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Of all Anthony Bridgerton’s terrible ideas, Kate thinks this might just be the worst.
Seriously - a corporate camping weekend? Forty-eight entire hours spent with colleagues in a forest, all in the name of team-building?
In what bizarre Bridgerton universe did that sound like a good idea?
It’s not the first time she’s been frustrated by having her oldest frenemy for her boss. She very much doubts it will be the last. She suspects that, on the contrary, he will keep vexing her until she either drops dead or quits her job.
Hmm. Perhaps she’s being too dramatic. She does very much like her job, to be clear. Bridgerton and Partners is a very successful law firm, but also quite a positive and comfortable sort of place to work. The only discomfort of any kind is Anthony himself - he’s simultaneously the most exasperating and dutiful and beautiful person she’s ever met.
Yes. Well. She tends to focus on the exasperating part, obviously.
So here she is, the helpless victim of his latest ridiculous plan. He’s booked a corporate camping team-building package, and she likes her job so she stupidly showed up to the thing, and now she’s all alone in a leaking tent, with half-a-dozen of her colleagues pitched around her.
She sighs to herself. It’s fine. Her tent isn’t leaking badly. It’s just a little bit damp in one corner. It’s not leaking enough to make a fuss, not enough to go ask for help and risk looking weak in front of all her colleagues. And anyway - there’s archery in the morning. She likes archery.
She rolls over, tries to find a drier corner of the tent to sleep in. She muses for perhaps the fourteenth time that Agatha Danbury, one of her more sensible coworkers, was wise to decide she was too old for this ridiculous excursion.
Kate is about three decades younger, but still thinks she might be too old for this.
…….
It gets worse.
Just south of three in the morning, she wakes up to the sudden realisation that she’s actually sleeping in a puddle.
It’s quite a deep puddle, for the record. All this heavy rain must have waterlogged the ground, and somehow it has forced its way right into the tent. Her sleeping bag is soaked, there’s a couple of inches of standing water inside the groundsheet, and she thinks the world might be ending.
No. She’s an intelligent woman, a successful lawyer, and not about to admit defeat. This whole damn excursion was Anthony’s idea, and she’d be handing him an implicit victory if she crumpled now.
She can endure. She can persevere and survive long enough to win the archery tomorrow.
Although - she’s not going to win any archery if she’s dead of hypothermia.
Right. So she needs to get out of this flooded tent. What are her options?
Anthony. Anthony is, she must admit, pretty much her only option. He’s the one who organised this thing, who gave her a lift here as well. He was sort of obliged to drive her here by consequence of being a close family friend, his sister’s ex.
That part’s a long story.
Anyway - so going and begging Anthony for help is more or less her only viable move. She’ll probably just ask if she can borrow his car key and sleep in the car. He’ll be a total insufferable arse about it, of course, but at least she won’t get hypothermia and will get a decent shot at that archery in the morning.
She pauses, just a moment, water still seeping into her clothes as she considers whether she has missed out any other options.
Are there any fellow women on this trip she might feel more comfortable asking for help? No, just Cressida Cowper, the most ill-suited HR manager in the whole of history. Any more polite men who might not be an insufferable arse about it?
She could ask Thomas Dorset for a rescue. He seems like a sweet soul, although to be fair she doesn’t know him well. He always makes polite conversation when she bumps into him in the breakroom.
Yeah - probably best just to ask Anthony for those car keys. He’s a decent sort, fundamentally, even if he’s the bane of her existence. Better the devil you know, and all that.
She leaves her tent. It’s raining hard, outside. Obviously it is - that’s why her tent is flooded.
She jogs over towards Anthony’s tent. He’s pitched it on slightly higher ground, the infuriating man. How annoyingly sensible of him.
“Hey - Bridgerton. Wake up. I need your car keys.” Best start out bold, rather than seem to be weakly asking for a favour. She’s learnt that, over all the years she’s known him.
“Kate?” He asks, too quickly to have ever been asleep.
“I need the car keys. Please.” She adds, as a sort of afterthought.
“Why? What happened? You didn’t leave anything in the car - I checked.”
She smiles despite herself, even as she stands there in the rain. Of course he checked she had removed all her belongings from the car. That’s just the sort of interfering perfectionist he is.
“Kate? You still there?” He actually unzips the tent, actually peeps out to look at her. “Woah - it’s raining even harder than I realised.”
“Yes. That’s - uh - that’s why I’m here. Tent’s a bit flooded. Thought I would sleep in the car if that’s alright.”
“You’re soaked!”
“I promise not to get it on your precious car seats. I’ll sleep in the boot or something. Honestly, I’m past caring. Can I please just borrow the key?” She admits defeat, begs him just a little.
She’s standing in the pouring rain, a drowned rat, begging Anthony Bridgerton to be a gentleman and rescue her.
She’s never been more pissed off in her life.
“I can’t just leave you to shiver in the car like that. You’ll catch your death.” He says, as if he actually cares what happens to her.
Probably it’s just because it would ruin his corporate team-building charade, she supposes. That’s probably the only reason he’s suddenly so concerned about the state of her health.
“What - and you’ve got a better idea? Going to make me spend the night in the bathroom block?” She asks, all bitter and grumpy.
He disappears. He retreats back inside his tent, leaves her standing there in the rain.
She’s always hated storms, for the record. And for the last six hours or so she’s been carefully telling herself that this is heavy rain, not a storm. That there’s no thunder, no howling wind, just a steady, English downpour.
But now, in her misery, it does feel a bit like a storm.
What’s Anthony doing? Has he genuinely just gone back to hide inside his own tent, decided this isn’t his problem and left her to her fate?
She didn’t think he’d do that. He’s annoyingly decent, for a man who infuriates her.
“Bridgerton? Are you just going to leave me here?” She actually humbles herself enough to ask it.
“Of course not.”
Suddenly, all at once, he’s emerging from his tent wearing the most substantial waterproof she’s ever seen. It looks like the kind of thing English aristocrats wear to go sailing during November, she thinks.
She resolves to tease him about that, later, just as soon as she’s not borderline hypothermic.
“There’s dry clothes in the porch of my tent. Take your wet things off there and bag them up. I’ll leave you to it while I go salvage your stuff.”
And then he just… goes. He simply stomps away across the campsite, like some devotedly dutiful minor royal at an agricultural photoshoot.
Yes. She’s particularly proud of that comparison. She’ll tell him it, later. She loves being able to tease him for actually being a minor member of the nobility, from time to time.
She stands there for a moment and watches him go. She muses, silently, that it’s surprisingly decent even for him - even for the most decent arsehole she knows - to actually put a bit of effort into salvaging her gear.
Then sense reasserts itself, and she crawls into the tent. She doesn’t like obeying Anthony Bridgerton, as a general rule - aside from the basic compliance she owes him as his employee, of course - but on this occasion, get changed in the porch of this dry tent seems like a very wise idea.
She shuffles inside, takes stock of her situation. It’s not a big tent porch, but it’s bigger than the one she’s just left, and infinitely dryer. She inspects the heap of clothes he’s left her, and wonders briefly what she thinks she’s playing at, changing into Anthony’s spare sweats.
Hmm. They smell like him. Which - obviously they do, and obviously she doesn’t know his smell so particularly well, and obviously -
Obviously she’s going to spend the night wearing Anthony’s clothes which smell like him, and that’s just life.
She changes quickly, drying herself off with the dryer patches of her own clothes as best she can. She bundles all her wet things up, shoves them in the bag, wonders what to do next.
He didn’t give her instructions for what happens next. He did invite her into the tent in general, but he didn’t say she was staying. He didn’t tell her to go on ahead into the warm part where he actually sleeps.
He didn’t tell her to do it, but she does it anyway. She’s never been one to wait around for his orders.
She doesn’t snuggle down into his sleeping bag, though, however temptingly warm it looks. That would clearly be crossing some sort of line. However much he’s her favourite exasperating overfamiliar frenemy, she doesn’t actually think it’s okay to get into his bed without his consent.
She sits in the corner of his tent, and waits like a slightly damp damsel in distress for the minorly aristocratic man in her life to come back and rescue her.
He doesn’t disappoint. He reappears within a couple of minutes, unzipping the tent and unzipping his jacket, too, by the sound of it.
“I can’t be bothered to deal with this bag of wet things. I’ll do it in the morning.” He announces suddenly.
She frowns at the layer of nylon between them. “I don’t think it’s yours to deal with. They’re my clothes.”
“Nevertheless, I’ll deal with it in the morning.”
Hmm. There’s something rather endearing about a man who would use nevertheless unironically in 2024, she decides.
“I’ve got everything else under control.” He tells her now, and she can hear him tugging off his shoes. “The rest of your gear is in the car. I spread some of it out so it’ll dry if the car gets hot in this sun we’re forecast tomorrow. Your tent is dismantled and hanging in the bathroom block. I rescued your phone - thought you might want that - and your coffee jar. I know how you get if you have to drink tea in the morning.”
That’s it. That’s the moment which breaks her, honestly. She’s known this man a decade or more, now, watched him date her sister a couple of months, then become a family friend, then somehow, inexplicably, ended up employed in his company.
And now, in this moment, she admits defeat.
“You’re a good guy.” She tells him outright, tired, honest. “Thanks. I didn’t expect you to sort my tent out and everything. I was honestly just going to sleep in the car.”
“Well - this is better. Don’t want you getting cold.”
He’s finished with his shoes now, it seems. He’s unzipping that door which was hanging between them, shuffling into the sleeping space with that fabulous tent-shuffle which is only useful in moments like this.
“Sorry. Excuse me. Oops.” He mutters, all awkward, as he tries to crawl into the space she’s left with his sleeping bag.
“So - ah - it’s alright if I crash here?” She has to ask it out loud in actual words. That seems to be what he’s suggesting, but she’s not about to risk getting it wrong.
“Yes. Absolutely. Obviously. Sorry - your sleeping bag couldn’t be saved. I hope it’ll be dry by tomorrow night.” He tells her.
“No worries. I’m wearing enough layers. I’ll be fine. Really - thanks.”
He nods. Silence sits a moment. She wonders whether they’re going to sit here, nodding at each other in the dim light of his dorky tent-lantern all night, or whether they might eventually get some sleep.
Not that he seemed to be asleep when she first came over here, just now.
“I am sorry about all this.” He says suddenly. “It’s a shame it’s turned out this way. I chose this because I really thought you would like it. You do like archery.”
She meets his eyes urgently. “You chose this for me?”
“Nigel’s quite outdoorsy too. And I guess it’s my kind of thing as well.” He hedges.
She frowns at him, unimpressed. Even in the dim light of that suspended torch she trusts he can see she’s unimpressed. He’s known her long enough, now, and she’s been unimpressed at him often enough, that he ought to have a good knowledge of her unimpressed face.
It works. He gets on with explaining himself.
“I just thought it was only fair to choose something that would suit you for our office away-weekend.” He tells her, jaw set firm. “When almost all the rest of us are white men, I thought it would be pretty harsh to make you even more uncomfortable by insisting we spend our corporate team-building time doing something that would put you on the back foot. You’d never have forgiven me if we spent the weekend with a professional coach called Logan who made us bullet journal our goals while Featherington talked over you without pausing for breath.” He concludes, in a decisive sort of tone.
Hmm. He really is infuriatingly caring, sometimes, this exasperating man.
“You really need to stop being so... sweet.” She half-spits the word at him. “You’re ruining our vibe, Bridgerton. How am I supposed to be mad at you when you brought the whole company here so we could spend our damn team-building weekend doing something I actually like?”
“Focus on the weather and your ruined gear. You’ll be mad at me again before long.” He recommends sagely.
She laughs, shakes her head at him, and briefly gives serious consideration to the idea of offering him a hug.
No. That’s insanity. She can’t go around hugging him. They don’t hug, not ever.
Or - not unless it’s the office Christmas party, and she’s sloshed, and he’s telling her that his cat is seriously sick. But that was one time, damn it, and she’s certainly not going to repeat it.
Without further ado, she starts stretching herself out, manoeuvring to lie down on what appears to be her side of the tent for the foreseeable future. Best to just try to get some sleep before this gets any more weird and friendly and domestic, she thinks.
Of course, the moment she’s reached that resolution, Anthony goes and ruins it. He’s very bad for her resolve in general, and she resents it.
She resents it sharply.
“Want half a sleeping bag?” He offers, scooting down into his own bed.
“Which half - are we cutting it down the middle? Did you bring a scout knife?” She jokes fondly.
“Very funny. Really - we can share it if you like. I promise to be a perfect gentleman about it. We can just unzip it and lie this far apart. It’ll work out fine.”
“If you’re sure. Thanks. I’ve been warmer.” She admits grudgingly.
It doesn’t work out fine, in the end. It’s one of those mummy-shaped sleeping bags, not a rectangle, so even once it’s unzipped it doesn’t stretch over both of them at all. But by then they’ve committed to sharing it, of course, and neither of them ever backs down over anything, and Kate is shivering more than she’d like to let on, and the two of them just end up shuffling awkwardly, stiffly closer to each other until they can actually fit underneath their makeshift duvet.
