Her heart felt light and joyful. It had taken enough to get him to the beach, she'd practically had to beat him over the head with clues, but he got it in the end and the payoff was well worth the effort. When she had offered him her hand in the water, she had been partially teasing him, she hadn't fully expected him to accept it but was glad that he had. Their little paddle through the waves, hand in hand had given her a floating happy feeling that seemed to be carrying her even now as they walked along the beach.
So she wasn't angry with him then. She had seemed herself during working hours every day since their-well he wasn't sure even now what to call it. Their encounter? Their conversation-their kiss? He had dreamt about that kiss; it had brought him such a mix of melancholy pain and hopeful joy that he was left constantly just on the cusp of contentment. He wanted to do it again and again and again, he wanted to kiss her until his lips bled. He had always understood, in theory, the poetry and the songs about a woman's rose petal lips, but now his understanding was more intimate. His understanding of the beauty of a lover's kiss was a knowledge that drove him, at time it seemed, to insanity. After the kiss, she had been herself during working hours, yes, but it had taken a very long time for her to visit his pantry in the evenings again.
Sometimes as he sat at his desk only half concentrating on his work he would hear the faintest sound of someone walking to his door, he would see the shadow of her feet, but she would not knock, she would not enter, she wouldn't even stand very long, she would think better of it and leave. She tore his heart out every time she did so, but he supposed that she was giving no less than he had asked for. He had held his head in his hands and asked himself, too many times, why he could not have just told her that he loved her. He realized all too late that he hadn't answered her when she asked if he loved her; he hadn't said yes because he assumed she already knew. He dreamed it a thousand times and a thousand different ways since then-saying "Of course I do. How could I not?", taking her in his arms and kissing her again, kissing her and, even sometimes, in his wilder fantasies making love to her-but none of his imagined scenarios were the truth. The truth of the matter was that he had been a coward and told her that he was not allowed-like a dog on a leash-he was held back from loving her. As he looked at her now, her face rosy and beautiful in the afternoon sun, he knew that was the truth.