Chapter Text
Robin stared blankly at a patch of peeling paint underneath the ledge of the solitary window in the partners’ office, willing time to move at anything other than the glacial pace at which it seemed to be currently stuck. Boredom on surveillance was one thing - there was a purpose to it and the thrill that, at any moment, a break might present itself. This kind of boredom though, was mind numbing and harkened back to days spent temping in white walled offices, listening to the same jokes from a string of different besuited men all, inevitably, named Richard.
She’d been avoiding looking at the clock. The old adage, often quoted by her mother, a watched pot never boils rang in her otherwise blank mind. The hum of noise from the street below was overlaid by Pat’s soft tapping on the keyboard. Lucky, Robin thought. She’d at least got something to do.
She chanced a glance across the shared desk. She’d told Strike to go upstairs, that there was no point to them both sitting here, brains slowly atrophying, but here he was, head down on the desk, eyes softly closed, breathing steady.
‘’S only fair that we’re both here. Shouldn’t just get to take the day off because I live 50 feet away. ‘F you’re not going home, neither am I.’
It was a string of good luck ( Was it good luck, though?) that had landed them in this situation. They’d gone from six open cases to none in the span of seven hours last Friday, having managed to close them all on the same day. Although their waiting list was long, none of their potential new clients were able to meet this week, landing them in a state of inactivity of a kind that the agency hadn’t known in years. At first they’d celebrated. Their bank account had never looked healthier, their subcontractors never happier than with a surprise week off in the middle of summer. Strike had suggested that Robin, too, could take time off, that he’d be perfectly fine manning the office with Pat. He’d tried to keep the sour note from entering his voice as he urged her to call Murphy, to take a spontaneous trip, or whatever it was that happy couples did together on fine summer days. He’d tried to push away the mental image of Robin in a swimsuit, golden hair shining in the Mediterranean sun as she smiled across the sand at that smug fucker Murphy, six pack on display as he applied suncream to his two complete legs. Asshole.
It wasn’t that she snapped at him, exactly, but he sensed that something wasn’t right. Her smile was too tight. He’d catalogued her smiles, had them all stored away in his impressive mind, and he knew that one. It was the same one she’d worn when she looked at Matthew on her wedding day.
‘Want to tell me what’s what, Ellacott?’
‘Sometimes I really hate working with you.’ Her sigh was deep and when she eventually met his gaze he noticed that her eyes lacked their usual sparkle.
‘I’ll take that as a complement, shall I?’ Her laugh caught him by surprise, warming him to his core.
‘Take it as you will,’ She sighed again. ‘But I’m not going anywhere. Bit depressing, sitting alone on the beach, isn’t it?’
When their eyes met, she could see the question written in his expression. He didn’t need to ask. Her silence gave him the answer he was looking for and the corner of his lip twitched and curved briefly upwards before being wrangled back into control.
And so it was that they had settled into a week of drudgery, each stubbornly refusing to leave the office until closing time or, more importantly, to address the shadow that loomed large every time their eyes met.
Robin settled back into her chair, eyes still on her dozing partner. She allowed herself to observe the minute details of his appearance that had remained somewhat of a mystery to her: the way his eyelashes, impossibly long, fanned out over his lower lids; the curl of his hair that she’d once thought of as riotous, but actually kept to a rather neat and orderly pattern; an out of place swirl of dark hair on his forearm where the rest of it grew straight. She was almost tempted to reach out and touch it when she sensed a change in his breathing. As his eyes slowly opened, adjusting to the bright light in the office, she settled her gaze back onto the flaking paint on the eastern wall of the office. Take it easy, she told herself.
The creak of his chair told her he was standing.
‘Cuppa?’ his voice was slightly hoarse from sleep.
‘Please.’ She turned to smile at him, willing the openness of her face to start the conversation that her brain was unable to, but he was already gone, speaking to Pat in the outer office, her gravelly baritone almost indistinct from his.
Ten minutes later, her favourite mug appeared in front of her, tea perfectly brewed to her exact liking. Wrapping her hands around the blue porcelain, she looked up at Strike and reached toward the middle of the desk, toward the plate of biscuits that always accompanied their mid-morning brew, but found it absent.
‘No biscuits?’ She raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Who are you, and what have you done with Cormoran Strike?’
The feeling that flooded her at the sound of his soft chuckle took her by surprise. It’s time. She thought. Beyond time.
‘Just want to reserve my appetite.’ He replied. ‘Thought we could make the most of the slow day and go for lunch, if you want?’ The question held much more than the words conveyed.
‘Yeah? Shall I call down to The Flying Horse? Make sure we can get a table?’
‘Actually I already did.’ Was he blushing slightly?
‘Oh.’ She felt her face colouring too. ‘Okay.’
‘So one o’clock, Ellacott.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We’ve got something we need to talk about.’