I need a way to keep track of what happens when, so here is my comprehensive timeline of Mel/Frank moments in each episode. Thanks to everyone who's making gifs of the show so I could attach them in this post!
Objective happenings in normal font, (my own thoughts in italics and parentheses)
*updated 8/27*
*warning: gif heavy post under the cut*
Ep 1: 7:00 AM
Mel arrives at PTMC after a 2 month rotation at the VA. Frank gives her a double take while she's introducing herself
SLEEPY BOY TYLER: Mel asks Frank for help with 4yo pot gummy patient Tyler. We get their little crossover blocking! (Robby, for whatever reason, gives Heather a lingering look after watching these two leave 👀)
After Tyler's labs come back and Langdon finds the gummy residue in his mouth, we see Frank notice Mel holding back her irritation with the mom when she asks if the cannabis can cause autism and this little scrunch from Mel as he passes behind her
Ep 2: 8:00 AM
Mel comes back up to Frank, he asks her about the VA and why she chose PTMC. She tells him about her sister and the care facility Becca goes to, at which point Trinity comes up and Frank immediately turns around to hear her case. (Maybe he wasn't prepared for the info dump, since he starts doing these rapid little nods like he's ready to move on from the polite smalltalk)
The e-scooter patient arrives and needs a crike; Frank tells Mel to do it and when he passes behind her this time she doesn't react
CRIKE SCENE: Mel starts the crike and the camera follows Frank looking at her right after she makes the initial cut at 12:21 (Now why would we need this shot when the focus is on Robby and Garcia talking Mel through the crike hmmmm)
We get our first "Mel, you ok?" when the crike is finished, for no discernible reason other than she just did the procedure all by herself or that she looks concerned at Garcia and Langdon's yapping. Frank makes sure to lean in to catch Mel's eye, as if to clarify that he and Yolanda are joking.
We get our second "You ok?" from Frank and Mel explaining how she reacts emotionally to frustration. Frank empathizes with her ("Yeah, you and me both"), reassures her, and we get a little smile from her! (Wondering if this is a competency thing, like as soon as Frank sees she's skilled he's a little more interested in her? But we also see he's a good teacher, he doesn't shame her or tell her to buck up, just validates her success)
CAPTAIN SCURVY: Mel brings the scurvy case to Frank and he's already cracking jokes about piracy and peg legs. They have a little back and forth about Mel figuring out the joke and Frank being unduly proud of it. (Personally I squeal over this moment bc he's a) already treating her like he does all his other friends in the ED and b) Mel not understanding the joke isn't what's used for laughs. Frank is instantly on the same wavelength as her and keeps playing until she gets it.)
A little while later, while watching the social worker talk to Tyler's dad, we get our third AND FOURTH "You ok?" of the episode. Mel reveals she hates seeing families torn apart and Frank gives us some possible foreshadowing of white people not facing extreme consequences of drug-related charges. Mel goes outside to invoke Megan Thee Stallion. (I had not realized until this rewatch that the 4-part You Ok series all happened in one episode. Frank could you be more obsessed with her omg)
Ep 3: 9:00 AM
STEMI WITH ME, MEL: As soon as a STEMI is called in, Frank becomes a veritable puppy, claiming Mel for the STEMI when he has no clue where she is or what she's doing. They're grinning at each other like little kids, Mel tries to slap the door frame to copy Frank, best scene ever. The rest of the case is pretty sedate but this beginning makes it worth it.
Ep 4: 10:00 AM
ARTHROPOD IN THE EAC with Langdon watching Mel the whole time they're walking over (What's funny here is we could have gotten a shot of him rolling his eyes or making a smart remark at the patient shrieking but nope all his attention is on Mel for some reason 👀👀👀)
Ep 7: 1:00 PM
TERRANCE THE TABLE TENNIS PLAYER: Frank talks to Terrance and doesn't connect with him. He gives up talking to Terry pretty quickly
Trinity catches Mel alone and asks her about "hitting it off" with Frank, to which Mel responds with a smile and a comment about how Frank sweats a lot. (Girl.)