By the time they manage it, they’re pressed right up against each other, arm to arm, lying on their backs and staring up at that little suspended torch-lantern.
“You know - this is my perfect work team weekend. Thank you so much. Just my idea of a good time. I can’t wait for the archery.” She intones, all sarcastic and yes, also very fond.
He laughs. “The thing is, I know you actually can’t wait for the archery. Get some sleep, Kate. You’re going to have to be at your best tomorrow to wipe the floor with the rest of us.”
“I’d tell you to get some sleep too, but it seemed like you weren't finding it easy.” She notes, carefully light.
“I hate heavy rain. Always have. Sound of it goes right through me. So - don’t worry. I’ll be wide awake if any rabid squirrels try to break into our tent in the night.”
She nods a bit. She fidgets slightly, rolls a little way, wonders whether she might be more comfortable on her side.
“I want you on my raft-building team in the afternoon.” She tells him around a yawn. It’s a bit of a nonsequitur, perhaps - and as a lawyer she likes to think she has a fair grasp of verbal logic - but it strikes her as a good way of explaining that she’s quite grateful for everything good about him, tonight.
“Right back at you.”
It’s one of the stranger conversations she’s ever had at three in the morning.
…….
When the following day dawns, Anthony is spooning her closely, and his erect cock is unmistakably pressing into her butt.
That’s interesting, she thinks. That means he must have fallen asleep sometime. She knows full well he’d never be caught dead spooning her if he was awake and conscious of his actions.
So - he managed to drift off, even though she can still hear the patter of raindrops. Is that because this doesn’t count as heavy rain, any more, or have all his chivalric adventures in the early hours worn him out or lulled him into rest?
She’s not sure. She’s probably not brave enough to find out, either.
She simply gets on with causing all manner of trouble, instead.
“Well this is a good cliché.” She says, out loud - just loud enough to wake him up, in fact, she hopes.
“Hrmph.”
“A cliché, Bridgerton. Wake up and acknowledge that we are a cliché, please.” She repeats. She grinds her butt back against him a little for good measure, too. That ought to help, she hopes.
Ooh. He’s awake now. She can tell because his arm just tightened around her waist, because he let out a strange little huff of surprise.
“Ah. A cliché.” He repeats, in a tense sort of tone.
She laughs, does him the favour of shuffling over to the far side of the tent at last. “Don’t worry about it. I know your perfect gentleman speech by heart, and I’m too grateful for your help last night to tease you about it.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Much.”
He chuckles a loud chuckle - overly loud, she thinks - and rolls a bit further away in turn.
“Cheers, Kate. Come on, then. The day awaits - let’s go win you an archery contest.”
Everyone stares when they emerge from his tent together. Of course they do. She’s wearing his clothes and everything. Even Thomas Dorset’s eyes look about fit to spring out of his head.
But then again, Anthony is the owner of the firm they all work for, so no one actually says anything about it.
Hmm. There are advantages to spending the night with the most insufferable boss in the world.
…….
She does win the archery. She and Anthony - and Thomas and Nigel - do win the rafting contest, leaving Cressida’s team quite literally high and dry. It is, in many ways, all business as usual. Just another day at the office, only their office has temporarily become an outdoor activities centre.
The weather clears over the course of the day, too. By the time they finish with their activities that evening, her tent has even dried out.
“Want me to help you pitch it?” Anthony offers, seeing her lugging all that nylon back from the bathroom block.
“Please. Maybe it’ll be watertight if you lend a hand. Maybe I’m just useless with tents.” She mutters, frustrated, arms aching. She’s not looking forward to doing this all again.
“Did you check the forecast? You sure it won’t rain again?” He asks, thoughtful.
“I had a look. Thirty percent chance of a shower in the early hours of tomorrow. I think I’m good to sleep here tonight.” She says, raising that cursed heap of tent aloft again.
“Really? Thirty percent is quite a lot of percent. I’m not sure you want to risk that.”
“Oh - and you’re an expert on what risks I want to take?” She counters.
“I didn’t say that. I just think -”
“You’re the most risk-averse person I know. I swear your sister once told me you didn’t even let her go ice-skating as a kid. Really - ice-skating - and if you think you can tell me that thirty percent is -”
“I’m only saying, you could share my tent again if you don’t want to take the risk - or if you can’t be bothered pitching a leaking tent again for one night. I won’t judge you.”
Oh. Well, then. If he won’t judge her, and if he understands she might be exhausted by all this tent crap after a busy week at work, then she might not mind his high-handed ways so much after all.
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” He clears his throat. “I think it helped me sleep through the rain, actually. So if that thirty percent chance does come to anything…”
“You’re right. I’d better stick with you. If it does rain, it can be my way of thanking you for helping me out last night.” She concludes neatly.
He nods, coughs lightly, and holds out his arms in her general direction.
“What?” She asks, short and puzzled.
“I can put that in the car, if you want.” He gestures again, arms outstretched, to the tangle of tent.
“I can stow my own tent, Bridgerton. Just lend me the key.”
He’s grinning for some reason as he hands it over.
……..
They make some improvements to their sleeping arrangements that night.
Kate brings her dry sleeping bag, so they have one each. Anthony starts the evening spooning her, albeit with a chaste layer of sleeping bags in between them, rather than the two of them pretending to stay far apart until they have fallen asleep.
It’s quite pleasant, all things considered. It’s warmer than sleeping alone, and it’s kind of comforting after a bit of an emotional marathon last night in all that pouring rain. A close cuddle is always a reassuring sort of thing, isn’t it?
Anthony is a restless sleeper, it turns out, when he’s not lying awake in the rain. He fidgets constantly, his legs twitching all over the place even as he holds her tight. That’s annoying, she decides. It’s annoying like everything else about the man is annoying.
The most annoying thing about him? It’s getting harder and harder to pretend she doesn’t adore him.
…….
They go back to work on Monday morning, and they never, ever talk about it.
They never talk about the spooning or the tent-sharing, that is, or the earnest kindness, or his morning erection pressing into her butt cheeks two times over.
But they do talk about the damn corporate camping weekend a great deal. Anthony is absolutely evangelical about how much it has done to improve their communication as a team.
Kate has still never had a civil conversation with Cressida Cowper, so she thinks he might be talking out of his arse.
“Don’t you think last weekend was a roaring success?” He’s asking Thomas in the breakroom, at eleven on Wednesday, for no apparent reason.
Kate sidles into the room and gets on with briskly, pragmatically making a coffee.
“You’re only saying that because we won the rafting.” Thomas hedges.
“Kate thought it was good, right? A worthwhile work weekend away?”
“I think we all saw a different side of each other and I never say no to winning an archery contest.” She tries, unusually cautious.
“Exactly! So we should do it again. I definitely think we should do it again. I might call the centre and see if they can book us in for October some time.”
“October?” She asks him, flabbergasted. “We’ve just done it in April and the weather was awful. Why would anyone want to do outdoor activities in England in October?”
“Six months from now. Six months is a good kind of timescale. We should do something like this a couple of times a year as a whole office, right? It’s what all the successful firms are doing these days.”
“All the successful firms are rafting in the rain? I never realised. I rather imagined they were retaining clients and winning cases.” Agatha offers, all acerbic, flashing Kate a conspiratorial smile.
Kate laughs, grins into her coffee a moment. She does very much like working here - and not because she’s hopelessly fond of her infuriating boss. This is a good bunch of decent people.
Well - decent people and Cressida Cowper.
No. Not even the existence of Cressida Cowper can dull her good mood this morning. In fact, not even Anthony threatening to take her on a cursed corporate team-building exercise all over again can dampen her spirits today.
“You ever going to deal with that email I sent you first thing, Bridgerton?” She asks him fondly, stealing the biscuit which sits next to his teacup.
“Ah. Yes - of course. I’ll be right on it. Remind me - which email was that? About the Jones case… or that other one…?”
“Joke’s on you. I haven’t sent you a thing this morning. Just wanted to watch you squirm.” She admits, half-skipping out of the breakroom with his biscuit clutched in her victorious fingers.
She does like working here. It’s a good sort of office, all things considered, and she’s very grateful to her sister’s ex for offering her this job.
…….
The following week, she’s pulling a perfectly normal late night at work when Anthony walks up to her desk, frowning hard.
“Have you eaten?” He asks, of all things. Really - what a tactless way to start a conversation with a colleague who is clearly in all-nighter mode.
“No. Been a bit busy.” She mutters.
He knows she’s due in court for a big case tomorrow, because he’s her boss. He assigned her the damn case. And, to be fair, he can have no way of knowing she had a big revelation this morning which has created her a whole lot of extra work - unless Thomas has been gossiping about her breakthrough, of course, but all the same -
“I’ll order pizza.” Anthony says now.
“What?”
“It’s late and you’re still at your desk. I’m getting you pizza. And - ah - you can crash at mine, if you want, when you’re done. No sense wasting time you could spend asleep on getting the tube back to your place after.”
She frowns. She doesn’t like it when he tells her what to do, of course. But pizza and a few hours’ sleep do sound awfully tempting, right now. He has a flat just above the office, since it’s his family firm and all. That does sound conveniently close at this point.
She’s totally not wavering because she knows he’s a total sweetheart to share a bed with.
Well - she’s never shared a bed with him before, of course. Only a tent. It might be different. There might not be anything soothing and restful about sharing a bed with him. It might even put her off her game before her court appearance tomorrow, or -
Or maybe she should just accept the kind offer.
“Thanks. That would be a relief, honestly. Pizza and a place to crash.” She agrees, never taking her eyes from her screen.
“Great. I’ll go order that pizza. By the time I get back, you’re going to give me a list of what you can delegate to me so you actually get some sleep tonight.” He informs her, waving his arms at the stack of files on her desk, at the screen full of text, at the whole sorry mess.
She doesn’t take orders from him as a general rule, of course. But on this occasion, if her boss is directly instructing her to delegate some work to him…?
“Sure. One foolproof list, coming right up. Thanks.”
“Foolproof? Ouch. I’ll be back in five.”
…….
They finish at a half-decent time, in the end. It’s only just the wrong side of midnight, really, if she squints. Truthfully, she could have made it back to her own place and still got a viable amount of sleep.
But she’s not sure she would have had the willpower to go home after the pizza. There’s something about the way he knew to order veggie delight, but hold the sweetcorn, that just has her feeling all soft and fuzzy inside.
It’s possible she’s a lost cause, at this point, honestly.
She gathers her courage and takes her emergency clothes bag from under her desk. No self-respecting lawyer should be without an office set of emergency clothes, in case of coffee situations on courtroom mornings.
Or in case of confusing invitations to stay the night with her sister’s ex, it seems.
She follows him up the stairs to his flat. She’s never been here, for all that she’s worked downstairs for the better part of a decade. No one has really been here from the firm, as far as she knows - not even Thomas, who’s by far closest friends with Anthony out of any of the guys.
The moment he unlocks the door, a cat starts circling his ankles.
“You must be Kitkat.” Kate greets the cat at once, because obviously she does. “I’m glad to see you looking fit and healthy.”
She looks up, sees Anthony frowning at her.
“What? He was really sick, right? And then he got better, and now he looks fighting fit.”
“He’s doing pretty great.” Anthony agrees, petting the cat behind the ears. “Just - you know - didn’t expect you to remember my cat’s medical history.”
She doesn’t have a good answer for that. She’s not about to stand here and admit she remembers every word he’s ever said to her, is she?
She just pets the cat a bit more and moves gradually inside the flat.
It looks exactly how she would expect the home of Anthony Bridgerton to look, she decides. Everything is in an unappetising shade of dark green or brown, but it’s very neat and basically homely. There are framed photos of his siblings or his cat on every available surface.
Really, he’s quite the sweetest arch-nemesis any woman ever had.
“You have the bed. I’ll take the couch.” He says suddenly, now.
She frowns at the couch - small, overstuffed, leather. The very definition of an aristocratic bachelor couch. Really, he is a walking stereotype of himself, sometimes.
“It doesn’t look like a very comfortable couch. I’m sure we can share the bed.” She says, carefully level.
“I’ll take the couch.” He repeats. “I’ll be fine. It’s best if I take the couch. I’m a -”
“A gentleman. I know.” She rolls her eyes at him.
“I was going to say I’m a lawyer.” He tells her instead. “I know how your boss forcing himself into your bed would look.”
“It’s your bed and I’m inviting you.” She counters. “Not - I mean - I’m not inviting you into bed, obviously. Just inviting you to share the bed. We’ve done it before.”
She wonders, for a moment, about adding something really pathetic, reminding him that they’re good platonic family friends like that.
But frankly, she’s not sure she could survive the mortification, so she leaves it.
“You’re sure?” He asks at last.
“Positive.” She says shortly.
She doesn’t tell him that he’s a decent guy, that she’s grateful for the work crisis pizza, that she’s most grateful of all he skipped the sweetcorn.
She just follows him into the bedroom, too tired to manage another word. She sets her emergency work clothes bag by her side of the bed - or at least, on the side equivalent to the side of the tent she slept in, not so long ago. She kicks her shoes off, wonders where the bathroom is to get changed.
“Is this alright?” She asks, gesturing to the side of the bed she has, in effect, chosen.
