He couldn’t help but chuckle at her answer, her assurances warming his insides further still - in a slow, contented sort of way. More like the warm blaze of a winter fire against the cold than the way the excitement and impatience of the party had raised the temperature earlier. But this, Tyb considered, in slight surprise, was equally rare a feeling in his day-to-day, and no less nice.
In fact, he rather thought he would have liked to quit his job and all responsibilities to the wider world and snuggled up here forever with her.
Although he didn’t have a library. So their future house would have to do.
He felt his cheeks flush in uncharacteristic bashfulness when she prompted him to go on. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. He’d sounded daft enough talking to Miss Delaney about his desires in life: besides, it wasn’t as though men were supposed to crave simple, dull domesticity as ardently as Tybalt was beginning to think he did. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to banish the wanting, either, or to be ashamed of it. Maybe he was a sap after all. This was what adulthood had done! Hollowed him out of all that he was and just left him soft inside. (A human made of mushy peas.)
He and Elsie had never had a direction, really, not at first. And not for a long while after that, either. So much of what they wanted and where they were headed had remained - necessarily - unspoken. They must be on the same page by now, of course - they were facing too many hurdles not to be, if they didn’t both think they were striving for something that was worth it - but with the distance, and with the difficulty, they had never really been able to look at their future in the light.
But it was the middle of the night now, they were alone and the world was warm, so Tybalt just grinned, whether she could see it or not. “You tell me something first,” he countered lightly, half in teasing. “I already gave you a library, didn’t I?”
In fact, he rather thought he would have liked to quit his job and all responsibilities to the wider world and snuggled up here forever with her.
Although he didn’t have a library. So their future house would have to do.
He felt his cheeks flush in uncharacteristic bashfulness when she prompted him to go on. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. He’d sounded daft enough talking to Miss Delaney about his desires in life: besides, it wasn’t as though men were supposed to crave simple, dull domesticity as ardently as Tybalt was beginning to think he did. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to banish the wanting, either, or to be ashamed of it. Maybe he was a sap after all. This was what adulthood had done! Hollowed him out of all that he was and just left him soft inside. (A human made of mushy peas.)
He and Elsie had never had a direction, really, not at first. And not for a long while after that, either. So much of what they wanted and where they were headed had remained - necessarily - unspoken. They must be on the same page by now, of course - they were facing too many hurdles not to be, if they didn’t both think they were striving for something that was worth it - but with the distance, and with the difficulty, they had never really been able to look at their future in the light.
But it was the middle of the night now, they were alone and the world was warm, so Tybalt just grinned, whether she could see it or not. “You tell me something first,” he countered lightly, half in teasing. “I already gave you a library, didn’t I?”