Mel then asks Frank if anything is wrong, notices Terry is autistic, and offers to talk to him. Frank replies that he can see three other patients in the meanwhile and goes off.
Literally a minute after Mel starts talking to Terry, Frank comes back to open the door and try to continue with Terry. Mel explains the injury in detail to Terry for at least a few minutes and Frank is simply observing in the back. While walking out, he is clearly curious and impressed and inquires how Mel did it, if Mel and her sister are close, and then cuts her off once she starts explaining. Mel is happy anyway, presumably about the patient and continuing to hit it off with Frank. (Frank for christ's sake listen to her talk about her sister) (The shot of Frank here is hilarious bc if you wanted to show him being impressed as a mentor, you could have him looking? Interested? Intrigued? Instead he's just staring straight at Mel with an amazed look like ok buddy)
AMBULANCE BAY SCENE: After Terrance leaves Frank finds Mel outside. Mel is clearly unsure here while Frank compliments her skill with patients and says he's already learned a few things from her. We get a tiny smile from Mel
Ep 9: 3:00 PM
Two women get in a fight in the waiting room. Frank tells Mel to "stick with me" when taking one of the women back to the ED proper. (Audio and script sources.)
FIGHT BITE: After the death of the little girl who drowned trying to save her sister (Ep. 8) and the fight in the waiting room, Mel misses a question for the first time. She's clearly shaken up and agitated by the redhead puncher yelling directly into her face. Frank notices, eyes her, and then asks "you ok?" (fifth time that day) when Mel flinches at the noise. She tries to blow it off but he tells her to go take a break while maintaining eye contact.
BREAK ROOM SCENE: The culmination of their mentor-mentee relationship, after Mel has succeeded repeatedly and Frank has learned from her. Frank has just lost his temper with Trinity, been yelled at by Robby, and knocked into Dennis in his haste to get to Mel.
Frank recognizes that Mel is feeling insecure about her place in EM and tell her she has the skills and fortitude to make it. "This is a tough place for sensitive people, but we need them, badly." He's pulling her back up to rejoin the fray. Mel is glad to hear this and even happier at the debridement job she gets from Frank. He clearly wanted to give her that specific job because he knew it would recenter her.
(Mel is just so cute here I can't stand it. Look how happy she is to be understood and pleasantly surprised that someone sees her)
Frank introduces Mel to the road rash patient as "Dr. Mel King, detail specialist." (Ok talk her up to anyone who'll listen why don't you 🤭)
Ep 11: 5:00 PM
Post the reveal that Frank has been diverting drugs and his departure, Mel asks Trinity where Frank is, wanting to tell him about the delivery she assisted with. When she discovers he's left, she's disappointed, though it seems this is something she's used to. (She's literally the 🥺 emoji)
Ep 12: 6:00 PM
REUNION!: Mel hears Frank before she sees him in the middle of the MCI, to which he's returned after getting kicked out by Robby. He also recognizes her voice from across the room and comes right over to assist her and Whitaker with the liver lac patient. She looks so happy to see him! (Considering this is the last time we see her happy for like 2 whole episodes, I will take this as a championship win 🏆🏆🏆)
Frank makes a quick joke about a mother and son reuniting in post-op; as if remembering Mel hates seeing families separated.
While Cassie is telling Chad to go to the break room after he stumbles into the ED, we see Mel and Frank working on the liver lac mom
(It's so cute how far Frank has to bend over to get level with Mel's face)
Mel gives Frank an update on the liver lac mom and once again, he hears her from across the room and somehow knows she's talking to him directly
Frank takes the time to tell Mel and Dennis good job, and is so intent on doing it and watching Mel smile that he walks into a gurney
For their last interaction of the season, Frank drops a patient off in the yellow zone and tells Mel good work
(Conspicuously, he refrains from saying anything snarky to Trinity in front of Mel, but doesn't hold back when it's Parker in the room)
And that's it! I hope this is useful and/or fun to read through. I'm severely kingdon-pilled right now so I def enjoyed myself 😊
i honestly love every single goddamn fic this fandom is filled with such talent, but here are some of my recommendations in no specific order <3 please give the authors all their flowers 💐🌻🌺🌼🌷🌹
eager to please || explicit -> seriously incredible and the author has mel's voice down so well
two-player || mature -> i believe in frank/becca friendship supremacy!! also the pining is AMAZING
hitting every red light || explicit -> langdon is 'dirtbag hot' in this fic and i won't apologize for it (cheating fic btw)
divine pity, and a boat || mature -> another bed-sharing fic nobody is surprised, but this one just...chef kiss. the emotional intimacy built between them is sooo good.
