Sometimes they talked about music. Their top-played, their embarrassing favourites from their teens. They traded jokes in the hallway. Tia eyed them as she walked past, and Frazer forgot to make it look like she wasn’t enjoying herself. Between them they planned a training week with some of the social work team and some of midwifery team. They’d have more mentors, more clients.

And around their organising, Frazer learnt that Cora once had a dog that ate only left shoes. That when she was little, her grandmother had taught her to make food that her mother before her had taught her to create. Food that tasted like spice and fish, like the shores of a village that ate their food fresh from the boat. In turn, Frazer told her about her own kitchen, filled with the smell of India.

They spilled a connection between them, let it spread like un upturned glass of milk left unchecked. Frazer tried to tell herself it was all friendship. That there weren’t times she wanted to brush her lips against Cora’s neck, to go back to that drunken night and do it all again but for longer. With no alcohol—just them and their skin and nothing to smudge the memory of it.

At night, Frazer lay and stared at her ceiling. She’d try to remember everything from that night, the way Cora had rolled her hips, had moaned. The depth of her eyes, the cling of her fingers.

It was blurred at the edges, a flicker of images, sounds, and tastes.

Until, in frustration, her fingers slipped between her legs.

And still, Frazer tried to tell herself it could be friendship.

They never spoke of Alec.

When Frazer sent him an e-mail, she reminded herself again and again that he was Cora’s husband. That Frazer had no right to think what she thought. At night, when her hands wandered with those thoughts bright against the back of her eyelids, shame shadowed all of it.

She couldn’t even convince herself that there was nothing wrong with being friends anymore.

* * *

Cora liked having Frazer around. They talked, they shared inside jokes—being with Frazer was easy and utterly complicated. Cora resisted the urge to tell Frazer that Alec had been angry she’d made spaghetti the night they had their parents for dinner. When the urge rose up to talk to Frazer about therapy, Cora asked Frazer about her day instead. When Frazer brought Cora a coffee, setting it on her desk with a flourish and a grin, Cora tried to stop herself from responding to the natural charisma Frazer exuded. Rather than talking about how Cora dreamt at night of the dining table, of what they’d done on it, Cora brought up the programme. If the urge arose to ask Frazer if their kisses also still burnt her lips, Cora mentioned Jack instead.