Chapter Text
Caroline wakes, stretches, and pulls on the loose kimono she keeps for holidays and leaves her solitary bed without a backward glance. It’s still too early for the children to be up but, a glance at the clock confirms, not for much longer. She can hear rattling and a quiet curse in the kitchen below.
When she enters the kitchen, Sidney glances up with an almost guilty expression, then seems to realise it and straightens himself. ‘Good morning.’
‘’Morning.’ She gestures to the coffee pot he’s holding. ‘Having problems?’
‘It’s -- I’m not --’ He glances between the pot and the tin of coffee grounds on the table. ‘Yes.’
She smiles and stretches across the table to pat him on the shoulder, noticing as she does so that he’s wearing Geordie’s shirt. The stain on the left shoulder from Davie’s cornet of the day before is unmistakeable. She doesn’t mention it but does give herself a silent pat on the back for the time she had taken beforehand with the sleeping arrangements.
With the girls safely stowed in the attic, she, Cathy, Geordie, and Sidney are more or less free to do as they like with the remaining three rooms. Geordie worries about what the girls might notice so she knows whatever had happened earlier in the evening, he and Cathy had ended up in one room. ‘Don’t worry -- the girls will be up shortly and Cath and I will take them down to the shore for a few hours.’
He jolts away from her and she can see the sudden high flush of color along his cheekbones. He looks very young like this, hair still ruffled from sleep, cuffs unbuttoned, barefoot. She’s never found a man attractive in the way she does Cathy but she can see what about this man would draw Geordie’s eye. Fortunately, there’s something to him beyond the looks or they wouldn’t be standing here now.
‘I -- er --’
She waits as he fumbles and then sighs again, running a hand over his head and looking at her with a disarming directness. ‘I’m … this is -- all very -- different.’
She smiles again and slides the coffee pot out of his hand. ‘I’ve always enjoyed being different. I think you’ll find it can be quite a lot of fun if you do it correctly.’