as well as you deserve || not rated -> this honest to god my COMFORT FIC! langdon making mel watch lord of the rings while cooking for her. slkfjdsjsldf.
red light, green light || explicit -> all the top-tier kingdon fics involve a shared google doc or spreadsheet of some kind. also it's very hot.
cascading || explicit -> this fic honestly captures the raw, wild beauty of nature so, so well while also balancing it with the raw, wild beauty of mel/langdon's relationship
theft by finding || explicit -> this one has such a fun concept!! like yesss friends with benefits into catching feelings let's gooo
golden hour || explicit -> i've not stopped thinking about this fic since i finished it. photographer langdon, i love u.
okay, that's all for now, i'll maybe make another post of recommendations once i complete my fics marked "for later" list.
please feel free to add your own recommendations to this post :D
the one where trinity santos knows that frank is using again, except he isn’t
Trinity knows something is up with Frank Langdon. She just does.
It starts when she walks in on a Monday with a truly horrific looking board. A massive carpile up handled by the nightshift has set them all back and tied up Ortho for the day. Good luck, all broken bones and potential amputations walking into the waiting room. It’s the first time she’s ever seen Dana look frazzled (apart from PittFest, but she tries not to think about that day too much. She puts it all in the Do Not Touch box that lives in the back of her brain). Robby is extra prickly because Gloria keeps popping up and jumpscaring everyone. Perlah’s daughter is turning ten next week and she’s making it a bigger deal than it needs to be (in Trinity’s opinion), so the normally restrained camp of Perlah and Princess is also stressed.
And Frank comes in basically skipping past the waiting room and freaking everyone out.
“Why all the glum faces?” Trinity hears him ask Collins.
“Have you even looked at the board today? It’s like Hell opened up overnight.”
“Never took you for a theater kid.” Trinity spares a look and sees Langdon languidly leaning on the nurse’s station. “So much drama. Nah, we’ll get this straightened up. Hey, look, you take South 15, he’s been here awhile. I’ll handle the rash and fever in North 5. We’ll get these beds opened up in no time.”
“Could’ve sworn you would’ve gone for the potential hernia.”
“Hernia, shmernia. McKay can have that one. C’mon, new attending. We have a waiting room to empty.”
Trinity sits up.
“You’re… optimistic today,” says Collins slowly.
“Ah, you know what they say.” Langdon smirks, snagging a pair of gloves as he leaves. “A cynic has to be an optimist at least some of the time.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Heather calls after him.
And Trinity would just chock that little interaction up to Langdon just being his normal brand of obnoxious if she hadn’t overheard Princess and Perlah in the breakroom.
“He smiled at me and told me to have a good day,” says Princess, audibly bewildered. “Has he ever done that to you?”
“No, but he asked me to tell Jamillah Roslyn happy birthday for her party,” says Perlah, bewildered. “I didn’t even know he knew her name.”
“Something’s up with him,” says Princess suspiciously and Trinity agrees. Parks it in her mind as she and the others steadfastly work through the onslaught of patients. Post-hysterectomy infection (and potential malpractice suit, the fucker didn’t prescribe the poor woman any antibiotics). A simple MI sent up to surgery in record time. A pulmonary contusion in an eight year old from a gnarly bumper car collision.
And then—
“Are you whistling?” Garcia asks, almost in disbelief.
“What, the patient is anesthetized,” says Langdon casually as he makes room for the ultrasound tech. “Don’t be knocking my bedside manner when the bedside isn’t awake.”
“Look,” says Garcia. “The Cure is low, even for you. At least do Bowie or Santana.”
