Nothing Official

By half past ten on Monday, Alison had been asked four times, and she still hadn't used the word.

The first was the woman from payroll, who came into the staff kitchen for the milk and stayed for the milk and the news. “So you two are a thing now, are you?”

“We're seeing each other,” Alison said. “Sort of. Seeing each other.”

Her manager got her at the sink twenty minutes later and wanted to know how long the relationship had been going on.

“It's early days,” Alison said. “Very early. Days, basically. It's days.”

The third was the colleague who never washes his mug, and he didn't bother with a hedge. “Is he your boyfriend, then, or what?”

“He's a friend,” Alison said. “A friend who I— yeah. A friend.”

By the fourth, someone from the window desk, halfway through a sentence about a leaving card, she had lost the thread completely. “Nothing's official,” she heard herself say. “There's nothing official, there's no official anything, we're not doing labels, it isn't— nothing's happened. I mean, things have happened. Nothing official.”

The kettle boiled and the window desk went back to the window.

Rory, who had been standing at the counter through all four of these with an empty mug and the patience of a man twenty-two years into the same job, poured his tea and said, “There's no milk left. I keep a carton in the bottom drawer, if you want it.”

He didn't ask her anything.

“We've been together since November,” Alison said. “I'm meeting his kids on Saturday. I've been sick about it twice.”

Rory thought about that for a moment. “Saturday's better than Sunday,” he said. “Sunday they've got school in the morning and everyone's horrible.”

“Ask me on Monday,” Alison said. “I'll tell you how it went.”

“I won't ask,” said Rory. “But you can tell me.”