“Yeah. Sure. Here.”
There’s something in his tone which demands attention. She turns back to face him, finds him holding a faded T shirt and a mint-in-package toothbrush out towards her.
“What’s this?” She asks.
“A T shirt and a toothbrush.”
“I can see that. I mean - why are you holding them up?”
“This is the T shirt you borrowed the other week. I just thought - you know - I’m guessing you don’t sleep in your work blazer. And this is a spare toothbrush.”
It’s the toothbrush which really gets her, she decides. Any platonic family friend might lend a girl a T shirt, for an unconventional sleepover like this. It’s quite an obvious thing to think of. She clearly doesn’t sleep in her work clothes, exactly as he said.
But she’s pretty sure only Anthony Bridgerton is pessimistic and perfectionist enough to keep a spare brand-new toothbrush on hand, just in case he should ever need one. Really - where did he produce that from so quickly? Does it live in his nightstand, in case of toothbrush emergencies?
“Thanks. My dashing hero.” She deadpans, reaching out to take the two items from his hands.
The thing is, she means it more than she’d like to admit.
…….
The following day, of course, his erection is saying good morning to her butt cheeks and she’s thinking this is almost becoming part of her morning routine, now.
Part of the weirdest platonic spooning routine she’s ever known, that is.
It’ll become another thing they never, ever talk about, she presumes. Just another wonderful cliché in the life of her and her frenemy-without-benefits.
No - that’s not fair. There are plenty of benefits. There’s earnestness and cuddling and compassion and pizza. There are toothbrushes and T shirts, too, and a newfound aura of protectiveness she simply can’t get her head around.
Just… not the benefits a person might usually expect, in a situation like this.
“You awake? Ready to go show that courtroom what’s what?” He asks her, now, squeezing a little tighter around her waist.
“Yeah. I’ve got this.”
She’s a hell of a lot more confident at work, it seems, than at wondering whether Anthony’s morning wood means a thing.
…….
She arrives at work on Friday morning to find an interesting email in her inbox.
It’s entitled Archery Today and is the newsletter of Archery UK and is, unsurprisingly, several hundred words and several dozen photos about - you guessed it - Archery.
Needless to say, it’s not a newsletter she has ever signed up to. But within seconds of seeing it, she’s understood what has happened and finds herself laughing out loud.
Then she realises what she’s doing. Then she hears her own chuckle echo back off the desk dividers, looks up to see Agatha throwing her a questioning sort of look.
“Sorry.” Kate says, unabashed. “Daft email from the boss.”
Because that’s clearly what’s happened, isn’t it? Obviously Anthony has subscribed her work email address to an archery newsletter. She briefly wonders whether there are any other publications heading her way too - Quality Camping Supplies or Waterproof Tents R Us or suchlike. Knowing him, perhaps there are dozens and dozens of the things. Perhaps he’s decided to spam her with assorted outdoor activity newsletters until she admits defeat in their ongoing office shenanigans.
That’s why she’s so pleased about this, really. That’s why she’s laughing out loud at her computer screen. Because a simple prank like this is their old feud at its very finest - mildly annoying, mostly funny, moderately cunning.
This newsletter, she decides, is a sign that nothing has changed, even though everything has changed. A sign that he’s still the old arch-nemesis she knows and loves, even if he spoons her sometimes, now, too.
She wonders when he did this, when he actually added her name to that mailing list. Was it straight after her archery victory, a quick search on his phone in the field? A tribute to her victory, an attempt to be genuinely informative and supportive as well as exasperating? Was it the following week, looking back fondly on that damn corporate camping weekend no one else enjoyed?
Or is it a more recent development? Did he do this after she spent the night - a deliberate sign that he doesn’t want to mess with the status quo?
Maybe she’s reading too much into it. Maybe there’s no secret message here - no secret message besides the fact he likes pestering her as well as protecting her from hypothermia.
She stops overthinking it and spends whole entire minutes actually reading the thing. She’s well on top of work and it would be a shame to ignore such a perfectly well-judged prank.
…….
Later that morning, she finds the culprit in the break room, opens a conversation by stealing the biscuit from his saucer. The old rituals belong alongside the new rituals - isn’t that what they’ve proved, this morning?
“Fancy seeing you here.” She says, grinning from ear to ear. “You look like a person who needs a lecture on the ten best compound bows on the market this year.”
Anthony is actually taken aback, as far as she can see. He’s blinking at her, smiling a slightly bemused smile.
“You weren’t supposed to actually read the thing.” He tells her. “I thought you’d maybe laugh a bit and then throw a block of post-its at me.”
“If you didn’t want me reading in working hours, you shouldn’t have sent me such fascinating reading material.” She argues.
“Was it actually any good?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t read a lot of other archery newsletters to compare it to. Why do I get the feeling all that’s about to change?”
He says nothing. He just grins a sharp little grin, tries to hide it behind his coffee cup.
She presses her advantage. “So - about those compound bows. It turns out this new generation of bows can be both lightweight and -”
She never manages to finish that lecture. Anthony’s gone, fleeing out the door with his cup in hand and his laughter echoing around the breakroom.
Huh. She calls that a successful morning, all things considered.
…….
She’s not even working late when he next invites her over - or not properly late. It’s only seven-forty when Anthony presents himself to raise the subject, and really, she thinks seven-forty is a perfectly normal time for a city lawyer with no personal life to still be at her desk.
“I’m ordering pizza if you want to say.” He tells her, all abrupt and matter-of-fact.
She frowns a bit. Is there heavy rain forecast? Is he expecting this case he assigned her to take longer than she is expecting it to? She thought she was nearly finished for the day, actually.
Damn it. He’s the most utterly enthralling person she’s ever met, and she’s been uselessly, exasperatedly pining after him for a decade or so, now, and obviously she’s going to stay if he’s inviting her to.
So it is that she picks a new fight. The way she sees it, she’s going to end up eating a hell of a lot of pizza if they keep this up. And yes, to be sure, she likes pizza - especially veggie delight without sweetcorn - but she’s also a sensible woman, so she realises she shouldn’t eat pizza all the time.
She’s a sensible woman, in every matter except Anthony Bridgerton.
“I can cook.” She says simply. She knows he can’t cook, after all. She knows everything about him, because that’s how pathetically pining after her sister’s ex works.
“I know you can cook. But I don’t mind getting pizza.”
“Let me cook. I want to.” She argues.
“OK. Fine. If you’re sure.” He frowns. “I think I have eggs. And probably some pasta. There could be a sad tomato or two in the fridge. I might need to run out and get groceries, I’m thinking?”
“I’ll make it work.”
She’s not coming over for the height of culinary excellence. She’s coming over for a good old cuddle, and he must know it every bit as well as she does.
He nods. She nods. The two of them pause there a moment, nodding.
“I’ll be up in - what? - ten minutes?” She suggests, gesturing at the work still in front of her. “Go chill out. Pet Kitkat. Give yourself a bit of a break.” She recommends.
Miracle of miracles, he actually does. He accepts her advice without argument, sets out towards the door, actually tells her he’ll give the cat her best wishes while they wait for her.
She’s not at all sure what to make of that.
…….
They have a pretty great evening, in the end. They chat about work a little. She makes a sort of pasta frittata, and decides it’s an acceptable but not thrilling foodstuff. She might get groceries and make something a bit more interesting, next time she stays. She might even go wild and cook one of the recipes she inherited from her mum - food with a bit of flavour, that’s meant to be shared with family. That would be acceptable, right, when she and Anthony are old family friends?
They don’t even bother talking about their sleeping arrangements, this time. It has definitely become a routine. She’s got that side of the bed, that old T shirt, that new toothbrush.
So it is that, as they settle down to sleep, she’s already thinking of tomorrow. She’s already presuming that, as ever, Anthony's morning wood will wish her good day and they will never, ever talk about it.
No. Best not get stuck on that just yet. She ought to concentrate on enjoying this moment, here and now, his arm warm and firm around her, his chest curled closely against her back. He really does give annoyingly good hugs.
It’s be so much easier to walk away, if she didn’t feel so perfectly safe and relaxed in his arms.
“You alright?” He asks. “Comfy?”
“Perfect.” She admits, curling her arm over his where it cuddles across her waist.
Hmm. There’s a bit of a pattering noise, rain falling against the windowpane. There’s Anthony stiffening a bit, too, suddenly rigid behind her. She can feel the tension at once.
Right. Well, she understands the invitation, now. If she’d realised rain was forecast for eleven PM she might not have wasted energy on hoping he wanted a cuddle for its own sake.
“You’re fine. I’m right here.” She murmurs softly. “Your favourite storm buddy, reporting for duty.”
He laughs a tight little laugh. “It’s not supposed to be a storm, not really. It’s not forecast to get heavy.”
She waits him out, just strokes his hand a moment while she waits for him to calm down.
“Thanks. I mean it. But - I didn’t only invite you over to cook for me and then use you for a storm buddy.” He tells her.
She’s not sure whether she believes him. But he’s in distress, and he’s saved her wasting her time on a tube journey home, and she thinks she’d rather eat a mediocre frittata with her frenemy-without-benefits than go home and make supper all alone.
So she pats his hand a bit longer, and gives way to sleep.
……..
She calls her sister the next evening. She’s rather in need of a bit of emergency sisterly advice, she’s decided.
“Kate? What’s up? Why are you calling?” Edwina asks at once. Obviously she does. They text plenty, and then see each other every couple of weeks or so, but they don’t call.
“I’m fine. I just - I have a situation. I needed to chat. Have you got a minute?”
“I’ve got all the minutes in the world if you’ve got a situation. What’s wrong?”
“It’s not that anything’s wrong.” Kate hedges. “It’s just - I guess - I seem to have a weird spooning ritual with your ex.”
Silence. Kate cringes at the empty room, wonders why this ridiculous turn of events sounds so much worse when she describes it out loud.
After what feels like an eternity, but can really only have been a moment, Edwina speaks up.
“You’re going to need to clarify. You mean that Edward guy with the bad taste in shirts has made contact? Perhaps you bumped into Shane while you were getting groceries?” Edwina asks, deliberately obtuse, Kate rather thinks. “Or maybe you mean you’ve started sleeping with that family friend you work with who happens to have dated me for a couple of months, years ago? You know - that one who’s been blatantly in love with you for years - what was his name? Andrew, was it? Anselm?”
“Anselm? I know the Bridgertons are quaint but that’s a bit much.” Kate protests, indignant.
“Ah. So we are talking about Anthony.” Edwina concludes.
“Of course we’re talking about Anthony!” Kate cries, too loud. “Is there any other guy I’m this stupid over? Can you imagine me having a weird spooning ritual with any other ex of yours?”
“Honestly, I’m struggling to imagine what a spooning ritual even is.” Edwina says mildly. “What the hell are you talking about, Kate? Really?”
She tries her best to put it into words. “Every time I’m stressed or it’s raining or both, he invites me into his bed, and we spoon, and nothing else happens.” She manages.
No. That’s not even the half of it, is it?
“I don’t believe that for a moment.” Edwina decides. “Nothing else happens? Knowing you two there’s some high quality lawyer banter for pillow talk.”
“Edwina…”
“OK. I think I’ve understood. So you’re sleeping together but not sleeping together?”
Kate hesitates, wonders whether to say anything about that morning bit of the routine, or about the sheer loyal sweetness he seems to have started showing her.
“I guess he also gets all caring. And - sometimes I think he’s at least a little bit into me.” She tries. “But nothing happens. We just spoon and - and apart from that we act normal.”
“Just sometimes? Sometimes you think he’s into you? Just once in a while when he gets stuck on staring at your face for like half an hour?” Edwina asks, incredulous.
Kate huffs a little. He’s never stared at her face for half an hour. She’d have noticed.
Edwina carries on regardless. “I think you’re onto a good thing - really, I’m not just trying to cheer you up. He was never much of a spooner with me.”
“Great. So he acts around me completely differently from how he acts with someone he’s dating. Fabulous.”
“It is fabulous. It’s a good thing.” Edwina insists. “He’s different with you because he’s serious about you. He has been for years. He’s not just treating you like a two-month girlfriend. He actually wants to cuddle you when you’re stressed. He’s not normally that touchy-feely outside of sex, I’m pretty sure.”
Kate swallows hard. That sounds like such a tempting explanation. She would really very much like it to be the truth.
Only - what if it’s not? What if he’s not interested in her like that, or what if she’s sending him the wrong signals, or what if this all goes horrifically wrong and she loses him from her life altogether?
“I don’t know what the hell to do.” She admits, small, broken. She’s normally quite a confident woman, she seems to remember, but Anthony has always had a most unfortunate way of breaking down her defences.
“Go for it. Show him you’re interested. Make a move.” Edwina urges.
Kate snorts. That’s just not even a possibility, is it? She can’t risk getting it wrong. She can’t risk rejection from a man who chose her sister first - that’s the long and short of it.
“Make a little move.” Edwina compromises. “Next time he invites you over, maybe you get a bit more… encouraging. Or try asking him to hang out beyond work and your new spooning ritual. That could be good - you can start with an easy win, something you know he’ll go for.”
