On Friday Daniel came home with a narrow shelf and a bad mood.
The shelf was for the small room. The mood was from a man who had changed his mind about every socket in a kitchen after Daniel had already fitted them.
Lena took the shelf from him before he could bang it against the door.
“You can hate him for ten minutes,” she said. “Then we have furniture.”
“I might need eleven.”
“Expensive.”
She made him tea. He sat on the floor of the small room and complained while she laid out the screws. She liked hearing him angry about something ordinary. He didn't turn every difficulty into a threat to the life they were making.
By the time the tea was gone, he had apologised for bringing the work home.
“You're allowed,” she said. “I bring customers home all the time. Mostly in my head.”
They put the shelf together. Lena held the side while he fitted the first screws. When he reached to steady her hand, she accused him of distrusting her craftsmanship.
“I've seen your picture hooks,” he said.
“That was art, not carpentry.”
He laughed. The room became warmer for it.
They carried the shelf to the wall and began deciding what went on it. His folders needed one level. Her sketchbooks needed less room than she thought, until she found four older ones in a box under the weights.
She opened one. At the back was a drawing of Daniel making breakfast, broad shoulders bent over their small pan. She had forgotten drawing it. His face was only half finished.
He crouched beside her.
“That's me.”
“Sharp eye.”
“Were you going to give me the other half?”
“You moved.”
He touched the page with one finger, careful not to rub it.
“Can we keep that one out?”
She looked at him. “You want to look at yourself cooking?”
“I want to look at how you looked at me.”
The sentence was so direct it stopped her. She handed him the book.
He set it on the desk and propped the page open with two spare screws. They both looked at it, ridiculous little display and all.
The weights still blocked the doorway. Daniel wanted them within reach; Lena moved her bag out of the way and stood looking at the space they had left.
He found a low box that fitted beside the cupboard. She shifted one sketchbook so his invoices could lie flat on the shelf. The drying rack would have to stay in the kitchen.
When they finished, Lena sat at the desk. Daniel turned the lamp on. The light fell over the drawing of him, then over her hand.
He leaned on the chair back. She reached up to touch his cheek.
“I like this,” she said.
“So do I.”
They kissed standing between the desk and the cupboard. There was barely room. That made them laugh. He pulled her toward the bedroom without asking her to make the moment mean anything else.
Later, she lay against him and told him about the sketching walk she'd booked for Sunday morning. A woman who drew the harbour was taking a small group round town. Lena had booked it weeks ago, before everything changed.
“Go,” Daniel said.
“I thought we could have the morning together.”
“We can have the afternoon.”
She picked a loose thread from the sheet and wound it round her finger.
“I also want to change a couple of my hours,” she said. “Jo needs evening cover. If I take Tuesdays and one Thursday, I can have a weekday morning off. You're here more now.”
“Sometimes.”
“We could have breakfast. Not always grabbing it before work.”
He rubbed her shoulder. “When I'm free, yes.”
She kissed his shoulder.
The next morning she told Jo about the rota change. Her sister made her repeat the hours, then agreed to try them through the summer rather than forever.
“You're the one who gets tired at six,” Jo said.
“I'll eat something properly.”
“I'll believe it when I see it.”
Lena messaged the drawing group that she wouldn't come after all. She told herself she wanted an unhurried Sunday with Daniel more than a morning with strangers.
When the organiser sent back a kind message and offered her place to someone else, Lena felt the loss before she'd had the new day.