Elara made breakfast at six-fifteen and was very, very focused on the scrambled eggs.
Not because she was hungry. Not because she had any particular feelings about eggs. But the eggs needed stirring, and stirring required her eyes on the pan, and her eyes being on the pan meant they were not on the kitchen doorway, which was where Rowan was going to appear any minute now, looking like he always looked — composed, direct, already three steps into his day — and she needed one more minute before she had to be a person who could handle that normally.
She stirred. The eggs sizzled. She added pepper she didn't want.
Last night in the car: the rain against the glass, the amber glow of the one working streetlight, the eighteen inches that had become eight, then six, then close enough that she h
