Or maybe I’ll convince you to come find another garden with me one night soon.

[ He adds this with a playful wink, expression turning mischievous as he watches her.

He really is tempting fate now.

Of course, he hadn’t expected her next quiet question to have diverted in quite the direction it did. He stills, caught off-guard, looking for a moment like a deer caught in the headlights.

Then he just slumps a little, huffing out a breath that is half sigh and half soft laugh. ]

I wouldn’t rather speak with Claude or Jesper, actually. Jesper wouldn’t understand all the nuance of something like that from home. And Claude… [ He pauses, makes a face. ] I dunno. We don’t typically talk about shit like that.

[ And there’s a lot Claude still doesn’t know about him. Things he’s only confessed to Hilda on a dark, starlit roof one night. ]

I’m… not as great as I could be, I suppose, but I’ve been a lot worse, too. Does that count? I know none of it was real. But that didn’t mean I wanted to remember it quite so vividly either.