Hmm. OK. That’s something she can actually imagine doing. Just a casual invitation she can play off as friendly, if he doesn’t seem interested.
Yes. Great. She can do this. It’s not the nineteenth century - she doesn’t have to wait for him to make the next move. Sure, she might not manage to actually have it out with him, to clear the air, to tell him to his face that she thinks it’s a very good sort of face.
But - she could invite him camping.
She thinks that’s a stroke of genius, actually. He’s been positively evangelical about how great that corporate camping was. But no one else at the office ever wants to pitch a tent with him ever again, and he’s been all grumpy about their reluctance to go for a repeat performance.
So she could offer to go camping with him. If he seems to think she’s looking a bit keen and asks difficult questions about her feelings, she can even play it off as a pity invitation, like she’s throwing him a chance to camp when even Thomas won’t hear of trying it again.
Excellent. The perfect, foolproof move.
She’ll try it next time she sees him.
…….
She doesn’t try it next time she sees him.
She doesn’t try it, because she’s busy having the week from hell.
On Monday she loses a case she thinks she should have won. It stays with her, stalks her all through the week as unnecessary losses always do. She doesn’t mind losing a case when she knows she’s done her best work and not managed to win regardless.
But when she thinks she should have done better, it just sucks.
It sets her behind on her other work, too. It makes her brain fire slower, and she loses ground, and she feels like she’s running around in hopeless circles and going nowhere.
And then, on Thursday morning in the breakroom, Anthony actually offers his biscuit to her rather than waiting for her to steal it from beneath his nose.
That’s what breaks her. That’s what makes her crumple into the chair at his side, utterly defeated. It’s the silliest thing - she can perfectly well take her own biscuit from the biscuit jar he’s so ridiculously attentive about keeping stocked - but the way he’s offering her one off his own saucer, inviting her to play their usual game and be her usual self, has her absolutely floored, in this moment.
So that’s why she swallows her pride and does it.
“Can I stay the night?” She asks simply.
“Sure.”
She nods. He nods. He takes another biscuit, puts it on his saucer just in case she might want a second, she supposes.
She’s not sure she’s ever seen him actually eat one of those biscuits in all the years she’s worked here.
“That Kim case still getting you down?” He asks, with all the subtlety of - well, of Anthony Bridgerton, honestly.
She nods again. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want him to ask a bunch of pitying questions, because she’s sick and tired of being so upset about one silly loss. She ought to be stronger than to get so emotional about a bit of a disappointment at work.
Although - that one disappointment has cost a client a six month prison sentence. They might appeal it, but all the same, her underperformance has ruined a person’s -
“One bad day doesn’t make you a bad lawyer. I still want you defending me if anyone ever takes me to court.” He tells her, robust, not a pitying question in sight. “Now - where were we? Am I ordering pizza or are you cooking?”
“I’ll cook. It’ll do me good.” She decides at once. “I’ll go buy some groceries now. I could use the time out.”
“Good thinking.”
He stands up, squeezes her shoulder briefly, walks out of the breakroom. He leaves a biscuit behind him, she notes - that biscuit he just took from the jar, still neatly on his saucer which he seems to have pushed towards her, somewhere along the line.
It must have been while she was all in a daze from that shoulder-squeeze, she decides. Shoulder squeezes are definitely a new addition to their platonic spooning routine.
Hmm. She’s going to make her mum’s special pilaf for supper, she’s decided. That seems like a good sort of meal to share with her favourite frenemy-without-benefits.
…….
She’s feeling a lot better by Saturday. That Thursday night with Anthony, the combination of company and food and cuddles, has done her a world of good.
So it is that, this morning, she’s feeling quite cheery about popping into the office and getting back on top of the work she let slide while she was feeling low. She knows she doesn’t need to go in - there’s nothing truly urgent - but she wants to celebrate feeling her best and besides, if she happens to bump into the boss who lives above the office, so much the better.
What she’s not expecting is to bump into his sister right inside the door.
“Eloise? Good to see you.” Kate offers, perhaps in a tone of mild surprise.
Eloise is quite often here in the school holidays, and occasionally at a weekend if Anthony is working more than he ought. She’s just coming to the end of school, now, and is keen to study law after that. She’s the only one of Anthony’s siblings who wants to join him in the family business.
These are the kinds of fun facts Kate knows, since she’s been family friends with the man for a decade and all.
So - she knows Eloise quite well. She’s seen her about the office plenty, had family dinner with her several times, that kind of thing. She’s even heard Violet Bridgerton, their mother, say that Eloise sees Kate as a bit of a role model before now.
But she wasn’t expecting her to be here on a random Saturday at the end of April.
“Kate - hey. I was hoping you’d be here.”
“I’m not often here on a Saturday.” She defends herself. She’s not totally obsessed with her job, and she won’t have her young maybe-protegee think she is. That’s not healthy role model behaviour.
“But I knew you’d be here on this one. Providence.” Eloise concludes brightly.
“You’re going to have to give me more than that.” Kate tries, steering Eloise into the breakroom. She has time to sit and chat for a minute with her frenemy-without-benefits’ younger sister.
It’s possible that their relationship, all these family connections, is a little complicated. It’s possible that they’re a cliché gone walking for reasons which stretch beyond the spooning.
“Coffee?” Kate asks now, heading to the machine.
“Decaf or the real stuff?” Eloise asks.
“Decaf. You know I don’t approve of your caffeine habit.” She chides, in a big-sisterly sort of way.
Just because she’d act sisterly towards any sixteen-going-on-seventeen-year-old girl who wanted to be a lawyer, of course. Not because she’s hoping to marry the girl’s eldest brother or anything.
She’s not so naive as to even bother dreaming of that.
She busies herself with the coffee machine. She makes Eloise a decaf anyway, because she figures she might as well. She nudges the biscuit tin across the table, settles in her chair for a good, mentorly chat.
She’s just taking her first swallow of coffee when Eloise launches the question.
“So - is it you Anthony’s sleeping with? Did I guess right?”
Kate nearly chokes to death - choking on mortification more than coffee, she thinks.
“I beg your pardon?” She manages, at length, all stiff and awkward.
“Anthony must be sleeping with someone. He cancelled on me on Thursday night. We were supposed to have one of our get into law school evenings and he cancelled on me for last-minute plans. I figure last-minute plans means he had someone over. And then, mysteriously, he and you are both here this morning as if you’re both just a little bit behind on work. Ergo, I rest my case.”
Hmm. Someone had better tell her that’s not quite how building a case works, one of these days.
But in the meantime -
“I’m not sleeping with your brother.” Kate says, and she figures it’s not a lie, because she’s certainly not sleeping with him in the way Eloise means. “I guess you’re half-right on the rest of it. He cancelled on you on Thursday because I’ve been getting a bit behind on work. Had a tough week after I lost a case on Monday.” She tries. A good mentor should be honest about the difficult bits of the job as well, right?
“Damn it. That’s exactly the story he told me.” Eloise mutters. “I was so hoping he’d finally got his shit together and decided to take you on some surprise date.”
Kate has no response to that. There’s simply not a word she thinks she could usefully say, in this moment.
Sometimes, she misses being sixteen. She misses having hopes and dreams and the whole wide world ahead of her. She misses thinking that, perhaps, love could be as easy as meeting a witty, kind co-worker and falling into bed with him.
But honestly - the life she has now is pretty great, weird platonic spooning rituals and all. She wouldn’t change it for the world.
“So that’s why I’m here this morning.” Eloise concludes now, suddenly.
“What?” Kate has definitely missed a step.
“That’s why I’m here. He said I could tag along to balance out cancelling our session on Thursday while he catches up, too. He promised I could do some filing.” She says proudly.
Ah. Filing. Kate remembers being a work shadowing kid too, once upon a time. She remembers the heady joy of being allowed to help with some filing.
“You want to come help me make flashcards for my opener on Wednesday after that?” She offers. Flashcards are more fun with an almost-sister to help out, right?
No one has ever looked so thrilled about flashcards in the whole of human history, Kate thinks.
……..
Kate ends up having lunch with Anthony and Eloise that day, in the end. They end up all wandering to the sandwich shop at the end of the block together.
She’s not sure how it happens. She’s not sure who’s third-wheeling whom, either. Is she tagging along after two siblings? Is Eloise the annoying younger sister they’re babysitting while they try to date?
She honestly has no idea. She just knows that an unpretentious panini lunch with two of her favourite people is a decent way to end a Saturday morning in the office.
And then after they've eaten, somehow, as they walk to the door, Anthony develops a sudden interest in her schedule.
“Have you got plans for the rest of the day? Did you maybe want to hang out this evening?” He asks.
Oh. Goodness. Wow. She’s been so hopeless at making that move. She still hasn’t invited him camping, because she was a bit busy having the week from hell. But now, miraculously, he’s getting on and asking her to spend time with him anyway.
The problem is, she does have plans for the rest of the day.
“I’ve got a girls’ night with Edwina. Sorry.” She explains.
“You could cancel it. I hear siblings cancel on their younger sisters to hang out with their platonic co-workers all the time. It’s quite common behaviour around here. There’s a clear precedent.” Eloise tells them pointedly.
Hmm. She’ll make a good mooter before long, Kate decides.
“I’m not cancelling girls’ night.” Kate insists. “But I’ve got nothing on tomorrow. We could get brunch?” She suggests to Anthony, perhaps slightly desperately.
Brunch is good, right? People like brunch. A brunch invitation is the kind of thing she could easily issue to her platonic spooning buddy.
“Sorry - we’ve got a family lunch. We’re all going to Mum’s.” Anthony says, and he actually does sound sorry about it.
Yes. Well. No question of them cancelling lunch with Violet. Bridgerton Sunday lunch is quite the thing, she understands.
She waits for him to invite her to that. It seems like the logical conclusion, she thinks. He seems to want to spend some time with her, and it’s not as if she doesn’t know all the family already.
Eloise seems to be waiting for it, too. She’s standing there, brows raised, looking between the two of them like this is the best show she’s seen all year, like she can’t believe she didn’t bring popcorn.
But then Anthony never does invite her to Sunday lunch, and Kate takes herself down the road to get the tube home.
…….
They text a little that night.
It’s not a big deal. Obviously it’s not. They’ve had each other’s numbers for years, and sometimes they text about work stuff or whatever. This isn’t major news.
But it’s not like them to text for the sake of chatting, perhaps.
He starts it. He sends her a picture of Kitkat for no apparent reason. So she replies with a few comments about the movie she’s watching with Edwina, and before she knows it, they’ve been maintaining a pretty steady conversation for an hour or two.
“So things are going well with Anthony, huh?” Edwina asks.
Kate looks up. Ah. The credits are rolling. She should probably have noticed the movie was over, right? She’s been a little distracted.
“I haven’t made a move yet.” She frets, while she frowns down at her phone and wonders whether there is a witty response she can make to cool.
Really - what an infuriating man. Couldn’t he have given her more to work with? Couldn’t he have left her an opening for a decent conversation or -
Come to lunch with us tomorrow? I promise it won’t be weird.
Oh. Well, then. It seems she has her invitation to Bridgerton Sunday lunch after all.
“Kate?” Edwina prompts her now. “Are you good? You guys seem to be having quite the fascinating conversation.”
“He’s invited me to lunch. He promises it won’t be weird.” She reports.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“I don’t know. Of course it will be weird. Everything about this is weird.” She mutters, flapping her hands in frustration. “We went out for lunch with his sister in tow today, and now he’s inviting me for a not-weird family event, and still - still - all that’s actually happening is that we spoon a lot.” She concludes.
“And text a lot. And eat together a lot. And work together every single day - and the staring, I’m guessing he still stares a lot.” Edwina pauses for breath. “Honestly? It sounds a bit like a relationship, doesn’t it?”
“It sounds a lot like a relationship, for a frenemy-without-benefits.” Kate grumbles fondly.
She’s going to accept the lunch invitation. Obviously she is. She’s not a fool.
And somehow, somewhere along the line, she really, really needs to make a move.
…….
In the end, lunch with his family actually isn’t weird.
No one asks why she’s there. No one asks whether they’re dating or whatever. She just feels like part of the furniture, in the kindest possible way. As if she’s a sufficiently familiar face that she’s not worth making a fuss about.
Violet hugs her and says it’s been too long. Benedict and Colin both slap her cheerfully on the back and ask after work. Eloise high-fives her and asks after girls’ night, and the younger ones all mill around in an odd, bubbly sort of way which seems centred on Gregory trying to get up the courage to shake her hand.
She’s not sure what to make of that. She doesn’t know how Anthony survives having siblings who are still so young, honestly, and how Violet is still so sprightly. Edwina has been quite exhausting - and wonderful - enough for her.
Maybe minor members of the aristocracy don’t age. Maybe that’s Violet’s secret.
“Where’s Daphne?” Kate asks, once everyone settles into the occasion a bit.
“On holiday with Simon.” Colin offers.
“Colin’s jealous.” Benedict adds.
“I’m jealous that they’re in Athens. I’m not jealous of Daphne or Simon specifically.” Colin rushes to clarify.
“Remind me - why isn’t Penelope joining us?” Benedict asks pointedly.
Suddenly, all at once, Anthony is coughing a dramatic sort of cough and making some slicing gesture with his hand.