“You would hate The Cure,” says Langdon and then whistles the first few lines of Smooth freakishly well.
“That’s more like it,” says Garcia.
“You treat me like a radio,” sighs Langdon. “Is that all I am to you?”
“Yes, especially because I am not needed here,” says Garcia. “Look at the head CT. Brain tumor. More than most likely caused the seizure. Far above my paygrade. He needs oncology and a specialized treatment plan, not emergency surgery.”
“Copy,” says Frank. “I’ll call up Blestner and get a consult.”
Garcia’s eyebrow slowly rises. “You’ll just ‘call up’ Blestner?”
“For a potentially glioneuronal mass that size?” Frank clicks his tongue. “Hell yeah I’m calling Blestner.”
“Blestner hates your guts,” interrupts Trinity. She’s too bewildered to stay quiet. “He called you a junkie and told you to put him on the phone with a real doctor last time.”
“And I went through the official channels and put in an HR complaint and everything’s been peachy since,” says Langdon, unbothered. “He loves me now.”
“Huh.” Garcia looks him over slowly. “You’re in a good mood today.”
“Indubitably.” And Langdon strides out of the room, already on his pager.
“Keep an eye on him.”
Trinity looks up, surprised.
Yolanda is smiling, but there’s a tension around her mouth that Trinity recognizes from that time when she forgot to wash the pan after making eggs. The this thing is out of my control smile. “He is in a really good mood,” she says. “Which might be nothing. But it also might be something. I haven’t heard him whistle since he passed the Step 3. And that was 2021, so.”
“You don’t think—?”
“No, babe, I don’t think. I just worry.” Yolanda glances behind her, makes sure no nosy RN is looking, and presses a quick kiss to Trinity’s cheek. That was also something Trinity had to get used to. Yo’s touchyness. It’s a plus, she knows now, but there was a time she would’ve dodged away, wary. Now, she leans in.
“My worrier,” says Trinity, grinning.
“Yeah, yeah.” Yolanda Garcia backs out of the room, smiling. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
And Trinity keeps a half-eye on Langdon, yeah. And maybe he’s a little too nice to Lupe, calling her a “badass” and then dapping up some random EMT after a successful code. But she’s not really concerned because she’s sure he’ll be back to his usual “I’m surrounded by idiots” self tomorrow.
Except he isn’t.
“He brought donuts,” says Mateo in the breakroom, looking like he’s seen a ghost. “And not Dunkin Donuts. Leonarda’s. The fancy shit. For Nurse Appreciation Week.”
“That’s not so weird!” Kim is sheepishly playing with her hair. “Dr. King gave me a personalized card.”
“Please call her Mel, Kim, no one calls her Dr. King and it’s lowkey a little weird that you do.” Mateo opens up one of the boxes (with gilded swirly writing on top, Trinity knows it’s bougie) and a heavenly smell envelopes them.
Donahue shakes his head. “This… this is some spooky shit.”
“Do you think this is like some NA thing?” Jesse asks. “Like, being nice to people?”
Trinity doesn’t speak, because being allowed in the nurse’s lounge is a privilege that gets easily revoked, but she thinks no fucking way to herself.
But then she kinda forgets about it because she’s pulled for Chairs. Bleh.
Flu case. Ten year old with influenza. Fifty year old with the flu. Eighteen year old with a headache and fever—influenza A. Seventy year old with—you guessed it—the flu.
“Fuck, I hate triage,” she tells the skittish med student who started last week. The name will come to her. Jessica. Jennifer. Something with a J? She’s red-haired, pretty in an effortless kind of way, and petrified of everything that moves and makes Trinity miss Whitaker, who matched into emergency medicine at Allegheny. “Don’t you want some action?”
“Huh?!” Jessica Jennifer Jayla blushes so hard, Trinity looks at her with concern. “No!! No I don’t!”
“Easy, easy,” says Trinity, undeterred. “So you like the boring ones?”
“Oh! You meant—“ the blush recedes and Jennifer Jessica Jaime clears her throat. “The cases. Yeah, uh, they’re alright. I don’t really like traumas that much.”
