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“I need to go change and get this unicorn collected. I should be back by midnight.”

“I’ll hopefully be in bed,” he muttered.

“I’ll be going then.”

He was exhausted. So was I.

“Can you…” he started, then hauled himself to his feet, took a step towards me and wiped his hands on the front of his slacks. “Could you… I know it’s a lot to ask, but… Can you pop in when you get back? Just check in. I… I don’t know.”

“Of course I will. Today was a big day, I understand. Leave the back door open.”

This was weird. But not. We were…friends. Weren’t we?

“Thank you,” he said, his relief visible in the way his shoulders dropped. He looked like he was about to cry.

Please don’t cry.

I think it was half panic, half some strange need for human contact for myself. I hadn’t been this close to anyone in a long time, him standing right there, me gently grabbing his upper arms, giving him a little shake.

I was aiming for a friendly arm slap as a goodbye, but instead, he pressed himself against me in some kind of awkward hug. I embraced it…and him because I hadn’t realised I needed exactly what he was offering me.

A simple hug.

“I needed that,” I admitted, patting him on the back.

“I feel absolutely wrecked.” He spoke into my shoulder, turning his head so he was leaning his face against my chest, a smaller man to my ridiculous height.

“I’ll see you later. Shall I bring some tea?”

“Decaf?”

“Always. Sleep is the aim here, remember?”

“Okay.” He let me go.

I wondered why I didn’t want him to.

I got back a few minutes before midnight, fully expecting his room downstairs to be dark and quiet, but he’d left his patio door wide open, the soft light from inside welcoming me as I stumbled, almost feeling delirious with tiredness, towards that open door.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to come home to someone. To walk through the door and be greeted and offered the chance to unwind. Talk about the day. All that I’d taken for granted for so long.

He was sitting at the table, papers strewn over the surface, still in his shirt, but at least he’d got rid of the fancytrousers and replaced them with a pair of soft shorts. Socks.

Ridiculous.

“I love the outfit,” I teased, putting two cups of tea on the table. I didn’t even wait for him to offer me a seat and instead pulled up a chair next to his. “Want to show me what you’re working on? I assume this is the planning permission for the houses and the one underneath is the block of flats along the river?”

“Correct.” He tapped his pen against the paper. “They hadn’t even done the basics. The utilities overlap with the council land next door, and the boundaries are all in the wrong places. I’ve had words with their dumbwit of an architect this evening, and he’s promised to have new plans couriered over for ten tomorrow. We have two days to fix this and resubmit before we run out of time.”

“Brutal.” I sighed. “I have no understanding of most of this, but even I can see that the house here would overlap onto the riverbank.”

“You’d fall straight into the water if you stepped out the front door.”

“Crazy.”

“Not really. The company is new, and the people running it are green as anything. They just need some guidance and their paperwork in order, and they should be up and running in a few weeks.”

“How does it feel?” I asked, hoping he understood what I was asking.