What He Said Before

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“Did Julian pay you to come here?”

Leo opened his eyes. For a moment, he looked simply sleepy. Then he saw her phone.

“Yes.”

Ada sat up.

“For the wedding?”

“For playing. He also offered to cancel an old loan.”

“What loan?”

Leo reached for his shirt, then stopped, as if movement might look like escape.

“Four years ago. Equipment and travel costs for the tour.”

The room was quiet except for the rain.

“The tour you left for.”

“Yes.”

She got out of bed. She needed distance to think, and disliked that distance felt like punishment.

“Were you going to tell me?”

“I should have told you yesterday.”

“That isn't what I asked.”

He looked at her directly. “I hoped I could repay the rest after London and never have to talk about it again.”

Ada wrapped herself in her dressing gown.

“So your brother asked you to come to my wedding, sing, and have your debt forgiven.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know I was the bride?”

“Yes.”

That hurt differently from the rest.

“Why agree?”

“Because I was tired of owing him. Because he said we'd finally put the old arguments behind us. Because I thought I could watch you marry someone else and act like it didn't matter.”

Ada looked away.

“You don't get credit for finding that difficult.”

“I know.”

“Was last night part of anything you discussed?”

“No.” The answer came immediately. “Ada, no.”

She believed that. Belief did not remove the rest.

He stood, leaving the space between them intact.

“I've made this sound smaller than it is. I didn't tell you something because I was ashamed. That's not the same as protecting you, even if I wanted to call it that.”

“Good. Don't call it that.”

She opened the bedroom door.

“I need breakfast without you.”

“All right.”

He dressed and left. No argument. No wounded performance. Ada wished doing the right thing now could erase doing the wrong thing earlier. It couldn't. That was going to be inconvenient for both of them.

June found her making toast with the toaster unplugged.

“Rough night?”

“Complicated morning.”

“Would you like advice?”

“No.”

June plugged in the toaster.

“Practical assistance?”

“Yes.”

They ate at the kitchen table. Ada told her enough to make the silence bearable.

June listened without calling either Mercer brother a name, which Ada recognized as a considerable act of restraint.

“Do you think I'm making the same mistake?” Ada asked eventually.

“I think you should watch what he does when you disappoint him.”

Ada considered that.

Julian had tried to shrink her decision until it fitted his version of her. Leo had left the room when asked. It was not absolution, but it was information.

At eleven, Ada went to the drawing room to collect the wedding gifts. She would return them with a short note. A set of crystal glasses sat beside a ridiculous ceramic swan she had secretly loved.

Leo appeared in the doorway.

“I've written to Julian,” he said. “The loan remains a loan. I'm not taking forgiveness as payment for being here.”

“You don't have to prove anything by making yourself poorer.”

“I have to stop letting him turn money into instructions.”

She put the swan in a box.

“How much?”

“Eight thousand still outstanding.”

“Can you repay it?”

“Not today. Over time, yes. The London job helps.”

She nodded. It mattered that he had an answer which did not involve her rescuing him.

“I'm not asking you to forgive me quickly,” he said.

“Good.”

“But I'd like to keep helping today, if you want that.”

“What did you think would happen when you saw me in the dress?” she asked.

His eyes flicked towards the staircase.

“I thought I'd play badly, drink too much and leave early.”

“Very dignified.”

“I didn't say it was a good plan.”

“And when I gave the ring back?”

“I was glad. Then ashamed of being glad, because you were hurting.”

She had wanted a grand declaration. This was smaller and less flattering, and somehow harder to dismiss.

“You were very handsome on that stage,” she said. “It was intensely annoying.”

He smiled cautiously. “I can wear something worse.”

“Don't you dare.”

For a moment, the question mark did not vanish, but it moved aside enough for them to see each other. Ada let the moment exist without deciding what it meant.

She handed him a roll of tape.

“Start with the swan.”

They worked together for an hour. The ordinariness was almost painful. Leo wrapped gifts carefully. Ada wrote names. When their hands brushed, neither pretended not to notice.

Looking for more labels, Ada opened the desk drawer and found a birthday card beneath the envelopes. Julian had drawn a terrible little birthday cake inside it. He had been making her laugh when he gave it to her.

She sat down before she meant to.

Leo stopped folding the paper around a glass.

“What is it?”

“Something I thought I'd lost.”

He saw the handwriting. A muscle moved beside his mouth, and she watched him make an effort to relax it.

“I can work in the other room,” he said.

“No. I don't want to have to hide that some of it was good.”

“You don't.”

She looked at him until the easy answer became more difficult.

“Does it bother you?”

“Yes.” He put the glass down carefully. “I'd like him to have been awful every day. It would make this much easier for me.”

Ada's eyes stung. “He wasn't.”

“I know.”

There was no elegant way to sit with that. Leo picked up the paper again and folded it the wrong way. She caught his wrist before he tipped the glass over. For a moment, neither let go.

“I chose you last night,” she said. “I didn't choose to forget two years.”

His hand turned beneath hers, then became still.

“I'm trying not to ask for things you haven't offered.”

“Try with the wrapping too. You're making a terrible job of it.”

He looked down and laughed, embarrassed. The laugh made room for her to breathe.

Ada returned the card to the drawer. Keeping it did not mean keeping the future it had once belonged to. She took a new sheet of paper and sat beside Leo instead of opposite him.

“I don't regret last night,” she said at last.

He put down the tape.

“I don't either.”

“I regret that something lovely now has a question mark attached.”

“I put it there.”

“Yes.”

Outside, a gull landed on the windowsill and screamed at them.

“Even the wildlife agrees,” Leo said.

Ada laughed before she could stop herself. He smiled, but did not treat the laugh as forgiveness.

That afternoon, the roof began to leak above the stage.

Not a dramatic flood. A steady, humiliating drip into the space where her mother used to stand. Ada fetched buckets. Leo moved the instruments. June called the roofer who had already inspected it and asked for the earliest repair slot.

They could afford a temporary repair. The full job would have to wait.

Ada stood beneath the drip, furious at the timing.

“This is the part where someone offers to buy everything,” she said.

Leo looked up. “I'd offer, but apparently I'm eight thousand pounds short of being solvent.”

She laughed again. This time, it stayed.

By evening, the instruments were safe and a temporary patch was arranged for Monday. They ate leftovers at the kitchen table. Ada could feel herself wanting Leo's hand on hers, and chose not to ask for it yet.

Then Julian arrived with his mother.

Beatrice Mercer wore a pale coat and an expression suggesting she had come to retrieve something from a careless shop.

“We need to finish this,” she said.

Ada stayed seated. “Which part?”

“The public humiliation.”

“Then stop bringing it into my kitchen.”

Julian placed his phone on the table.

“I tried to speak privately.”

“You threatened me with a photograph.”

“To show you what this looks like.”

Leo stood. “Don't speak for her.”

Julian turned towards him with an almost relieved smile.

“And here he is. The better brother.”

“I'm not claiming that.”

“Then tell her the truth about coming back.”

“I have.”

Julian looked at Ada. “All of it?”

She hated the small movement of doubt inside her. He saw it and leaned on it.

“He asked me for that loan because he wanted to get away from this place. From you. Would you like to hear him say it?”

“Julian,” Beatrice murmured, but she did not take the phone away.

He pressed play.

Leo's voice filled the kitchen, younger and impatient.

“I kissed her once. She's not a reason to stay.”

Ada looked at Leo.

He had gone completely still.

The recording ended. Julian put one hand over the phone.

“This time,” he said, “you should ask what he'll choose when the car arrives.”