Chapter Text
Robin glanced up from her screen as Strike came through from the inner office. “What time are we meeting the others later?”
“Uh, six,” he replied. He dumped his mug in the sink, picked up the biscuit tin, put it down again.
Robin frowned at her screen. It was one thing writing the bare facts of infidelity into the case notes for a file. It was quite another writing the covering letter to the client outlining the evidence for the unlucky spouse to take home and digest at leisure after their face-to-face explanation. She’d found these harder to write since her divorce, painfully aware of the pain she was...well, not inflicting. She was just the bearer of bad news. Imparting?
She gradually became aware of Strike still stood there, fiddling with the biscuit tin. She glanced up again with a grin. “We out again? It’s your turn.” She stopped. He looked— “What’s up?”
“Er...”
She could have sworn he was blushing, just a little. Intrigued, she swung her chair to face him, letter forgotten. What was going on?
“This carol thing later,” he began, and stopped again.
“Yes?”
They were meeting Lucy and Greg, Ilsa and Nick to go and sing carols and admire the huge Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, and hopefully repair to the pub for a couple of drinks afterwards. Strike had only agreed to go in a moment of sentimental idiocy when Lucy had told him Robin was coming too. And now—
“I, er, just spoke to Lucy.”
“Is she cancelling?”
“No, she was trying to extend. She’s got this friend, a fellow school mum, newly divorced, who she wants to bring along.”
“Oh, that’ll be nice.”
“For me.”
“Oh— Oh.”
“It’s not funny.” Strike scowled.
Robin stopped trying to hide her grin. “It is a bit.”
“Well, anyway, she’s not coming.”
“So you’re okay, then?”
Strike hesitated, sighed. “I fucked up, Robin. I don’t know what possessed me to say it, I’m sorry.”
“Say what?”
“I told her I wasn’t single, and for some reason she asked if I was going out with you, and I couldn’t think of a lie fast enough and she started squealing and ran with it—” He tailed off, blushing properly now.
“So now Lucy thinks we’re a couple?”
“Er, yeah. And she’s delighted. Sorry.” He gazed into the empty biscuit tin, unable to meet her cool grey gaze.
There was a long pause. Hesitantly, Strike raised his eyes to Robin’s. He’d expected to see...embarrassment? Irritation? Accusation? But she was grinning.
“Er, you don’t look cross,” he said hopefully.
Robin giggled. “Oh, we could have such fun with this,” she replied.
“You...don’t mind?”
“Mind? Nah, it’ll be fun. Just make sure you tell Nick and Ilsa, I’d feel bad deceiving them. But if this gets your sister off your case for a few months...?”
“Um, okay. Yeah. Thanks, Robin. I’ll text Nick.”
Robin nodded and turned back to her screen, smiling.