Trinity eyes her, slightly concerned. “Calm down, Mother Mary. I wasn’t asking you about your sex life.”
Jaime Joanna Jessica frowns. “My name is Julie.”
“Julieee,” says Trinity. “Cool. Just a joke.” And then she follows Julie’s eyesight, which is locked across the room to—Langdon, chatting with an EMT. “No way. He’s gotta be old enough to be your dad.”
“No!!” Julie is fumbling with her gloves. “He’s 33! And I’m 25!”
“You asked him his age?” Trinity says, absolutely delighted.
“He’s divorced!” says Julie. “It’s not a crime!”
“But it is definitely frowned upon. A resident and a med student, are you crazy?”
“You’re an R-2 with a new attending!” says Julie, suddenly fierce.
“Different departments, plus no one gives a shit.” Trinity could laugh. She could care less how Mother Mary knows about her and Garcia—probably a mouthy respiratory therapist or something. “Good luck with that HR violation, Julie. You should get some better taste.”
“What? He’s so nice. And hot. The day me and Yamaguchi started, he told us we’re on our way to being great doctors.” Yep, those are definitely stars in the med student’s eyes.
Langdon. Being overly nice to med students. An alarm goes off in Trinity’s brain. And she automatically says, “Yeah, he lies a lot,” and beelines straight to Robby, who is intensely charting and pretending not to notice a frequent flyer asking for a blanket (he has about five already). “Okay, is something up with Langdon?”
Robby slides his glasses down at her with intense scrutiny. “Let’s rephrase the question to something more specific, Dr. Santos.”
“He’s whistling in the ER,” says Trinity. “He’s happily doing all the shitty boring cases. He told Perlah to tell her kid happy birthday. He bought the nurses donuts for Nurse Appreciation Week. He’s being nice to med students. Med students. That’s weird.”
Robby sighs, slips off his glasses. “Maybe he’s just having a good day.”
“Try a good week.” And Trinity lowers her voice. “Look. Is it possible he’s relapsed?”
Her chief attending leans back in the chair. Clicks around on the computer for a minute. “Dr. Langdon’s drug screening results are private healthcare information that I cannot release to you, Dr. Santos. However, I can guarantee that as of this morning, Langdon is enthusiastically cleared to work in the ED.” He shoots her a look. “So whatever’s bothering you has nothing to do with his recovery. Okay? Conversation done.”
And Trinity stands there, frowning, because things aren’t clicking.
And they don’t until she bumps into Mel the next day.
“Heyyy, MelMel,” Trinity says, fresh off a Cliff bar break. “What the heck are you doing here? Isn’t today your day off?”
Mel beams, cute as ever with her hair up in two twin buns. It must be boiling outside, because she’s in little white shorts and her cheeks are pink from the sun. “Yeah, it is! But Becca and I stayed up late last night baking.” And Trinity does notice the brownie tray. “We might have gone a little overboard.”
“Ah. Baking.”
“Yes, Becca’s very into sourdough lately,” says Mel seriously. Trinity can’t help but have a soft spot for her. A tiny soft spot. “She’s been watching these TikTok videos. My kitchen is now her experiment station.”
“Ah. Your sister. Nice.” Trinity’s about to politely extricate herself from the conversation in favor of a patient when Langdon suddenly appears. And by suddenly, Trinity means he was on the other side of the room, and then he basically teleported to Mel’s side.
“Mel, what are you doing here?” He puts his hand on her shoulder like she’ll disappear otherwise. “Are you—oh! Nice shirt.”
It’s a normal shirt, light pink with a print of Hello Kitty waving. Mel smiles brightly. “Hi!! Yeah it’s—“
“Becca’s favorite,” Langdon finishes and they both laugh, even though it isn’t really funny, like it’s an inside joke. And then Langdon glances down at the tray and says, “Ah, the brownies, shit, sorry, I forgot you were going to bring those in.”
