Six months in, Juno had made a discovery.
He had expected marriage to feel different from before. He had expected a shift — some internal recalibration, some new quality to the ordinary Tuesday of being with Damien.
It didn't feel different.
It felt like the thing it had always been, with a word for it now.
He had told Seren this on the phone.
Seren had said: yes. That's how it works.
Juno had thought about this for three days.
Then he had decided Seren was right, which was irritating, and had gone back to his work.
The flat had a shape.
It had taken four months to arrive at the shape — the specific arrangement of two people's things in a shared space, the negotiation of preferences that happened mostly without words. Damien's side of the wardrobe. Juno's kitchen. The fiddle leaf fig in the corner by the window, thriving now to a degree that felt like commentary.
Damien had stopped announcing when he was going to be late.
