she moved through anything she genuinely loved, slowly enough that she noticed things everyone else walked past. Every so often she'd lean in a fraction, studying a detail I'd completely missed, then step back again with her head tilted as though she was trying to understand not just what the photographer had taken, but why.
I spent almost as much time watching her as I did the photographs.
She caught me once.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You've looked at me three times."
"I've looked at you more than that."
That earned me another one of those smiles.
"You're impossible."
"I've heard worse."
She rolled her eyes, but when we moved into the next room her shoulder brushed mine, and this time she didn't move away.
Halfway through, she stopped in front of one photograph for so long that everyone else around us came and went.
I walked over beside her. Neither of us spoke. After a while her hand found mine again, she didn't look at me when she did it, just threaded our fingers together like she'd forgotten they weren't already there.
"You remembered this," she said eventually.
"You sounded excited."
"I mentioned it once."
"You only needed to mention it once."
She turned then, properly looked at me, and there was something so soft in her expression that it made my chest ache.
"You really do listen."
"I always listen to you love."
"I know."
Dinner was at a little restaurant I'd booked a few days earlier.
She ordered exactly what the waiter recommended, declared halfway through that he'd oversold it, then stole chips from my plate because mine looked better.
"You realise," I said, "you could've just ordered this."
"I realise that now."
"So my meal was essentially quality control."
"I was protecting you from disappointment."
"You've eaten half of it."
"I'm protecting you thoroughly."
I laughed.
"So generous."
"I try."
At one point she reached across the table to steal another chip, and instead of letting her, I caught her wrist.
She looked up.
"What?"
"You could always ask."
"I could."
"But?"
"But this is more fun."
I let go of her wrist only long enough to pick up one of the chips myself before holding it out to her. She looked at it, then at me.
"You are aware I have functioning hands."
"I am."
"And yet."
"And yet."
She smiled, leaned forward, and ate it from my fingers. I don't think she realised what she'd done afterwards.
She thanked me absent-mindedly before going straight back to the story she'd been telling, and somewhere in the middle of it she reached across the table again, not for food this time, just because apparently she'd decided my hand belonged under hers now.
It stayed there for the rest of dinner.
We talked for two hours. Not about work, not about board meetings, not about governance or audits or anything that came with agendas and minutes. We talked about books we'd loved and books we'd pretended to love because everyone else seemed to. About terrible films we'd somehow both enjoyed anyway. About the strange satisfaction of reorganising bookshelves even though neither of us could explain why.
By the time we left the restaurant neither of us seemed particularly interested in going home.
So we walked.
The city had settled into that comfortable evening rhythm where people weren't in quite such a hurry anymore. Lights glowed behind café windows, buses hissed to a stop before carrying on again, and every now and then she'd slip her arm through mine without really thinking about it, only to let go a minute later before finding my hand instead.
I wasn't entirely convinced she realised she kept doing it. But I wasn't about to point it out.
We stopped outside a closed bookshop because something in the window caught her eye. She started telling me why she'd never completely agreed with one of the author's endings, abandoned her own explanation halfway through because she'd found a better one, then laughed at herself for overthinking fictional people.
I stood beside her with one hand in my pocket and the other wrapped around hers. She talked with her free hand. Every point came with another little gesture. Every time she got excited she'd forget she was holding onto me until she'd absent-mindedly squeeze my hand for emphasis. I don't think she noticed. I noticed every single one.
Halfway through another passionate defence of unreliable narrators, she stopped.
"...You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"The staring."
"I wasn't staring."
"You absolutely were."
"I was listening."
"You can do both."
"I was..."
She narrowed her eyes. "What are you thinking?"
I looked at her for a second.
Then I reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear before I answered, letting my fingers linger against her cheek just long enough to feel the warmth there.
"I'm thinking," I admitted quietly, "that I don't actually care where we are."
She blinked.
"What?"
"The gallery was lovely."
"It was."
"Dinner was lovely."
"It was."
"This conversation's lovely."
A laugh escaped her.
"So your point is..."
"My point is that I think I'd have had just as good a time sitting on a bench outside a supermarket, as long as you were there."
She stared at me.
"...Cole."
"What?"
"You cannot just say things like that."
"I already did."
She shook her head, smiling in that helpless way she did when she was trying very hard not to.
"You're ridiculous."
"You still haven't let go of my hand."
She looked down.
She hadn't.
"Oh."
"You can, if you'd like."
Instead she laced our fingers together properly.
"I think I'll keep it."
I don't think I'd ever heard five nicer words.
When we finally started walking again, she stayed tucked against my side for most of the journey back.
Neither of us suggested my flat.
Neither of us suggested hers.
By the time we reached my building, we'd somehow ended up there together, and it felt less like a decision than the most natural continuation of the evening.
We ended up at mine because it was closer, which was true, and also because neither of us suggested anywhere else, which was equally true. Those two things together made for a very easy walk upstairs.
Inside, the conversation carried on for a while longer.
We shared a pot of tea neither of us really wanted, laughed over stories that had somehow never come up before, and drifted from the sofa to the kitchen and back again without either of us paying much attention to the time. At some point she disappeared to wash her face, reappearing a few minutes later wearing one of my T-shirts with the sleeves hanging well past her hands, and I completely lost my train of thought halfway through whatever I'd been saying.
"What?" she asked, catching me looking.
"Nothing."
"Cole."
"You look nice."
She smiled in that quiet way she had when she wasn't quite sure what to do with a compliment, then came over and rested her forehead against mine.
"You're staring again."
"I know."
She laughed softly before kissing me, slow enough that there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be.
The kiss lingered.
Then another followed.
And another.
Much later, the house had settled into silence.
The city outside had gone quiet, the only sound the occasional car somewhere below, and she was asleep beside me with one hand resting lightly across my chest.
I lay awake for a while, not because I couldn't sleep, but because I couldn't quite believe the complete absence of the noise that had lived in my head for the better part of the last few months.
For once, there was nothing to untangle. Nothing to second-guess.
She was here.
That was enough.
When I woke again the next morning, early light was slipping through the curtains and she hadn't moved very far. Her shoulder was still pressed against mine, her hand still resting where it'd fallen asleep the night before, and I stayed exactly where I was, unwilling to disturb the moment.
Waking up beside Vivienne Ashford made me the happiest man alive.