His face does something painful at the edges.
Relief colliding with nerves.
“You say that very quickly.”
“I’ve had a lot of time.”
His laugh is brief and thin.
“Right.”
I stop in front of him.
Close enough now that I can see the exhaustion in his eyes.
The travel.
The month.
All of it sitting there.
Philip lowers the frame carefully onto the sideboard.
His hands stay there for a second, braced against the wood.
Then he says, without looking at me, “I needed to know if I was the only idiot still stuck in Whitstable.”
My chest tightens so hard it is almost a physical pain.
“No,” I say.
He closes his eyes.
Just briefly.
“No,” I repeat, quieter now. “You really weren’t.”
Philip laughs once.
And this time it sounds dangerously close to breaking.
He drags a hand over his face.
“I spent a month trying to make Toronto feel like the right choice again.”
I do not interrupt.
“I kept telling myself I missed home in a general sense. England. Sophie. Luke. Proper tea.”
His hand drops.
He looks at me.
“But every time my phone went off, I wanted it to be you.”
There.
The simple truth.
