Will sat down only after Eva did. He chose the chair opposite hers.
“I didn't tell her to sleep with him,” he said.
Eva looked at his hands on the table.
“What did you tell her to do?”
“She liked him already.”
“Will.”
He rubbed his thumb against a pale mark on the wood.
“I told her if he left you, I could give her the permanent job.”
“My job.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew he wouldn't go until you put it in writing.”
“She told me.”
“So you did.”
He nodded.
Eva picked up the paper and folded it along the old crease. The date disappeared inside it.
“You were nice to me on Monday.”
“I meant that.”
“I told you he'd left. You let me stand there and tell you.”
Will looked up. “I hated seeing you hurt.”
Eva couldn't make that fit in her mouth as a reply. She stared at him until he looked away.
“You knew things weren't good,” he said. “I listened to you for months. You'd be here after closing, doing plans for a bigger flat he wouldn't even look at.”
“So you decided I'd move into yours.”
“I thought you'd see what it could be like. Living here. Us doing this together. Instead of you going home to him every night. I thought you'd want fewer evenings once you were with me.”
She had told him about the flat. Once, while they were closing, she'd cried a little from pure exhaustion and then been furious with herself for crying. Will had made tea and changed the subject when she wanted him to.
“I didn't ask you to do this.”
“I know.”
He leaned forward.
“I didn't know you'd ask me to the harbour,” he said. “I hoped we'd have a chance. Then you came to me. I couldn't have made you do that.”
Eva put the paper down.
“No. I did that.”
Her throat hurt now. She had managed the questions. She hadn't managed hearing the words out of his mouth.
“You didn't need to make it happen,” she said. “We might have broken up anyway. I might have asked you anyway.”
Will's face changed at that. Hope, painfully visible.
“Then we can still—”
“No.”
He stopped.
“Eva, you liked Thursday.”
“I did.”
“That was us. Nobody arranged that.”
She remembered him choking on the toast, her hand on his shoulder, his hand over hers. The silly flowers. How she'd gone to sleep listening to him move round the kitchen, comfortable already.
“I know,” she said.
Her voice broke. Will started to get up, then caught himself.
She covered her mouth with her hand. A ridiculous part of her wanted him to come round the table and hold her. He knew that part. He waited for it.
Eva lowered her hand.
“I'm not going upstairs with you again.”
He sat back.
“I can put things right with the job. Nora won't take it. You keep the hours you want.”
“You can't give me Thursday back by changing a rota.”
He looked down.
Beyond the door, Nora was moving chairs. Eva heard one scrape against the floor and stop. Somebody would be trying very hard to be useful out there.
“What do you want me to do?” Will asked.
She wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “Leave me alone for ten minutes.”
“Are you going?”
“Outside.”
“I mean here. The café.”
She looked at the shelves, the boxes labelled in her own writing.
“Yes,” she said. “I can't work with you after this.”
He pressed his lips together.
“Tonight—”
“Don't ask me yet.”
He waited while she got up. She took the paper, then put it back on the table. She didn't need to carry it to know what she'd read.
At the door he said, “I'd still want you if you didn't work here.”
Eva looked back. He sounded raw, almost angry that she might not believe this one thing.
“You can want me,” she said.
Then she went out through the café and kept walking until the sea was in front of her.