Kate frowns at him. He’s an odd fellow, exasperating and unpredictable, but she’s remarkably fond of him all the same.
“What do you suppose has got into him?” She hisses the question to Eloise in a whisper.
“We’re banned from romantic teasing or relationship fuss.” Eloise recites in an ironic sort of tone.
“Banned? What do you mean?”
“It was all over the family chat last night. He wrote us ground rules for Sunday lunch. No teasing each other about love interests at all. It’s a new development - the concept of ground rules for Sunday lunch, I mean. I wonder why he felt the need to start that this weekend.” She says pointedly.
Ah. Right. He’s invited his frenemy-without-benefits to lunch and banned the rest of his siblings from saying a thing about it.
That’ll be why no one made it weird, then. It’s kind of sweet that they all have so much respect for his foibles, she decides. He’s a good big brother and they all blatantly adore him.
In fact, at this very moment, Gregory seems to be earnestly asking for his help peeling parsnips.
Kate meanders over there. She picks up a peeler, joins the party, whispers a suggestion to Anthony under her breath. If he’s ready to invite her to Sunday lunch and invent ground rules about her, she supposes she can summon her courage and try making a very cautious move.
“I’ve been thinking - we ought to go camping some time. Just you and me. I know you’re disappointed no one else wants another office away weekend. Thought I could take pity and keep you company, if you want.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He says, in the most carefully light voice she’s ever heard him use.
She risks a glance at him. Yes - definitely forced lightness. He’s rather thrilled with the idea, as far as she can see. He’s grinning the sweetest little grin while he concentrates on his parsnips.
“Great. So just let me know when you’re free and I guess I’ll book a campsite.” She concludes.
“I’ll book a campsite. If I leave you to do it we’re sure to end up flooded again.” He counters.
“I don’t see how you can blame me for -”
“May bank holiday? The late one - not next week?” He suggests, as if she’d never spoken.
“Sure. Choose somewhere nice. I demand archery.”
“Obviously. Yes. Somewhere with archery and good drainage.”
She laughs, pokes him lightly with an unpeeled parsnip. She looks away from his face at last, sees Gregory watching the two of them in rapt fascination.
What does it matter? The kid can’t tease them. He’s banned from commenting on it at all, isn’t he?
Kate’s rather proud of her manoeuvring, all in all. It’s not much of a move, perhaps, but it’s a start.
…….
The following week sees an unusual turn of events.
By the end of Wednesday, Anthony has been at his desk for thirteen hours solid, and all Kate has managed to get from Thomas is that there’s a bit of a situation with one of their long term clients.
It must be one hell of a situation, she thinks. The boss hasn’t even emerged from his office to play daft games with her over biscuits.
So - it’s an unusual but not unprecedented sort of day. Anthony hasn’t locked himself away like this for a couple of years, now, as far as she can remember. Yes, to be sure, he is prone to working too hard in general - that’s what will happen, perhaps, when a guy inherits an entire law firm too young.
But these days he mostly does remember to speak to people and eat meals, you know?
That’s why Kate decides her response to the situation had better be unprecedented, even if the situation itself is not.
She marches in there and fixes it for him. Not that mysterious long term client situation, to be clear, but she fixes his dysfunctional response to it.
“I’m staying the night.” She informs him robustly. “You need a cuddle and a hot meal. Probably in that order.”
He raises his head briefly to look at her. Wow. That’s progress, she thinks - he’s actually acknowledging a fellow human being.
Then his eyes slip back to his screen and she sighs in defeat. So maybe this hasn’t worked after all. Maybe she can’t just fix everything with the offer of a soothing spooning ritual and a bowl of -
“You’re not wrong. Thanks. I - I’d really like that.” He mutters suddenly.
“Oh. Great. Good.”
“I might be a while. Sorry.” He offers now.
“Right - because losing sleep will really make whatever this is go away. If it’s not fixed in an hour, how about you just walk out the door anyway?” She presses.
Oh. She’s really got his attention now. He’s actually looking at her properly, sitting up straight to make better eye contact with her.
“I know you’re speaking sense, but I can’t quit yet. Not quite yet.” He laughs a tired laugh. “Yeah - an hour. I can do that. I’ll be upstairs in an hour. Thanks for the rescue.”
“Any time.” She says, and means it. “I’m just going to pop out and get some bits for supper. Any requests?”
He doesn’t make a request in actual words. He faffs in his pocket for a moment, and then of all things he seems to be holding out his keys and credit card towards her.
The keys make sense, she figures, if she’s going to go ahead and get started on the food.
The credit card, on the other hand, seems utterly inexplicable.
“Why are you giving me this?” She asks, bemused, waving it in his general direction.
“I’ll have to give you a raise if you keep buying me dinner. This cuts that out. Isn’t contactless payment a wonderful invention?”
She frowns, unconvinced. They really are in old married couple territory now, aren’t they?
He presses on regardless. “Thanks. I mean it. I really appreciate you noticing I’m having a rough day and checking in on me. I would ask you to buy yourself thank you flowers while you’re at it, but I know you never would.”
Oh. Right. Apparently they’re allowed to talk about taking care of each other now, and being grateful, and emotionally literate things like that.
How fascinating. Maybe she’s just caught him with his guard down. Or maybe an unprecedented day calls for another unprecedented action on her part.
She walks over there and hugs him. She just wraps her arms right around him, even while he’s still sitting down and she’s standing up, even though that leaves them in an awkward messy hug where his head is somewhere near her waist. She just holds him, anyway, without letting either of them overthink it.
“Thanks.” He mutters, all muffled against her shirt.
She runs away, then, and flees to the little late-night grocery store on the corner.
She does buy herself flowers with his credit card in the end. She thinks it’s important to contradict him and defy his expectations wherever possible - she won’t have him forgetting they were arch-nemeses first, just because they have a spooning ritual now.
They’re not extravagant flowers, obviously. Just a modest bunch of tulips. She’ll leave them at his place tomorrow morning, but honestly she’s here often enough these days that she thinks she’ll probably get to appreciate them once or twice more before they wilt and die.
Huh. When did she become so confident in her place in Anthony Bridgerton’s bed? When did she start to place so much faith in their little arrangement that she expects to see the inside of his flat twice within the lifetime of a bunch of cheap corner-store tulips?
She just thinks it’s an interesting development, that’s all.
She makes a huge load of comfort food, heavy on the rice, as much as she can manage to rustle up within the hour they’ve agreed. It’s important to make double batches of everything, she decides, just in case he’s still having a tough time with this long term client situation tomorrow and needs a little care package of leftovers.
It gets weird when he arrives home - even weirder than that baseline level of weird they’ve established over the last few weeks, weirder still than the weirdness which infected his office when he got all sappy and she actually hugged him for a change.
Weirder even than all that, he actually has an arm around her waist while she serves supper. He’s all easily affectionate with her while she faffs at the stove, and it doesn’t make sense to her in the slightest.
Maybe they manage to back off the weirdness a very little bit while they eat, while they linger at the table, spinning out time and conversation. They manage to sustain a stream of chatter which is mostly about their usual topics - family and Kitkat and work, but absolutely nothing about the situation which has been wrecking him all day.
That’s almost normal, she thinks. It’s reassuringly familiar to get back to teasing each other into cheerfulness rather than talking about what’s on their minds.
But then, as they settle into bed, he leads the way into a whole new realm of weird. He finds another layer of overfamiliarity entirely - and that’s saying something, seeing as he’s currently spooning her closely.
Tonight, it seems, is the night they learn to have sentimental conversations in bed.
“I’m so glad I hired you all those years ago.” He says, sudden, snuggling his hand a little closer around her waist.
“Really - that’s what you’re going with? Not glad that you invited me to share your sleeping bag those few weeks ago?” She dares to argue.
“No. Hiring you was the beginning.” He insists. “Otherwise we would never have kept in touch so closely after - you know - your sister...”
“After you dated my sister.” She finishes for him. She might as well call a spade a spade, even if he is too emotionally wrung out by his day to do so.
He hums a little, hugs her slightly tighter.
“I remember being so confused when you first offered me this job.” She muses now.
He chuckles lightly. “I was pretty surprised that you accepted it, honestly. Obviously I was hoping you would but… why did you?”
“Oh, you know. Why does anyone accept a job?” She shrugs in his arms. “Good office atmosphere, decent pay, a successful firm. That kind of thing.”
She’s not about to admit it was always about his eyes, not even now when he’s curled around her so closely that she can scarcely tell where she ends and he begins. Not even after a day when they hugged in his actual office, when he thanked her for checking in on him, when she actually gave herself permission to fuss over him like a loving girlfriend might, for a change.
“I’m only going to say this once, so I hope you’re listening. You’re kind of wonderful.” He mutters into her hair.
“Right back at you. Why do you think I’m here?” She asks, because obviously she couldn’t possibly respond to a comment like that warmly or plainly or in any constructive way at all.
She really really sucks at making a move.
He squeezes her a little firmer again, rubs a thoughtful thumb over her waistline through that sleep shirt she always borrows.
“You’ll go back to stealing biscuits off my plate in the morning, right?” He asks her now. “I won’t have you thinking I’ve gone soft.”
“Definitely. Right you are. Sign me up for a few more unsolicited newsletters - that’ll do the trick.” She suggests.
“Good thinking. What do you fancy? Adverts for tents that are actually waterproof? Or for bulk office supplies? Or a daily roundup of the internet’s best cat GIFs?”
“I don’t need cat GIFs. I’ve got enough Kitkat in my life.” She argues.
“Fair point. He likes you more than he likes - well, people, really.”
“Hmm. Sometimes I think I could say the same about his owner.” She dares to point out.
He laughs, flutters his fingers against her stomach so suddenly she lets out a huff of ticklish surprise.
“That was mean.” She accuses him fondly.
“It was necessary. We were in danger of becoming a cliché again.”
Hmm. Privately she thinks they’ve long since passed through cliché territory, that they’re now sailing at top speed through the endless ocean of farcical romcom.
But as she’s kind of devoted to him, and as they’re both romantically incompetent birdbrains, and as she’s scared witless of making a move, she lets it go. She lets it go and focuses on making a very different kind of move - a little physical move, which feels safer than any of the emotional moves she wishes she had the courage to make.
She just reaches behind her with a foot, sort of hooks it around his ankle, pulls him closer until their legs are tangling together. Legs all twisted together like twine are kind of comforting, right? She’s decided it adds another lovely layer of physical comfort to their usual spooning routine, at least, and she hopes he agrees with her.
He doesn’t seem to disagree. He seems to have got the idea, in fact, seems to have nudged his knee between hers for good measure.
Excellent. Perfect. A very minor move. Another beautiful bit of playful intimacy added to this ridiculous ritual.
She wouldn’t have it any other way, of course. Somehow she always sleeps better with him wrapped all around her.
……..
The following morning is typical in so many ways. There’s Anthony’s morning wood waving hello to her butt cheeks, as usual. His coffee machine grumbles and gurgles a bit, just like always, and as ever she has to change into the clothes from her office emergency bag.
She should really start thinking of it as an overnight bag, one of these days, or even simply leave some clothes here at his place.
And then, as she’s eating a slice of toast and wondering about asking him to pick up marmite, next time he’s getting groceries, he turns their usual routine on its head.
“Have you got lunch plans? Are you hitting the sandwich shop with Agatha?” He asks suddenly.
“Ah - no. No lunch plans.”
“Good. I think we should eat together - just so all those leftovers from last night don’t go to waste, you know?”
“They were supposed to last you a few days in case this work crisis drags on.” She argues.
“They still will. You made plenty. I won’t starve.” He counters, getting into the flow of bickering with her.
This is better. This is more like their usual script, she decides, really warming to her theme.
“It’s not about whether you’ll starve. I want you to have something to look forward to while you’re working too hard. Something to force you to take a break and eat a decent meal.” She insists.
“Great. Then you’ll agree I should look forward to taking a break today to eat lunch with you.” He concludes neatly.
Ah. Perhaps she did walk into that one.
Never mind. She’s not exactly complaining, is she? She won’t say no to a chance to spend a bit more time playing at something resembling an actual romantic relationship with him.
“We could do lunch.” She therefore agrees, with as much dignity as she can muster.
“Great. Shall we make a couple of plates to take to the fridge in the break room? Or do you have time to come up here for a proper lunch break today?”
“I have time. You’re the one in crisis mode.” She points out.
“Yeah. But a moderately wise woman recently told me I should maybe take a break sometimes instead of working myself to death.” He offers brightly.
And then, of all things, he actually flicks her hair. He reaches out to touch her in broad daylight, playfully, affectionately, as if they’re on hair-flicking terms.
“Moderately wise?” She grumbles, incongruously cheerful.
“Mhmm.”
“What a compliment. How can I resist?” She deadpans. “I’ll wander up here at one?”
“Great. Perfect. Lunch up here at one.” He agrees.
It’s a date.
She almost does it. She almost says it out loud, in actual words and everything.
But how can she? How can she risk upsetting the status quo, scaring him off, scaring herself off?
