“Well, of course I knew you weren’t gonna do anything.” Lisa followed her into her lounge room. “I just thought you’d perve. Remind yourself what you were missing.”

Cora raised her eyes to the half-filled-out Cosmo quiz left open on the coffee table.

“Keeping busy, Lisa?”

A flush crawled along Lisa’s cheeks. “We all have things we do when we think no one’s watching. Mine just happens to be embarrassing life quizzes.”

Something must have cracked the I’m fine mask Cora had skilfully drawn on with the help of Bitch Red lipstick, because Lisa dropped her playful tone. “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” Cora took in a deep breath, and tried to not look like she was about to shake apart. She tried hard. “Do you have wine?”

“Of course.”

When Lisa came back with two glasses, filled nicely, Cora had the trembling in her hands under control. She’d come to escape the judgement of the dent in her table and the wine stains on her carpet, not to confess to her friend who had more important things to deal with than Cora destroying her marriage. Which may or may not have already been destroyed; but that had somehow stopped being relevant in her mind.

Cora sat on the couch and accepted a glass, happy when Lisa sat next to her.

“Can we watch a movie?”

Lisa eyed her but nodded anyway. “Sure. What one?”

“Anything.”

It took only moments to find an old nineties movie on the regional channel. Feet next to each other on the coffee table, Cora slowly put her head on Lisa’s shoulder, the wine glass clutched against her chest.

Lisa even pretended not to notice the unmistakable tears on her cheeks halfway through the film or the way her shoulders shook. All she did was wrap an arm around Cora, pulling her in tighter.

* * *

The message from Cora had only said “sorry.”

And there was nothing Frazer could think to say back to that, so nothing was said.

Sorry could mean anything. Sorry it happened. Sorry for asking the impossible after it. Sorry for the situation you’re in. Sorry I’m married. Sorry I fell on your face in more ways than one.

Sorry.

Now, though, Frazer would probably have to say sorry for not saying anything to Cora’s sorry.

It was all a little ridiculous.

“So. Family lunch tomorrow. You’re in, yes? Yes.”

Not even trying for soft, Frazer dug her toe into Jemma’s thigh from where she sat on the other end of the couch. “Why must I?”