Jo saw Eva's hand on Will's arm before she saw Eva's face.
“Hello,” she said, with a pause in the middle.
“Hello,” Eva answered. She kept her hand where it was.
Ben and Nora were coming along behind Jo. Nora had tied her hair back with a red scarf. Ben slowed when he saw them, just one step falling out of time with the next.
Eva had wanted that step. She felt good for about three seconds.
“Didn't know you were coming,” Ben said to Will.
“I was invited.”
Will's voice was easy. His arm was not. Eva loosened her grip.
They walked round the harbour together. Jo was talking about the weather as if she had been hired to keep it pleasant. The tide was low, the boats lying against their ropes. Someone had chalked a fish on the pavement outside a stall and given it legs.
“That's you before coffee,” Will murmured.
Eva looked at the fish. “That's you asking me to explain the bookings app.”
“A cruel resemblance.”
She laughed. Ben turned his head.
At the food stalls Jo went for noodles. Nora wanted a baked potato, and Ben followed her, apparently willing to explore a new vegetable. Eva and Will bought flatbreads from the grill. The woman handing them out recognised Eva from the café.
“We spoke about my parents' anniversary,” she said. “For the supper room? I'm coming in Friday to talk it over.”
“Yes. I've got you written down.”
“I'm looking forward to seeing what you do.”
Eva promised there would be a proper plan. Will added that he'd try to include a meal with it, and the woman laughed.
For a few minutes it was nice. The bread was warm, and a little sauce dripped on Will's thumb. He licked it off and then took her napkin because his had blown away. She made him ask properly.
They gathered by a low wall with their food. Nora looked towards the café on the other side of the harbour.
“It's funny,” she said. “I'd only ever been in there for lunch before I started working there.”
“Lots of us were only there for lunch,” Jo said. “Now Eva's turned it into an empire.”
“Twenty chairs,” Will said. “She's ruthless.”
Eva smiled at him.
Nora said, “It'll be good to have somewhere different in the evenings.”
Eva looked at Ben, who was taking a forkful from Nora's potato. Then at Jo, standing between them and her as though this arrangement were perfectly ordinary.
“I'm sure you'll find a space,” Eva said. “You've been good at finding vacancies.”
The joke came out sharper than she had meant it to. She had meant it sharp enough.
Nora lowered her fork.
Jo said, “Eva.”
“What?”
“Don't.”
“We're all being friendly, aren't we?”
Ben stepped forward. “She doesn't deserve that.”
Eva stared at him. “You're an expert?”
“Come on.”
Will touched her elbow. She pulled it away.
“Don't tell me to come on. You're eating her potato in front of me.”
The woman from the stall was passing with a bag of rubbish. Eva noticed her only when she stopped.
“I think I'll leave the Friday chat,” the woman said.
Eva turned. “No, that's—”
“I wanted somewhere relaxed. For our guests.”
“It is relaxed. This isn't work.”
The woman looked at Will, then back at Eva.
“Give me a few days,” she said. “I'll get in touch if I want to.”
She walked back to the stall.
The harbour hadn't become quiet. A child nearby was insisting he could finish another ice cream. A gull shrieked above them. Eva could hear every bite somebody took.
Nora wrapped what remained of her potato. “I'm going home.”
Ben went with her. He looked back at Eva once, not in the way she'd wanted.
Jo stayed long enough to say, “You knew she was talking about the café.”
“Ben didn't have to defend her.”
“What was he supposed to do?”
Eva had an answer, several answers, none of them things she wanted Jo to hear. She looked down at her flatbread.
“You don't have to like her,” Jo said. “But that was horrible.”
Then she went after the others.
Eva stood beside Will with the cold bread in her hand.
“You're allowed to say it too,” she told him.
“You already know.”
She crumpled the paper round the bread. “Yes.”
They walked away from the stalls. Eva wanted to go home and sleep until she'd been single for six months. Will kept pace beside her, saying nothing, and she was grateful he didn't offer her an explanation of herself.
At the little passage behind the boat sheds, she stopped.
“I ruined your evening.”
“You did damage to yours too.”
She looked at him. There was sauce on his cuff now. She had watched it drip and hadn't told him.
“Your shirt,” she said.
“I knew one would get through.”
She laughed, miserably. He touched her shoulder, lightly enough that she could move away.
She didn't. She turned towards him and kissed him.
His hand stayed still for a second. Then it moved to the back of her neck and he kissed her properly, warm mouth, warm hand, the scrape of his thumb below her ear. Eva pressed nearer. She had begun because everything else felt horrible and she wanted one thing to go right. Now she wanted his mouth again.
He drew back just far enough to look at her.
“They're not here,” he said.
“I know.”
She kissed him a second time. There was nobody at either end of the passage. There was only the wind lifting the hair at his temple and the astonishing relief of being wanted.
Later, crossing the open quay, she saw Ben near the parked cars. He looked at her, then at Will walking beside her. She felt that small, mean satisfaction again.
It didn't take away the second kiss.