This might be the strangest relationship in the world, she thinks, and yet it’s still wonderful. She’s honestly deeply happy with what they currently have, even if she’s confused, even if she wishes there were more.
So it’s safer to say nothing and enjoy what she has, isn’t it?
She keeps silent, takes another bite of toast. She pulls her coffee towards her, sloshes it thoughtfully around her mug.
“Can you pick up marmite next time you’re at a grocery store?” She asks. It’s a sort of compromise, she’s decided - a bit of long-termism without upsetting the script of their unconventional relationship.
“Sure. Or feel free to buy it next time I lend you my card to get dinner.” He counters.
“Thanks. I’m surprised you didn’t put up more of a fight. I expected you to be a marmite-hater.”
He laughs. “I don’t always argue with you for the sake of it, you know. I’m chill about marmite. Get some or don’t - I’m not bothered.”
Anthony Bridgerton is capable of being chill about something? He’s capable of occasional calm indifference?
That’s news to her. Maybe they’re good for each other.
…….
Kate’s world is a strange place, over the next few weeks.
It’s not just that their platonic spooning ritual nights get more frequent, that they sometimes have lunch on a work day, that she shows up to a couple more Bridgerton family Sunday lunches. It’s not only the cuddles, the hair-flicks, the laughter echoing around the office.
Somehow she always has tulips on her desk now. Always. It’s the most bizarre thing. Whenever she admits defeat and throws out a dead bunch, another bunch of fresh ones always magically appears in their place within a couple of hours.
She texts Edwina about it, just once.
Did he ever buy you flowers? She doesn’t need to say who he is, she decides.
Once, I think? We were dating over my birthday. Or that might have been Alex. I lose track .
Great. So now they have a platonic tulip ritual as well as a platonic spooning ritual. Or - even if these rituals are not strictly platonic, even if they’re starting to dance on the edges of maybe-a-relationship territory, they are at least still stuck in a stalemate of chastity.
…….
By the time their camping weekend rolls around, Kate still hasn’t managed to make a move.
Obviously she hasn’t. She’s genuinely happier than she’s ever been, making the most of this almost-relationship with the co-worker she’s been stuck on for years. Frenemies-without-benefits is better than friends-with-benefits, she’s decided. They get all the important parts like companionship and care and support, and the bits that are missing aren’t the end of the world, are they? She’s only been short-changed on sex and sentiment.
Although - it would be quite nice to know if he actually even likes her.
Whatever. Here she is, still too scared of losing what they have to make a move. She seems to remember this trip was in itself supposed to be a move, once upon a time, but now they’re on the cusp of it she’s resigned herself to the fact this will probably be platonic as heck, too.
Maybe, in their fifties, the two of them will still be camping together and cooking together and sleeping together, but nothing more. Honestly, lately it feels like they have jumped straight to being some old married couple whose sex life has died away, but without ever being an intimate hot-blooded young couple in the meantime.
Or at least, feels like that apart from his morning wood.
Maybe that’s nothing to do with her. Maybe the whole thing really is platonic, and he’s just a guy who always gets morning wood regardless of how he feels about his bedfellow. Maybe she’s been holding out false hope this whole time.
Maybe she needs to stop thinking too hard about it, and just enjoy his company while it lasts.
She tries to hold onto that mindset as she wanders into his office, a couple of days before they are due to leave, and clarifies their plans.
“Are you giving me a lift to this campsite?” She asks, helping herself to a biscuit from his desk.
Since when does he keep them on his desk? Since when does their biscuit-theft routine stretch beyond the breakroom and his saucer?
Has he started hoping she’ll pop by his office during the day, or something?
“Yeah. I hope so.” He answers her original question, and she tries to keep up. “We’ll go straight from here on Friday?”
“Perfect. And I’m guessing I don’t need my tent?” She checks, carefully light.
“Agreed. I packed a double sleeping bag - hope that’s alright.”
He packed a double sleeping bag. As in, he just happened to own such a thing already? He borrowed one from a friend or one of his many siblings? He recently invested in one against a long-term future of platonic spooning rituals?
Whatever. No point torturing herself with that any further.
“Sounds good. I’m looking forward to it.” She says brightly, even though she honestly doesn’t much like camping.
She’s there for Anthony and archery, in that order. She can take or leave the rest of it.
He grins at her, evidently pleased with her enthusiasm. “Great. Me too. Hey - have you been keeping up with your archery news? Ready for your tightest grouping of 2024 or whatever it was?” He asks now.
She laughs, swats him fondly on the arm. But even as she’s playing the moment off lightly, she’s thinking rather seriously, too.
That was an exact title in the last issue of that email newsletter he signed her up for. What are the chances? What are the odds that he would randomly stumble upon something so specific?
Not large.
So - the answer’s clear, isn’t it? It hardly takes all her powers of logical reasoning to put two and two together.
He must have signed himself up, too, so he’d have something to talk to her about.
……..
They go wild and eat out on the first night of their weekend away together, at a cute country pub which serves decent burgers, and they laugh at each other for getting sauce on their chins.
It feels surprisingly like a normal date, all in all. It’s the first thing they’ve ever done which felt like that, Kate thinks - straightforward burgeoning romance, with none of the history or friendship which complicates their fabulously dysfunctional spooning ritual.
They take a long walk together after supper. As they walk they talk about work and their siblings, yes, but also about burgers and the view and what they like to watch on TV if they get a spare moment in an evening. It’s weird to be talking about new things, rather than the things which first brought them together, but weird in a good way, she decides easily.
It’s been such a good evening that she’s reluctant to go back to the tent, honestly. When they get into bed, presumably everything will go back to normal - their rather odd version of normal, that is. Presumably they’ll forget how to make a tentative attempt at dating, and fall back into old habits.
Their old habit is a pretty great one, to be fair, but she might like this new optimism on the air even more.
That’s why she has a go at saying something, as they meander back towards their tent.
“This has been really lovely.” She tries, and hopes it doesn’t sound too inane.
“It has?”
Ah. That’s not necessarily the response she was hoping for.
“Well - I liked it. I know a burger and a walk is not exactly a wild night out but -”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I agree with you.” He tells her firmly.
“You agree with me? What is the world coming to?” She asks, poking him playfully in the arm.
He laughs, shakes his head, presses on - presses on as if he wants to talk about it too, she dares to hope. As if he wants to talk about them, and what they are, and what they could one day be.
“I’ve had a great evening. I just didn’t realise you’d enjoyed it. You weren’t that into the onion rings and I didn’t want that to ruin the evening.” He says, because of course he does. There’s her favourite perfectionist, reporting for duty.
“I meant this has been lovely.” She waves her arms in what she hopes is an all-encompassing sort of gesture, between him and the tent and the world at large. “It was good to hang out beyond work and your place. I enjoyed taking a walk and having time for a long chat without some work crisis getting in the way. I’m not too fussed about a soggy onion ring or two.”
Silence.
Right. Well. That’s really not ideal. The way she sees it, she just explained that she liked his company more than the activity. She was over half way to laying her heart out for him on a platter, she fears.
And he has nothing to say about it.
That’s really not encouraging. Should she backpedal? Should she draw some cheery, chaste comparison with the time she went out for a drink after work with Agatha last week? Should she think of something to tease him about, or something to argue about, or -
“I guess you used to get dinner with Edwina all the time.”
She hears herself say it, an impulse that can’t possibly lead anywhere good. Mentioning Edwina in this moment can only be unhelpful, can’t it? And yes, to be sure, she does normally like to be as unhelpful as possible where Anthony is concerned.
But she likes to be unhelpful in a funny way, damn it. In a way he might even find endearing, if by some miracle he’s into that.
This kind of unhelpfulness can only be self-sabotage, she’s pretty sure. It’s the kind of ridiculously useless contribution she’s only making because she’s so damn confused by what she and Anthony even are at this point.
There’s that, and there’s the real reason.
She can’t afford to get her hopes up. She has to keep reminding herself that he dated Edwina first, to keep her own optimism in check.
He still hasn’t said anything. She glances over at him, sees him frowning stern as anything. She hasn’t seen him look so genuinely gruff since that night they first shared a tent, she thinks.
Then he speaks, and it gets only worse.
“We didn’t do dinner a lot. Mostly we’d get drinks and hook up.” He says plainly.
She swallows hard. She knew that already, more or less, but it sounds worse when he says it out loud.
“I liked getting dinner with you, for what it’s worth.” He tells her, eyes fixed on the floor. “I was trying to remember the name of that new coffee place on the corner near the office. We should get coffee there instead of the break room some time. You’re right - it’s good to hang out beyond work.”
But he says it all wrong. He says it all stern and short, as if he’s swallowed a hairbrush, she thinks. He’s not looking at her, not laughing with her, not acting like a man who might be interested in spooning her on a long-term basis at all.
So why is he suggesting they do this more often, not less, if he’s suddenly so uncomfortable in her presence?
She tries desperately to make it right. “Great idea. Coffee. We both like coffee. Hey - I can steal your biscuits in a new location.”
It’s a weak attempt at humour, and it doesn’t land.
She sighs. She’s really screwed this up. Is it because she mentioned Edwina? No, she’s sure it started before that, in that long silence. Or was that only because he was trying to remember the name of a coffee shop? Why was he suddenly all silent and tongue-tied like that?
She could swear she used to understand him better, back before they tried to do dinner. Only two nights ago, they were laughing in his bed. And yes, to be sure, they weren’t in his bed in that sense, and dinner was good before she went and put her foot in it, but -
“We should go to sleep.” He says, sudden, shorter than ever.
“Right. Yes. We need to be well-rested for the morning.”
It’s an inane comment, and she probably deserves the silence she gets in return.
They get ready for bed swiftly, all but silently. At one point he presents her with the T shirt she sleeps in at his place, the old one of his which has become hers. It’s all neatly folded and organised amongst his things, because of course it is.
Of course he folded her sleep T shirt and brought it.
She seriously considers kissing him, in that moment. If he were any other man, she’d think that could be a sound response to him bringing her damn sleep T shirt on a weekend away. But he’s more confusing than ever, tonight, and she’s absolutely cursing herself for making the atmosphere weird.
It definitely started when she tried to say she had enjoyed dinner, when she drew attention to the fact it was a little bit like a date.
She should never have said a word about it. She should have kept silent and been grateful for what she had - what she stands to lose, now she’s gone and put her foot in it. All those chaste rituals of theirs were bloody odd, but they were a damn sight better than nothing.
She shouldn’t have risked ruining it, when it was honestly the happiest she’s ever been. She sees that now - now she’s spiralling into a bit of a fretful pit of despair.
They had most of the important bits of a relationship, didn’t they? Company, emotional support, someone to share a little holiday with. There were even warm snuggles at night, every night they spent together, without fail.
It really wasn’t worth risking that over the fact she likes his face. And the rest of his body. And the rest of him, his company and his beautifully annoying sense of humour, all tangled together.
She pushes her disappointment down inside as best she can, and gets on with putting herself to bed.
That double sleeping bag looms. Presumably they’re still going to share that, even though they seem to have hit a bit of an off-note, this evening. Presumably he’s still going to spoon her, and she’s still going to tangle her foot around his ankle, just the way she knows he likes.
Presumably his arms will feel the same as ever. She really hopes she hasn’t ruined that.
“You alright?” He asks, sudden, frowning at her.
“Fine.” She lies brightly.
“You’re staring at the sleeping bag like it’s going to eat you.”
“No. I’ve just never seen a double sleeping bag before.” She argues.
“It looks pretty similar to a normal sleeping bag.” He counters, because of course he does.
He’s doing it in the wrong tone, though. She could swear it. There’s still something off in his eyes, in the way the consonants stick in his throat, and she’s certain that -
“I bought it online. Thought we might want one for this trip and it turns out they’re pretty easy to get hold of.” He tells her now - or mutters at her, honestly, as he starts to crawl into that very sleeping bag.
Interesting. So he’s still acting all short and awkward about something - and to be fair, it has brought out a certain grumpiness in her, too - and yet he did go out and purchase a double sleeping bag specifically to cuddle her at night.
Hmm. There must be something she can say to bring out his warmer side.
“We should bring Kitkat along next time we do something like this.”
There. Success at last. Anthony’s actually laughing, and to be sure it sounds a little strained, but he’s throwing her a cautious smile and patting at her side of the sleeping bag, too, as if inviting her to snuggle down.
“Pretty sure it’s dogs who like camping trips, not cats. Can you imagine Kitkat going on a long walk in the country?”
“He’d love it. He’s a very adventurous cat.” She argues.
“Too adventurous. All those adventures cost me a fortune in vet’s bills.” He grumbles fondly.
Great. Well, then. She’s learned that for future reference - when she puts her foot in it, she should remember to mention the cat. Just in case she ends up treading the edges of a relationship with this confusing man for all the rest of her life, you know? Just in case she’s still here, in his bed but not his heart, another decade or two from now.
“Next time?” Anthony asks, sudden, peering up at her with an expression she can’t even begin to identify. It’s a good job she’s so tenaciously fond of him, she decides, that her pining has already endured a decade. All these mixed messages are exhausting, frankly.
“Next time.” She says, simple, firm.
He nods. She nods. She decides that’s quite enough odd awkwardness for one evening, and that she had better get into that sleeping bag.
