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Phryne was well on her way to being quite drunk. This, whilst always being entertaining, was nothing new to Mac though, as she lounged on the chaise in her best friend’s parlour and contentedly watched the little welcome home party unfold.
The Inspector, however, was a surprise.
Oh, he wasn’t obvious about it, not like Phryne, who was getting louder by the minute (making Mac wince a little), giggling and dancing barefoot with whoever was in her orbit. He was quiet and restrained by comparison, but not by Jack Robinson standards.
He was leaning against the mantle with a drink in hand, as was his custom, but the tension he usually carried was nowhere in his frame. He was looser, relaxed, eyes heavy-lidded and a slight flush apparent on those bloody chiselled cheekbones. Then there was also the way he was looking at Phryne: open and adoring and completely, utterly besotted. He had eyes for her only, and as much as Mac wanted to roll her own eyes and find it vaguely nauseating, the sheer depth of his regard for her friend shone through so clearly that it banished even her cynicism.
And Phryne - flighty, stubbornly independent Phryne - was looking at her Inspector in exactly the same way.
Jack, she thought, self-correcting. Having known the man for quite some time now and certainly after finding a drinking partner in one another during the painful, dark time they’d thought Phryne lost to them, they had crossed some unspoken boundary that took them from colleagues to friends. He was a good man, Mac thought, not for the first time, as she watched Phryne cross the room to him, meandering a little, still swaying to the music in a light and careless (inebriated) way. Jack’s amused smile was wide and unchecked, a sight to behold in itself for Mac had never seen him smile so freely before.
As soon as she stepped into his space (way into it, of course) Jack left his drink on the mantle to rest both hands on her satin-clad hips and Phryne ran hers over his shoulders before fiddling unnecessarily with his tie. Jack leaned in to whisper something in her ear that made her laugh that bright, infectious laugh Mac loved dearly. The music and warm chatter around them made it impossible to hear what they were saying to each other (not that Mac would want to eavesdrop... not at all) but still she watched their faces with a fast-growing sense of wonder.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen them wrapped up in each other what felt like hundreds of times before; the difference here was that they were no longer bothering to hide it. Whatever had happened out in the desert, it had brought them together completely, in a way that meant they were comfortable in proclaiming it to their nearest and dearest here tonight.
They said it without words and without fanfare; they said it in adoring looks and touches freely bestowed, happy to just be themselves, the way they’d always been but more. To revel in it.
And when they finally said it with a kiss (soft, slow... sweet, really, luxuriating in each other) they either ignored or completely failed to notice the way all eyes in the room turned to them for a moment, and then looked away again, feeling, as Mac did, that they were witnessing something profoundly intimate. (A small, pleased smile graced many of their faces though. Even Prudence, Mac noted, looked far more knowing and less shocked at their behaviour than she expected. Hugh Collins had turned a fetching shade of red though, not an ounce of tact in that boy.)
Mac watched though, because she was far enough into her cups that her body was warm and languid, and, taking a leaf from Phryne’s book, she decided she was too interested to be ashamed.
Phryne and Jack kissed with familiarity and playfulness, their inhibitions lowered, but not so much that Mac would have to get Mr Butler to fetch some cold water to douse them with. Not yet, anyway, she amended, as Jack’s hand wandered to the deep V of bare skin that the back of Phryne’s dress exposed.
From her armchair, Prudence cleared her throat.
Phryne was tugging on his lapels then, with purpose, and her voice returned to its previous volume:
“I know you can dance, Jack Robinson, you can’t escape me.”
“I resigned myself to that fact a long time ago,” He replied, sounding incongruously happy about it and allowing himself to be pulled forward by the hand.
Phryne rolled her eyes, “Oh please, you love me.”
He twirled her, purely, Mac imagined, because he knew it would delight her, and pulled her into his arms.
“Yes, I do.” He said it simply, fearlessly, smiling down at her as they swayed with no actual dance in mind, but in synch nonetheless.
And, astonishingly, Phryne smiled radiantly back.
She looked like she was practically glowing, which was the exact opposite of what Mac would’ve expected from her hearing those words. In her experience, Phryne Fisher would run far and fast in the face of a man swearing he loved her, but apparently that was before Jack Robinson patiently, perceptively let her come to him.
Mac wasn’t privy to all the finer details of their long, often frustrating, courtship dance (something else that had always set Jack apart from anyone else, because Phryne was never usually shy about oversharing with Mac) but she remembered the Inspector’s attempts to pull away, and how uncharacteristically upset it had made her friend, though she’d tried to hide it. Mac had called him a coward at the time, but clearly he had found the courage to put his feelings on the back burner and stick around as Phryne’s friend and partner. Things that, though Jack mightn’t have realised, Mac knew Phryne valued far more than a lover.
Which was how Mac knew she could trust him with her best friend’s heart. Quite a relief, really, she’d hate to have to kill him and be inevitably caught by Phryne when she solved his murder.
Finally having run out of energy, it seemed, Phryne laid her head on Jack’s shoulder and he pressed a kiss into her hair whilst nearby an incredibly pregnant Dot danced (shuffled) with her husband and beamed at the other couple with tears in her eyes. Hormones, Mac thought, and shook her head into her glass of whisky.
And if she felt a little emotion clog her own throat later in the evening, when she accused Phryne of being disgustingly happy and her friend laughed, kissed her cheek and sighed “I’m afraid so,” well…
… Mac would just blame it on the alcohol.