"Okay, so pressing this button down the bottom will take you back to the main screen-" Breaking off with a huff of irritation she doesn't really feel, she glares at the man who is sitting beside her with his hooked arm stretched out along the top of the booth behind her. The same man who is obviously more interested in admiring the way her black bra looks underneath her thin white sweater than he is in the hand-me-down phone she's just given him. "Can you at least pretend to pay attention?"
"I am paying attention, Swan." His unrepentant blue gaze finally lifts from her cleavage (yeah, okay, her neckline's a little low today, she'll give him that one) to meet her eyes. "Just not to your little talking device."
He might be looking at her face now, but it doesn't make her feel any less flustered, because the same lazy hunger is still glittering in his eyes, and his thigh is flush against hers beneath Granny's corner booth. This thing between them is getting out of hand, no pun intended, and she dives behind the ready excuse of the phone sitting on the table between them. "It's your little talking device now, and it could save your life one day, so I want you to learn how to use it."
Sighing loudly (he could seriously rival Henry in the sulking male stakes when he's like this) he reaches out and presses the home button with his index finger. "Happy now, love?"
"Not quite." She presses the sleep button on the top of the phone, and the screen goes dark. "You still have to put in your security code."
Another sigh. "I hardly see the point of such skulduggery."
"You don't?" And to think he has the nerve to call her stubborn, she grumbles silently. "What if a bad guy gets hold of your phone and sends me a message asking me to meet you in a dark alleyway?"
He scowls at the darkened phone screen, as if it's contemplating doing just that. "If they allow someone to be so easily hoodwinked by an imposter, then these blasted things are more trouble than they're worth."
She bites the inside of her cheek, but she can't stop herself from smiling. "I gotta say, I kind of agree with you there, but you're still going to learn how to use it."
"If the lady insists." He dips his head in a mock bow, and as usual she's torn between the urge to punch him very hard in the arm and kissing the hell out of him, just to see that dazed expression of his that she's grown to enjoy so much. Maybe she'll do both, once they find themselves some privacy.
Picking up the phone, she presses it into his palm, trying not to notice how warm his skin feels against hers. "All you have to do is swipe your thumb across the screen."
He arches one dark eyebrow at her, and she marvels at his ability to turn a simple phrase into a double entendre without saying a word. Painfully aware of the fact that she's only one touch or kiss away from climbing into his lap in front of the early dinner crowd, she nods at the phone with an unsteady jerk of her head. "Actually, first you need to press the little button on the top right hand side."
He does as she asks, and a picture of herself and Henry fills the screen. She knows then that he really hadn't been paying attention earlier, because his eyes widen at the sight of it. "What's this?"
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realise that photo was still on there." Once she'd decided to give him her old phone, she'd been careful to delete everything except all the stored numbers she thought he might need, but she'd forgotten about the wallpaper. "I can change it to something else if you like?"
"No, leave it be." His fingers curl tightly around the phone, as if he's afraid she might snatch it away from him. "It's a lovely portrait of the pair of you."
"Thanks." The word comes out in a weirdly croaky voice, and she swallows hard. He's staring at the photo of her and Henry as though it's some amazing gift she's just given him, and she suddenly thinks it's easier when he's pulling the flirtatious pirate routine because, this, this feels dangerous. "It was taken last year." The unspoken words in New York fill the sudden silence between them, and she finds herself holding her breath.
"You both look very happy," he finally tells her, his gaze still trained on the photograph, his tone casual in the way she's used herself so many times in the past to pretend she doesn't care, and her heart twinges.
"We were." Reaching down, she swipes her thumb across the screen, replacing her and Henry's smiling faces with the number keypad. "But it wasn't real."
He looks up at her then, his eyes searching her face and seeing way too much (just as he always does) as a whole new set of unspoken words pile up between them. "Emma-"
"Mom!"
She can't deny she's relieved to see her father and Henry walking across the diner towards them. Henry still looks miserable, but at least he's out of the house. Damn you, Regina. Waving to her son, she starts to slide out of the booth. "There's David, which means it's my turn to go do sheriff stuff." Disappointment flickers across Killian's face, and a familiar rush of guilt sweeps over her. He thinks she's running away again, and she is, but she doesn't have time (or the energy) for a heart-to-heart right now. "I'm sure Henry would be happy to show you anything you need to know about the phone." She puts his hand on his shoulder, the leather of his jacket cool against her palm. "I'll see you later, okay?"
He dangles his new phone between two fingers and gives her a pointed smirk. "All you have to do is call, Swan, and I'll be on the spot, as always."
After a quick word to Henry about not filling up on junk (his unhappiness with his other mother hadn't affected his appetite that she can tell), she heads for the door. She glances backwards just before she leaves, and can't help grinning at the sight of Killian showing his phone to David and Henry. Three hundred year-old pirate or not, it seems he's still something of a typical male when it comes to a shiny new toy, and she has to admit, it's kind of reassuring.
And yes, okay, vaguely adorable. She's not that stubborn.
She buries herself in paperwork for the rest of the afternoon (there's too many reports of random equipment being found frozen solid for her to think that the coast is clear in any way, shape or form) but keeps one eye on her cell phone, pretending she's not disappointed when she doesn't get any experimental calls or texts from her old phone's new owner. Obviously, he's taking this twenty-first century thing seriously and waiting for her to callhim.
The thought would make her laugh if it wasn't so busy making her stomach churn with butterflies.
During her break, she swings past the loft to keep a coffee date with her mother, and is greeted with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a knowing smile from the new Mayor, who is cradling a sleeping baby in her arms. "So, any clues as to why your father might have sent me a text message an hour ago saying that he wants to get a new cell phone?"
"I have no idea." Emma does her best to keep a straight face. "Discovered a plan too good to pass up?"
Mary Margaret carefully bites into a cookie, then hastily checks Neal's downy head for crumbs. "Apparently if a pirate from the Enchanted Forest and a fourteen year old can have fancy phones, then the Sheriff's department should have them too."
Emma selects a cookie from the plate, and bites into it with a snap. "Boys will be boys."
"Apparently so." Her mother quirks one well-shaped eyebrow, amusement dancing in her dark eyes. "But seriously, you gave Captain Hook a cell phone?"
Swallowing her mouthful of cookie, Emma grins at her. "I know, right?"
Two days later, the tips of her fingers and toes still tingling with the memory of her brush with frostbite, she sends Killian a text, then slips his phone from his coat pocket while it's draped over the back of the spare chair at the station and he's distracted by David's enthusiastic lecture on how to use the photocopier. After rolling her eyes at the fact that he still hasn't set up a security code, it takes less than a minute to save the photo she's just sent and install it as his phone's wallpaper.
It's a selfie (God, she hates that word, but she's officially admitted defeat) Henry had taken that morning when the three of them were at the docks. The sky and water are a vivid blue behind them, and Henry's head reaches above her shoulder now, something that gives her a shock every time she sees it. She and Henry are looking at the camera, scrunching up their eyes into the sun, but Killian is looking at her.
They're all smiling.
She slips the phone back into his pocket just as David is wrapping up with a stern warning about spilling toner on the carpet, and feels a strange sense of something she vaguely recognises as contentment.
This town will never be a peaceful one. Even now, her head is filled way too many riddles that need solving. Right now, though, she's happy, it's real, and it's enough.