She’s half way there, the nylon bunching around her hips, when she remembers something.
“Did you bring a power bank?” She asks suddenly. “My phone’s dying.”
He rolls his eyes, but this time she thinks it’s a fond eye-roll. She hopes it is, at least.
“In my holdall. Left end pocket. Don’t run it flat.” He offers.
She nods, leans back into the porch to search for it. She reaches for his holdall, starts unzipping that left end pocket.
Oh. Right. Well.
That’s not a power bank. That’s a bunch of condoms.
There are really quite a lot of condoms, she realises quickly. A good couple of handfuls of them. Perhaps two dozen, if she had to make an estimate.
Why does Anthony’s holdall contain two dozen condoms?
She clears her throat carefully, tries to figure out what’s going on here.
“This is full of condoms.” She tells him, although he must know that. He packed it, didn’t he?
“Then that’s the right end pocket.” He says, all terse once more.
Damn it. Now she’s put her foot in it again, somehow.
“It was the left as I was looking at it.” She argues.
“Well the power bank is in -”
“This is a lot of condoms.” She presses on, determined to get some answers, here. Is he going to be nipping away from their weekend plans to go hook up with some actual girlfriend he has hidden somewhere? Has she really been as pathetically naive as that?
“It is.” He agrees, perhaps in a slightly milder tone.
“This is not one emergency condom stashed in your wallet.” She continues. “This is so many condoms that I can’t -”
“I’m practising optimism, alright?” The question bursts out of him, sudden and loud. It seems to echo off the walls, even, although she knows that can’t be true. Nylon doesn’t echo.
“Optimism?” She dares to ask. She doesn’t think of him as a very optimistic man, as a general rule - more cynical and sweet and perfectionist and amusing and deeply, absurdly caring.
Yes. Well - she has a lot of feelings about Anthony Bridgerton, in case that wasn’t clear.
“Optimism.” He echoes staunchly. “We’re away for the weekend, and I thought I might as well bring a few condoms. Just in case dinner went well - which it did, until you went and mentioned your sister - but - yes.” He coughs a strange, strangled sort of cough. “I’m not trying to pressure you, obviously -”
“Because you’re the perfect gentleman. I know.”
There’s a pause. He can’t look her in the eye, it seems. And she thinks he was talking about wanting to hook up with her, there. She’s a reasonably bright woman, she likes to think - a successful lawyer, capable of understanding complex arguments - but somehow she’s suddenly scared that she’s lost all ability to comprehend the English language.
Because she can’t quite dare to hope that she understood him correctly. She can’t allow herself to wish that it’s true, that he might have brought this absurd number of condoms on their weekend away with the intention of turning a chaste dinner date into something different.
She can’t hope, because hope is just a recipe for disappointment.
She makes a desperate plea for some clarity.
“Really - a few? This is just a few condoms in case we might need them?”
“I was hoping we might need them. I - ah - I’m practising optimism very optimistically?” He tries.
She kisses him at last. She simply gets on and does it, leans in so quickly she half-falls in the process. She ends up sprawled over his lap, her arms wrapped around him, desperately holding on.
But honestly - she can’t see how it can go wrong, at this point, however chaotic it gets. He’s just confirmed out loud in actual words that dozens of condoms are his definition of optimism, this weekend.
Maybe she can stop expecting the worst, now.
He kisses her back. More than that - he’s clinging to her, lips responding eagerly to her kiss, and he’s laughing and making a sort of moaning noise, both at once.
“Thank God.” He whispers fervently against her lips. “I was really worried I’d screwed up tonight.”
She laughs a breathy laugh, the tension of the evening breaking at last. “I thought I had screwed up. You got so grumpy at me -”
“You started talking about your sister. I was trying to remember the name of that damn coffee place to suggest we could go there on Monday, and then you went and mentioned your sister.” He shakes his head. “It always worries me when you bring her up. Like - is it some distancing device? Are you trying to say this is creepy and incestuous and I should leave you the hell alone?”
“Weird question to ask while I’m clinging to your neck.” She points out, because arguing with him is what she does best, even in these circumstances. “You really thought I was trying to put you off?”
“Why else would you keep bringing it up?”
“Uh - gaping insecurity? The unavoidable truth that you dated her first?” She tries. Isn’t that obvious?
He looks genuinely gobsmacked. “You’re still looking at it like that? I’ve spent a decade trying to get your attention and you’re still hung up on that?”
“I guess.” She hedges. She’s feeling defensive, now, and a minute ago they were kissing and she liked that part much better, thank you very much.
He reads her mood right, this time, it seems, as he rushes to reassure her. “I never realised. I’m sorry - I guess I see it now. I - uh - yeah.” He scratches his ear. “Colossal mistake on my part. Oops.”
“Anthony Bridgerton, admitting a mistake?”
“Kate Sharma, admitting insecurity?” He counters.
She grins. It’s a natural progression, perhaps, that they found themselves here. A sort of culmination of all the vulnerability they’ve learned to share, in recent weeks, and of the way they’ve tangled spooning and emotional honesty together in knots.
She’s rather proud of them both, all things considered.
It’s that thought which gives her the courage for that final push.
“So - about those condoms?” She asks pointedly, running a teasing finger over his jaw.
He laughs - a proper warm, full laugh, this time. “Yes. Definitely. Please.”
“I’m seeing the number of them as a personal challenge.” She tells him.
He laughs even brighter. “I like that. Where should we start? What do you like?”
“You.”
“Kate -”
“I mean it. I’m very into you.” She announces bravely. “So just - yeah. Whatever you think we should start with. You’re more experienced than me.”
“Have you done this before?”
“A few times.” She hedges, feeling a bit pathetic. She had one short term boyfriend at the end of school, one medium term boyfriend in her early student days.
Then she met Anthony Bridgerton and became a bit of a nun, honestly.
“Then we’ll go carefully.” He decides, a beautiful, perfect contrast to the eagerness of his hand already skimming over her hip. “It’s been a while for me too. I got a bit hung up on this one woman at work.”
She laughs at that. It’s not very funny, perhaps, but this has become a very happy tent, lately, and it turns out she’s now the kind of woman who would laugh aloud for sheer joy.
“You’d better tell me if I’m getting it wrong or you don’t like something, alright?” He asks now, all serious, eyebrows really challenging her to do as he asks. “I refuse to screw this up. You’re too important to me for that.”
She swallows hard. She wasn’t expecting that. “I - yeah - you too. You can always count on me for honest communication. You know I never spare your feelings.”
He swoops in for another kiss at that. She’s trying to reach into the holdall for a condom, and their limbs end up in a bit of a tangle.
No. She doesn’t need to grab the condom now. They should make out a bit longer, explore with their hands, then go in for the condom. She must look so clumsy and out of practice, and he’s kissing harder than she can keep up with, and -
She’s fine. She can do this. Time to stop thinking too hard, stop letting her insecurity and all those uncomfortable, conflicted jealous feelings about her beloved sister get in the way.
She just needs to relax and enjoy the kiss. She’s got this.
She does her best to take it one moment at a time. She thinks about the kiss, about his lips against hers, about the sweet little groaning noises he’s making as if to tell her he wants this, too. She thinks about her hands, enjoys the texture of his cheek against her palm, then his neck under her fingertips, then dares to reach down and shamelessly squeeze his biceps. For all the weeks they’ve been sharing a bed, she’s never really got to know his body. She’s never really been bold enough to hold him, touch him, explore.
She wants to put that right, all at once. She’s suddenly tugging determinedly at his T shirt, pulling it up over his stomach and then his chest, getting it caught a bit on those broad shoulders.
He’s moaning like she’s driving him mad.
She hasn’t been very vocal, she realises. She needs to show him she likes it, needs to tell him he’s allowed to go exploring, too.
She goes for a simple solution, in the end. She grabs his wrist, moves his hand from a polite perch on her waist to a slightly more useful location on her hip.
He laughs a messy laugh into the kiss, squeezes her hip a little as if to say he’s got the message. Then he’s reaching for her shirt too - that sleep shirt he brought so perfectly folded - and whipping it off over her head in one smooth movement.
Damn it. He’s definitely more competent at this than she is.
She tries to match him. She tries to get bolder, teasing her fingers down over his chest, tickling her way across his abs.
He makes an odd sort of huffing, grunting noise at that.
“You good?” She asks, just in case. Just in case this is another thing she’s gone and misjudged, another challenging chapter in the whole confusing saga of loving this man.
“So good. You?”
“Perfect.” She admits.
He growls at that. He actually full-on growls. There is simply no other word she can use to describe that noise, deep in his throat, all gruff and possessive and needy.
She kisses him deeper, tries not to let that spike of arousal get to her. She can’t go melting into a puddle just because of one little growly moment, not when -
“Lie down?” He asks her suddenly. “Lie down so I can start getting you warmed up with my hand?”
She frowns, takes up an argument with him. Isn’t that what she enjoys most about time spent with this man?
“I don’t need a warm up. We’ve been making out for ages, spooning for weeks, and - you know - we’ve known each other a while.”
He grins. “Known each other?”
She laughs, swats him cheerfully on the shoulder. He catches her hand, brings it in for the oddest, sweetest little courtly kiss.
Huh. Maybe that’s what happens, when you hook up with the minor aristocrat in your life.
She abandons the argument, gets on with doing as he asked. She might not need a warm-up, but she wouldn’t mind that hand between her legs. It’s a good sort of hand, as hands go.
He’s lying by her side, reaching eagerly for her almost before her head hits the pillow. His hand is just there, on her crotch, cupping her softly but not prying, not pushing inside - not pushing his luck, perhaps.
She whines a little, rocks up into his hand.
He grins, evidently very pleased with himself.
“You’re going to be a tease.” She accuses him fondly. “I should have known.”
He shakes his head. “Honestly? I have the restraint to tease you for - what? - maybe another ten seconds? Then I’m going to admit defeat and dive right in.”
She grins at him. She quite likes the sound of that.
He’s as good as his word. He gives up on teasing her soon after, goes ahead and slips a couple of fingers inside. She gives herself permission to get all sentimental and fond, to bury her face in his shoulder and moan softly. To really embrace the truth that this is happening, that he wants her, that he’s touching her like she’s something precious.
He seems to like that - the way she’s clinging to him. He’s got his other arm wrapped around her, in turn, and he’s hugging her even tighter than their old spooning ritual, pressing soft kisses to the crown of her head all the while.
She always knew he’d be a soft kisses sort of guy, in a moment like this. She always knew that, beneath all the bluster, he’s really fond of cats and cuddles and kisses.
So it is that she presses a few soft kisses to his shoulder in turn, then draws back to ask a crucial question.
“Where did that condom go?”
“Why - you think we’re ready for it?”
“I think we’re years past ready for it. I’m getting impatient.” She jokes, poking him fondly in the ribs.
He takes her up on that challenge. He’s scrabbling for that condom, finding it tangled in the sleeping bag as they both laugh breathlessly. He’s opening the packet, rolling the thing into place, raising his brows at her in question.
“Let’s do this.” She answers, easy as drawing breath.
He’s smiling wide as anything as he rolls above her, as he gets his hips aligned over hers. That’s something which she’s noticed about this entire thing, ever since she first kissed him, she decides. He’s simply been looking so happy this whole time. She always knew hooking up with Anthony would be a hot and heady sort of experience, if ever they got this far. But she expected it to be sort of tense, tortured, fiery, too.
Or at least - she would have expected that, before their spooning ritual.
There’s just so much more joy in his face than she ever dared to imagine. She’s so entranced by that gleeful grin, in fact, that she finds herself reaching up to trace his mouth with her fingertips.
“What? What did I do?” He asks, all playful.
“Just - this. You look happy. Smug.” She teases him.
He only grins, and gets on with slipping his cock inside of her.
They’re a good fit, she decides. It’s not just that his cock is a good size for her, but his hips feel right nestled between hers, and he’s just the perfect height for her to wrap her feet behind his ankles, a bit like she would if they were spooning.
He starts out slow, just rocking his hips a little, kissing her deeply but somehow carefully, too. She can feel, in this moment, everything he started out by saying, when she first reached for that condom and he had so much to say about wanting to get it right, wanting her honest response.
Huh. Maybe Anthony Bridgerton is capable of insecurity, too.
“You can move faster. I’m not breakable.” She tells him, trying to sound more understanding than impatient.
“I know you’re not breakable. But I refuse to screw this up.” He reiterates.
She grins, buries her face in his shoulder again. He seemed to like that earlier.
While he takes his time, she tries to stay patient, tries to stay turned on but not too eager. It’s funny - all these years, perhaps she’s been putting him on a kind of pedestal. She’s been so busy uselessly pining over him, thinking him the funniest and cleverest and most annoying man in all the world, that perhaps she’s not given enough consideration to the fact that he’s human. That he’s flesh and blood, capable of getting a bit nervous and cautious on first hooking up with her.
She should have realised he’d be cautious, perhaps. He’s a pessimistic perfectionist about so many things. He’s so ridiculously caring, too, obsessed with the health and happiness of his siblings and his cat and everyone at the office.
