At a traffic light, Cora fiddled with the radio. It was a strange day, overcast yet muggy, the air sitting heavily and tugging at her clothes. It needed to rain. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the light to turn green.

Yet, what Tia didn’t get was the same lingering look. The same husky laugh. The gentle touch of fingers at her wrist. The feeling that stayed in her chest, like butterflies, was another thing Cora didn’t imagine Tia was getting.

Cora felt ridiculous, like a teenager. But she couldn’t forget that Frazer had walked away, and that stopped Cora from feeling like she could walk forward.

Yet still, Cora watched Frazer.

The light finally turned, and Cora pressed her foot down slowly, heat stinging her cheeks. It was almost embarrassing how much she watched Frazer.

Just that morning, Cora had been photocopying some pension application forms for a client. She was crammed into a tiny side room that probably should have been a cleaning product storage room, but they used it to store the photocopier. Subtly, or so she had told herself, she had looked over her shoulder so she could watch Frazer talking to Tia. She had been leant over the reception desk, sprawled really. Frazer was always so comfortable in her own skin.

When she’d walked into that café that day, it had been one of the only times Cora had seen Frazer so out of her comfort zone, unease playing at her edges. And then, at one point, the smile she’d given Cora had been quirked up further on one side, so real, so Frazer, that Cora’s breath had caught in her chest. Frazer was giving that smile right then to Tia, who looked up just in time to catch Cora staring.

Really, it was embarrassing.

Whatever was going on with Frazer, it was nice to have her friend back.

* * *

“So, you guys are, like, working together?”

Jemma was staring at Frazer, lips pursed in a straight line as if trying to hold something in.

Frazer nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“Interesting.” Jemma’s face was red with the effort of whatever she was doing.

Frazer had been chatting perfectly comfortably with Jemma and Meg in her living room, no one bothering to get up and switch on the lights as afternoon had turned into evening. Now they were washed in the blue light of the aquarium, something Frazer normally loved. Yet, now she was regretting having told her sister all about Cora’s return a few weeks ago.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jemma simply shook her head.

“Jemma?” Frazer knew she wanted to say something. Jemma always wanted to bloody say something.

Meg, cross-legged on the couch next to Jemma, rested her hand on Jemma’s knee. “I think,” she said, “what Jemma wants to say is…it’s, uh…a little strange.”

“What? Why?”