Kit: The Morning After the Beginning

Dad knew before I told him. He was fitting a brake cable when I came downstairs, and he looked at my face for approximately half a second.

“Good walk?”

“Yes.”

“Long one.”

“Not particularly.”

He trimmed the cable. “Weather held.”

I waited.

He waited.

“Are you going to ask?” I said.

“No. Your mum said I wasn't allowed to make this annoying.”

“How's that going?”

“Within the rules, I think.”

I kissed him on the cheek, which surprised him enough to make him stop talking. Then I went upstairs before he could recover.

Nell called at ten. I answered too quickly and heard her laugh.

“Were you holding the phone?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I could ask why you were calling.”

“To discuss the harbour route, obviously.”

We spent twenty minutes not discussing it. She was sitting in her garden with a cup of tea. I could hear Ollie through the open kitchen door, objecting to something that sounded like basic hygiene.

At some point, the conversation changed from being delighted that we could say these things to considering what they meant.

“Are we telling people?” Nell asked.

“Which people?”

“Taz will know by looking at me. My family appears to have established a surveillance operation. I mean the project people.”

I considered Celia's sample cover. “I don't want it to become the reason they use our work.”

“Same.”

“But I don't want to lie about it either.”

“We can just not put it in the promotional copy.”

“That sounds sensible.”

“Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation.”

We agreed that our relationship was not a project asset. The guide still needed to work for a reader who wasn't interested in either of us. If somebody asked directly, we could answer. If we wanted to hold hands, we could. We didn't owe anyone a photograph to prove it.

It was a practical conversation and, unexpectedly, a romantic one. Nell was making room for us without turning us into a better headline.

That afternoon, Luca and I helped dismantle the lighting for a children's dance show at the arts centre. He operated the desk while I labelled cables and stacked cases with the adult technician. A plastic tiara had been left beneath a seat. Luca placed it on the sound desk with the seriousness of someone establishing a new management structure.

“So,” he said when the technician went to find a trolley.

“So what?”

“You've checked your phone eleven times.”

“I haven't.”

“I stopped counting at eleven.”

I sat on the edge of the stage, not blocking the aisle. “Nell and I went out.”

“Out where?”

“Luca.”

He grinned. “Finally.”

“That's not a helpful response.”

“It wasn't designed to be.”

I told him enough to make him smile without giving him the private parts. He listened, then asked about Manchester.

“We know,” I said.

“That you're going, yes. Do you know what you're doing about it?”

“We've been together less than twenty-four hours.”

“Fair.”

I looked at the empty seats. “I don't want to decide it's impossible before we try.”

“Then don't.”

“Very comprehensive advice.”

“I'm saving the detailed version for your invoice.”

The technician came back with the trolley. We finished the work. At the end, Luca took a photograph of the tiara on the desk and sent it to the group chat with the caption new artistic director, uncompromising.

Nell replied with a sentence so good that I laughed out loud in the quiet hall.

On Tuesday, she arrived at the library carrying iced coffees we'd bought ourselves, not charged to the project. She set mine beside the laptop and leaned down to kiss my cheek.

Jo looked up from the next table.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” Nell replied with magnificent composure.

Jo looked at me. I looked at the coffee. Then she returned to her paperwork.

That was all. I had spent half an hour deciding how awkward it might be, and Jo had chosen not to make it a subject unless we did.

We worked for two hours. The museum paragraph still needed cutting. The picnic cost varied depending on what people already had at home. The accessible viewpoint route needed its own clear description rather than a vague promise in a box. We disagreed about the title of the making activity and resolved it without either of us becoming less kissable.

At lunch, Nell opened the document for the publicity feature.

“Celia asked me to write this,” she said. “It's meant to be in my voice, about how the guide happened. I thought I'd draft it and then you could check the parts about us.”

“Okay.”

“I put both our roles in the application for the Beacon too.”

“Good.”

She turned the screen so I could see the first paragraph. It described her complaint, the museum, the bad umbrella. It was funny. It sounded like her.

“It's good,” I said.

“That's all?”

“Do you want me to find something wrong?”

“Not desperately.”

I kissed her behind the returns trolley when we were both getting up to stretch. It was quick and badly timed; a man came round the corner looking for a book about compost, and we moved apart with more guilt than the circumstances justified.

The man looked from one of us to the other.

“Gardening?” he said.

“Ground floor,” Nell answered. “Left of the stairs.”

He thanked her and went away.

We laughed into each other's shoulders until Jo called that she could hear us, at which point we attempted to behave like paid professionals.

For the rest of the afternoon, Nell's foot rested against mine beneath the table. It made working slower. I did not complain.