Daniel found her in the kitchen at half past six.
Lena had made tea twice and drunk neither cup. She stood when he came in, then sat because standing made it feel like an announcement she wanted him to applaud.
“I kissed Nate,” she said.
Daniel stopped in the doorway.
He wasn't dressed for work yet. His hair stood up on one side. The ordinary softness of him made the words hurt more than she'd expected.
“When?”
“Last night. After Bea's.”
He looked at the chair opposite her, then back at her.
“Did he kiss you?”
“I started it. He kissed me back.”
She made herself say the second part without rushing. Neither man needed a version in which she had been carried somewhere against her will.
Daniel sat down slowly.
“Where?”
“On the quay.”
“Who saw?”
“I don't know.”
He turned his face away. She could see the muscles in his jaw working. She waited. She owed him room for an answer she might not like.
“Do you want him?”
“Yes.”
His eyes came back to hers.
“I wanted to kiss him,” she said. “I don't know what else it means yet.”
“It means something.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her hands. She had them flat on the table, an attempt to stop herself twisting the ring.
“Did you think about me?”
“Not quickly enough.”
He stood up. She nearly stood as well, then stayed seated. He went to the sink and ran the cold tap. For a long time he drank water from a glass, turned away from her.
Lena remembered yesterday's cake, his parting kiss on her cheek, the light he had left on. None of it needed narrating to him. He had been there.
When he came back he remained standing beside the chair.
“I can't do this with somebody still deciding every time he walks into a room,” he said.
“I know.”
“Don't say that because it sounds right.”
She looked up.
“I don't want you telling me what a good man I am while you wait for him.”
“I haven't.”
“You have. Not the exact words. Enough.”
She felt the truth of that, hot and unpleasant.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “Not because you found out. I wanted to tell you.”
He sat again.
“What do you want now?”
She looked toward the small room. The lamp they'd put there was switched off. The chair was still at the angle she had chosen.
“I want us,” she said. “But I don't expect that to fix what I did.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
“Yes.”
It was her answer now, offered without him having to wait for it. She felt how much of it came from wanting to repair the night.
Daniel reached across the table. She stared at his hand before she took it.
“I don't want to lose us over one kiss,” he said.
She had imagined anger lasting all morning, a door slammed, the end of everything. His generosity hurt in a different way. She cried then, the tears coming too fast to contain.
He came round and crouched beside her chair. She put her face against his shoulder. He held her with one arm, the other hand braced on the table.
“I'm hurt,” he said quietly. “I'm not pretending I'm not.”
She nodded against him.
“But if you're choosing this, choose it. We could make the wedding smaller. Earlier. Just the people we need.”
She lifted her face.
“Earlier?”
“Next week. Or the week after. Stop spending every day waiting for it.”
For a moment she wanted to say yes. No more time for Nate to walk beside her. No more opportunities to fail. Daniel choosing a marriage so clearly that he wanted to do it sooner.
Then she thought of Jo's work, Bea's flowers, all the people she had already asked to rearrange their lives. More than that, she thought of herself saying yes out of shame and fear before either of them had slept.
“No,” she said.
Daniel's arm loosened.
“Not no to you. No to changing it today. We've got a date.”
He stood and looked at the window.
“I won't see him privately again,” she said. “I'll tell him that myself. Once, and then it's done.”
Daniel nodded without looking back.
They ate no breakfast. He went to work late. Before he left he kissed her, briefly and carefully, as if they had become fragile enough to damage by leaning too hard.
At the café Jo took one look at Lena and asked whether she was ill.
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I did something stupid.”
Jo put down the tray in her hands.
Lena shook her head. “I've told Daniel. I need to do my job.”
Her sister wanted to ask more. Lena could see it. But Jo had customers and a kitchen worker waiting for instructions.
“Go and take table two,” she said. “And don't let wanting to feel worse make you useless.”
Lena almost cried again at the plainness of it.
She carried cups, wrote orders carefully and cleaned the big garden table. In the afternoon Bea came for a coffee. Lena told her the birthday had been lovely and stopped there. She couldn't borrow the warmth of the night to make the end of it innocent.
When her shift finished she sent Nate a message.
I told Daniel. I need to talk before you go. Not a walk. Ten minutes by the café tomorrow.
He replied with a time.
At home Daniel had moved the drying rack away from the small room again. He had not abandoned their Friday plan. Lena stood in the doorway and let that kindness feel as undeserved as it was.