So - when those two things tangle together, evidently she gets fucked very slowly. Which - it’s fine, if that’s actually what he wants. If he’s genuinely into that, she’s pretty certain she could learn to be into it too.
But it makes an odd contrast to all that eager touching earlier, and she’s certain he’s just being cautious out of some martyr-like perceived duty to take care of her.
She tries again, tries to tease out what’s going on here.
“You know what? I’ve always kind of liked that side of you which isn’t such a gentleman.” She tells him, carefully light, running a hand up over his back and grasping at his shoulders. “You’re kind of fun when you’re less put-together. You’re hot when you get worked up. Just felt like a good moment to tell you that.”
He huffs out a tense little laugh. “You sure you want me to drop the whole gentleman thing? Right now?”
“If you’re worried about scaring me, take the brakes off slowly.” She recommends. Just that.
He gets it. Of course he does - they’ve always had a gift for honesty, for understanding. For communicating about everything except their own dysfunctional relationship, perhaps.
So it is that he relaxes, little by little. His strokes get longer, sloppier. His hands get braver, the pace gets higher, and best of all?
Best of all he gets louder.
And she doesn’t break. Obviously she doesn’t. She doesn’t flee screaming, doesn’t walk out of his life, doesn’t rant and rave at him at all. On the contrary - she’s clinging to him, clutching at his back and shoulders, moaning the sort of moans which probably don’t belong on a campsite, of all places.
The more she responds, the more he relaxes. She figures that out pretty early on, really allows herself to have a good time and show him she likes it. She’s more or less managed to let go, now, of that early nervousness she felt not so long ago.
She’s remembered that she’s usually a confident woman, and that’s that.
She almost feels disappointed, when she realises she’s close. It seems a shame that it’s nearly over. She’s usually a one-and-done kind of woman, so this will be it for the next hour or two.
Never mind. They have a whole weekend to use up all those condoms.
“I’m close. Sorry.” She mutters, breathy, against his neck.
He laughs a short, choked laugh. “Don’t be sorry. I’m flattered.”
She’s chuckling, and then she’s coming, and the whole thing is such a gorgeous mess of heat and humour and Anthony’s warm embrace that she briefly wonders what she did to deserve happiness like this.
He’s not far behind her, in the end. There are only a few short moments of her staring at the tent ceiling, trying to regain her breath, and then suddenly he’s groaning and swearing and burying his face deeply against her neck and the pillow - so deeply that she wonders whether, maybe, he’s trying to tell her he’d quite like to stay there forever.
She hugs him close, presses a couple of kisses to his shoulder. It’s an odd sort of situation. She never hugged him much in all the weeks of their platonic spooning ritual. It’s a new development, her having her hands all over him like this, and she rather likes it.
“You good?” She asks, stroking her fingertips along that dip between his shoulder blades.
“Perfect. You?”
“Never better.” She tells him with conviction.
“Good. Perfect. That’s a bit of a relief.” He admits, chuckling a breathy chuckle.
She squeezes him close. “So - I hope that means we’re doing this again sometime? Because I for one have decided that our mission this weekend is definitely to get through all those condoms.”
“Agreed. We should make a plan. We need spoon sex on the list, please. That thought has been driving me mad for months now.”
“Ugh - yes. Me too. Your cock every single morning -”
“Hey - not my fault. I can’t control my blood flow. If you will keep grinding against me in your sleep, obviously that’s going to happen.” He argues, all fond, pressing kisses to her neck all the while.
“Arguing with you is more fun like this.” She observes. She’s combing her fingers through his hair, now. That’s something she hasn’t really tried before, and she decides she likes it.
“Definitely.”
This pause is more comfortable than that excruciating silence they shared earlier in the evening - by a very long way, in fact. Kate can hardly remember a more comfortable silence in her life. She’s feeling all relaxed and fuzzy and treasured, somehow, and she could quite easily fall asleep underneath him like this.
She knows she shouldn’t, though. She should go on a quick trip to the bathroom block. Water infections are no joke, and honestly, she thinks she could use a minute walking through the night air with her thoughts.
A lot has happened in the last hour. It’s a good lot, of course it is, but it’s still a lot.
“I should go clean up.” She tells him, patting at his sides as if to encourage him to get off her.
“You should.” He agrees. “But I don’t really want to move.”
She laughs, pats at his ribs again, turns it into a bit of a tickle. He chuckles in turn, starts to shift off her and away to his usual side of the bed.
And then -
“You’ll come back, right? We’re - you know - we’re really doing this?” He asks, gesturing between the two of them with a nervous hand.
She reaches over for another kiss. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I plan to stick around and cause all kinds of trouble. I’ll be back in five.”
“Great. Good.”
“I mean it. I’m here to stay in your life as long as you’ll have me.” She tells him firmly.
Those were the magic words, she realises, as his face relaxes. Maybe she should have guessed that earlier - she ought to have realised, by now, that he’s always frightened of losing people, of being the one left behind. She’s known him long enough.
Never mind. She’s arrived there now. She’s feeling a bit more confident than she was earlier in the evening, a bit more able to grapple with all the ways in which he is less confident than he likes to let on. They’re a good match for each other like that, she likes to think - perfectly balanced, just the right amount of challenge blended with support.
She reaches for her sleep shirt, starts getting dressed for her trip to the bathroom block. She casts around for some shoes, for her phone to use as a torch, and perhaps also for a hair tie.
No. Not the hair tie. She’ll worry about getting a brush through that chaos in the morning. When did it come unplaited?
Never mind.
She crawls towards the door of the tent, reaches for the zip, starts unzipping and shuffling and -
“It’s good that you’re not your sister. I’m sorry - I’m not a poet. I’ve been trying so damn hard to think of a pretty way to say that, or a more romantic way, or - or whatever. But you’re you, and - and it’s you I fell for, just the way you are. One day you’re going to stop comparing yourself to her all the time.” He concludes, stubborn, eyes fixed on the ceiling of the tent.
She shakes her head. He’s the most ridiculously sweet and wonderful man, and she’s eternally grateful that he offered to share a sleeping bag with her all those weeks ago - and that he offered her a job all those years before that.
And then, resigned, she rezips the tent and scoots back inside for a moment. There’s something which needs to be said, here - something more urgent than good post-coital hygiene.
“Right. So - while we’re on the subject - here’s this.” She takes a steadying breath. “You are enough. You can stop buying me tulips and lending me your credit card. I mean - not that I don’t like the tulips. It’s a lovely gesture. It’s really lovely, actually. But I’m just saying - you don’t have to try so hard.”
“You can talk. Cooking me meals for three days every time you stay over - what’s that if not making a fuss?” He accuses her fondly.
“No. That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just the same. And I don’t think you’re going to stop doing it any time soon, so I’m going to go ahead and keep buying you tulips.” He reaches in for a playful little kiss on her nose. “Hypocrite.”
She laughs, shakes her head, sets out on her bathroom block adventure once again. If he’s going to accuse her of tulip hypocrisy, she’s not going to stick around and put up with it. She shuffles out of the tent, leaves him with a passing kiss on the neck.
She just thinks it’s a good neck, alright? It’s a good neck, and she hasn’t kissed it in at least three minutes.
She makes short work of her bathroom visit. She takes a moment, then, to just stand in the night air and breathe deeply and look up at the stars.
It’s really happened, hasn’t it? Their weird spooning ritual has turned into a beautifully unique relationship ritual, and she’s thrilled right to her toes about it.
She should tell Edwina, she decides. Not because Edwina is so very relevant to Anthony’s life, not any more, but because her sister is very relevant to her life and she wants to share her big news. She wants to shout for joy that this has come good at last.
She reaches for her phone and dashes off a quick message.
Seems like we’re really together. I think we figured it out. Not to overshare but he brought two dozen condoms along for the weekend.
She leaves it at that. It’s less than half of the joy she’s feeling, less than half of the wonder she feels at the idea of Anthony Bridgerton stumbling through all these conversations about his feelings over her. She can hear some of the choice snippets echoing in her head, she realises - all those bits about it’s you I fell for and we’re really doing this and I refuse to screw this up.
She gets a response within seconds.
I know. He already told Benedict.
It’s joined swiftly by a follow-up.
Not about the condoms. I didn’t know about the condoms. He told Benedict you figured out your shit.
Then one more.
Two dozen? Good luck.
She laughs, puts her phone away. She’ll tell Edwina the whole story another time - or… most of it. And no doubt Anthony will tell Benedict most of it, and Eloise will figure most of it out, and by the time she next goes to Sunday lunch everyone will know exactly what’s going on between them.
Although - she really hopes no one tells Violet about the condoms.
She arrives back at the tent to the sight of Anthony still in that same pose, still staring at the ceiling, still with that smug look on his face.
“Satisfaction suits you.” She teases him fondly, actually pokes at his smile.
He rolls his eyes at her, undermines it by reaching up for a kiss.
It gets messy, honestly. She’s trying to shuffle into the tent, and he’s trying to kiss her, and the whole situation is a bit chaotic for the next few seconds.
Eventually, she manages to lie down at his side. She doesn’t adopt her usual position, though. She’s decided that tonight she wants to cuddle him, too, wants to wrap her arm over his chest and rest her head on his shoulder. Their usual spooning is lovely, of course it is, but for tonight she wants him in her arms.
“This is new.” He notes drily, as she arranges herself.
“Really - this is new? You’re going to pick on this as the new part, and not the part where we screwed?” She teases.
He laughs, shrugs, yawns. A sweet tangle of vulnerability and robust humour - just like everything else about their relationship.
“Sleep time?” He asks. “Or do we need to use up another condom?”
“That’ll wait. We’re both exhausted. And - we were good at sleeping first. I know that sounds weird. I just - I guess I’m saying I don’t want to lose everything else that’s good about us just because we screw now.”
“Agreed. I’ll sign you up for another newsletter in the morning.”
“Thanks. Did you bring biscuits? I ought to steal one.”
A few more chuckles, a couple more soft kisses, and they settle down for sleep.
He dozes off quicker than her tonight. She can feel him fidgeting as he does in sleep, his legs shifting against hers. That’s still annoying, she decides, but in that warm, fond way that everything about him sweetly vexes her.
She loves him to distraction, in case that wasn’t clear.
She might as well mention it, she decides. He’s fast asleep in that fidgety way of his. He won’t hear a thing. And suddenly, it’s very important to her to say it now. To get on and practise telling him the truth, even if he’s not awake to hear it.
Maybe it’s that old insecurity rearing its head. Maybe she’s worried she’ll never get a chance to say it, if she doesn’t say it tonight. After a decade pining after him, she’s worried this bubble of happiness might just burst in the morning.
Or maybe it’s not insecurity but celebration. Maybe she’s keen to get on and embrace happiness.
Either way, she swallows hard, has a go at whispering the words against his chest.
“I love you.” She murmurs into the darkness.
“I love you too.” Anthony replies, clear as anything.
She jumps a mile, as anyone would, under the circumstances.
“Wha - I - you were asleep. You weren’t meant to hear that. You were asleep and doing your leg fidget thing.” She protests at once. Of course she does. Doesn’t she always argue, when he catches her on the back foot?
“I was dozing.” He counters. “I was awake enough to hear it if you’re going to spring some huge love confession moment on me.”
“I didn’t spring it. We’re away together and we just screwed for the first time after weeks of sexual tension. If that’s not a natural time to say -”
“Years. Decades, technically. Not weeks.” He corrects her firmly.
She sighs. “Stop arguing with me and go to sleep.”
“Your wish is my command, sweetheart.”
Hmm. If she’d realised it was this easy to win an argument, she might have tried tent sex years ago.
No. She never would have had the courage, before that night he first went out of his way to take care of her and to hold her close, too. Or - perhaps the turning point came those couple of weeks later, when he showed her he likes her to take care of him, as well.
Whatever. The point is - they’re here now. They’re going to learn to make a beautiful, boisterous relationship out of this together.
“I mean it.” He tells her now, all thoughtful. “I’m not just saying it because you said it first. I love you.”
“I meant it too. Frightening, huh? Love feels… big.”
“We’ll be alright. We’ve got solid foundations. We’re building on top of years working together and laughing together. That’s the right stuff to start with. It’s not like some people, who try to pitch a tent in a puddle and then wonder why their pants are soaked through.”
She laughs, rolls her eyes even though he can’t see that in the dark. She thinks he can probably see it in his mind’s eye all the same, after all these years. She hugs him a little tighter too, tickles the sensitive skin by his arm just enough to get his attention.
“You’re grateful I pitched that tent in a puddle. If I hadn’t, who knows how much longer we would have danced around each other?”
“I’d have made a move sooner or later.” He yawns. “I was working up to it. I was definitely going to make a move. It would have happened.”
She lets that obvious lie go, just shakes her head against his chest.
She might reply. She might come up with something else to throw his way, some barb or tease or challenge. Or she might leave him to sleep, might claim some sleep for herself too. They’re both exhausted from a long week.
But - it doesn’t matter, does it? Whatever she chooses next, the future looks bright. Whether they talk the night away, laugh until three AM, or wake up refreshed and ready to rock the archery world, she’s still happy.
She’s happy, and she’s made him happy, and that’s not bad going, for a night in a cold tent.