The coolness isn't entirely unexpected. Nor the way her lips thin, now and again, when she looks at him. When.
Because if anything she's looking more at Danny, even if they all seems to be torn between who exactly to be looking or not looking at. But it's not unexpected when she looks at him, sharp and discerning, after his joke. He's pretty sure whatever figured itself out between them over yesterday and today, already saw itself out. Right around the first time Danny did.
Lingering in her gaze, the ways her eyes narrow for just a moment, full of this thing he didn't say out loud. Never told her. Because Danny actually did that part. Which he hadn't anticipated happening, or had any sort of game plan ready for. If anything he was going to get around to figuring out what the answers to those question that side checked him suddenly were on Danny's part. At some point. Sometime. That hadn't even been a must for tonight or tomorrow.
Instead it was all laid out, face up, like cards on the island separating all of them into different kitchen quadrants.
The one that still blurs everything. He's had both of them in this room at one point or another. More than once. The memory of her laughter everywhere. Of Danny making that face. Standing there, tonight, chopping vegetables. The number of meals cooked here by his mother, his parents together, when he was too young to know things could be different than they'd always been. His father or him or Mary getting underfoot and being sent away, or conscripted to help.
He hears the words, the way she tips toward Danny, figuratively, with her very to-the-point blunt words. Confiding in way that seems to both comfort and startle Danny, but in a way that, really, is all Cath. Everything is always on the surface with her. He isn't really surprised, he isn't, when her last words there, words he doesn't know if are gracefully bowing out or just fleeing the room, the house, all of this, as calmly as possible, are for him.
That they sound like a question, but they aren't one, at least as much as they ever are. But he nods, saying, "Sure."
Standing up from where he was leaning and giving Danny a short look more than any words, like there's was some need to imprint upon him, standing there still toying with the beer between his hands as what seemed his one safe focal point, that he was coming back. Like there could ever be a question to it. Even if the words never actually leave Steve's head, never even touch his throat or his mouth.
Before he's holding a hand out, still polite, if more edge-worn again, for ladies first, even in the kitchen, -- but especially because somehow, for some reason, she's still going easy on this all so far -- and then following her out from both the kitchen and Danny, aware it might actually only extend to being that way in Danny's presence.
no subject
Because if anything she's looking more at Danny, even if they all seems to be torn between who exactly to be looking or not looking at. But it's not unexpected when she looks at him, sharp and discerning, after his joke. He's pretty sure whatever figured itself out between them over yesterday and today, already saw itself out. Right around the first time Danny did.
Lingering in her gaze, the ways her eyes narrow for just a moment, full of this thing he didn't say out loud. Never told her. Because Danny actually did that part. Which he hadn't anticipated happening, or had any sort of game plan ready for. If anything he was going to get around to figuring out what the answers to those question that side checked him suddenly were on Danny's part. At some point. Sometime. That hadn't even been a must for tonight or tomorrow.
Instead it was all laid out, face up, like cards on the island separating all of them into different kitchen quadrants.
The one that still blurs everything. He's had both of them in this room at one point or another. More than once. The memory of her laughter everywhere. Of Danny making that face. Standing there, tonight, chopping vegetables. The number of meals cooked here by his mother, his parents together, when he was too young to know things could be different than they'd always been. His father or him or Mary getting underfoot and being sent away, or conscripted to help.
He hears the words, the way she tips toward Danny, figuratively, with her very to-the-point blunt words. Confiding in way that seems to both comfort and startle Danny, but in a way that, really, is all Cath. Everything is always on the surface with her. He isn't really surprised, he isn't, when her last words there, words he doesn't know if are gracefully bowing out or just fleeing the room, the house, all of this, as calmly as possible, are for him.
That they sound like a question, but they aren't one, at least as much as they ever are. But he nods, saying, "Sure."
Standing up from where he was leaning and giving Danny a short look more than any words, like there's was some need to imprint upon him, standing there still toying with the beer between his hands as what seemed his one safe focal point, that he was coming back. Like there could ever be a question to it. Even if the words never actually leave Steve's head, never even touch his throat or his mouth.
Before he's holding a hand out, still polite, if more edge-worn again, for ladies first, even in the kitchen, -- but especially because somehow, for some reason, she's still going easy on this all so far -- and then following her out from both the kitchen and Danny, aware it might actually only extend to being that way in Danny's presence.