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Hardy looks about them nonchalantly, watching people pass by with candyfloss and hot dogs and all manner of treats from the funfair that’s set up behind his newly-reacquired little blue shack. Again.
“Miller, have you eaten?”
She ponders that for a second, and he actually hears her stomach rumble. “Not since breakfast.”
“Do you wanna…maybe…I don’t know.” He clears his throat. “Get dinner together?”
“Sure. I could murder some chips.” She gestures with her head towards the chip shop further up the sea front.
“No, I didn’t mean - ” He stops; regards her warily.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re still living on salad. Your heart’s all better now; live a little!”
Funny, how that’s sort of what he’s trying to do. “Um.” He runs a hand over his jaw, scratching his beard for a moment. “It’s just. I sort of meant - dinner. Dinner-dinner.”
Miller stares at him. “What?”
“Dinner-dinner,” he tries again, more emphatic this time. She’s still looking at him blankly. “You know. Dinner!”
“What - you mean - ” She squints at him. “Like a date?”
Hardy swallows. “Would that…would that be…” He looks at her entreatingly, not above begging her with his eyes to understand what he’s getting at without him having to spell out even more explicitly.
Miller’s wide-eyed gaze drops for a moment, and she fidgets with the zipper of her orange coat. “Well. The kids are with Luce and - I suppose it isn’t like I’ve got any better offers for things to do tonight, so.”
Hardy’s lips twitch, and she meets his eyes again. “Is that a yes?”
She sniffs, and counters, “Is that a smile?”
He deliberately pitches his voice lower to repeat, “Is that a yes?”
Miller shrugs. “Yeah. All right.”
Her tone is so casual but he knows her by now, knows when she’s being dismissive or when she’s feeling indifferent or annoyed or confused, and this, this casual response from her - it isn’t, really. Nothing about this has ever been casual and they both know it, he thinks; and maybe it’s taken her longer to get here, longer to feel it, but he can see in the set of her jaw and the glint in her eyes that she does, now. Which, in this moment, here on their bench, with the wind blowing in their hair and her sitting there trying not to grin at him in her bloody orange coat, is the only thing that matters to him.
He responds to her finally, though it’s hardly needed, because she can see it all over his face. “Then yeah. This is a smile.”
“We can still get chips, though, right?”
Hardy nods, and stands, a tentative hand outstretched, and he really doesn’t think she’ll take it, for all their plans, but - she does. He tugs her up and against his side and they walk along, shoulders brushing.
“I’ll even take you to the funfair, if you want,” he murmurs.
Miller laughs all the way to the chip shop.