“Well, I felt bad, you got the nurses those fancy donuts and I only gave out cards.” Mel is—pouting? Not really, not in the exaggerated way Yolanda does to make Trinity give her attention, but actually genuinely. Mel’s mouth is a little downturned, her eyebrows are scrunched with mild displeasure.
“Stop, they’d take a card from you over anything from me any day,” scoffs Frank. “Donnie acted like I was trying to poison him. And I’m half fucking convinced Ramón thinks you’re an actual angel from heaven.”
“No, he doesn’t, we have a very good professional rapport,” says Mel.
“Bullshit, he likes you.” And then Frank… softens? Like all the muscles in his neck and shoulders relax and he leans down, looking at her with his weirdly intense eyes and Trinity feels like she walked in on something. And the hand, still on Mel’s shoulder, is sliding down, his long fingers curling softly around her wrist. “Maybe I can’t blame him, though.”
“Oh my god,” says Trinity and they both jump, like they forgot she was even there. “You’re getting laid. That’s why you’ve been so fucking weird all week. You’re boinking Mel.”
“Santos.”
“That’s not a very appropriate thing to say in the workplace,” says Mel, frowning. But she doesn’t deny it. Because they TOTALLY ARE.
“It all makes sense,” says Trinity in disbelief.
Like she knew they were close. Langdon gets her a hot tea from a cafe every morning (Robby always asks where his is and Langdon snarks, “The break room, hands off.”) And the way they follow each other around and bump into each other without comment. That one time Langdon handed her a hair tie when hers snapped during a procedure and her too-bright smile.
“The stupid whistling. The weirdly good mood. You bought donuts. Oh my god. Mel, you and him? For real?”
Langdon’s face is not a nice face. “Can you go one day with causing a potential HR crisis?”
“I know way hotter dudes I can hook you up with, Mel,” Trinity tells her, enjoying this way more than she should. “Like I’m not a man enjoyer, but there’s this guy from med school who all my hetero friends say is a god at eating puss—“
“Okay, enough of that,” says Langdon firmly, and his hand is on the small of Mel’s back, herding her away, and he’s scowling. But Trinity follows, she’s so delighted. Mel and Mr. Asshole? Together? That’s so gold, it’s like platinum level gossip. Princess and Perlah are going to die. “Don’t you have a patient to neglect or something?”
“Possessive much, Langdon?” Trinity waggles her eyebrows. “Or are you that shitty in bed that you’re feeling a little threatened?”
“Frank is very good at cunnilingus, Trinity,” says Mel over her shoulder and ugh, she calls him Frank? And Trinity regrets all the teasing, because she did not need to know that. Or picture that. “I’m very well satisfied, thank you.”
And Langdon is grinning, an evil smug horny grin that immediately takes the wind out of Trinity’s sails.
“I am so texting Whitaker about this.”
“Tell Dennis I said hi!” calls Mel as Langdon ushers her into the break room. Where they’ll probably make out or say lovey dovey words to each other. (Probably not. Mel is a classy lady after all).
“This hospital,” Trinity says and then rushes off to hunt down Garcia.
For @ginnystrophyhusband September micro fics day 8.
Prompt: gooey
“The Three Broomsticks?” Harry proposed half heartedly.
The final Hogsmeade weekend of Ginny’s final year at school was marked by glorious sunshine and she wasn’t sure if his grimace was from the glare or his dislike of his own suggestion.
Her nose wrinkled; she suspected her reservations aligned with his. “Too crowded.”
“Yeah,” Harry sighed in agreement. “Ron said he thought that was where he and Hermione were going.”
While Harry undoubtedly counted that as a pro for the establishment, Ginny’s frown deepened. “Well, that’s definitely one too many people.”
She may appreciate Ron’s company more now than she had before his months of total absence from her life, she might even be willing to admit as much aloud under certain circumstances, but Ginny would never consider his presence conducive to the romantic atmosphere one usually expected from a date.
“The Hog’s Head?” Harry tried instead.
“Possibly more of a mood killer than Ron."
Even if the mere thought of the Hog’s Head didn’t bring to mind the long walk from the pub into the Room of Requirement, and the final opportunity she’d had to spend with Fred before they’d been engulfed in the horror of the battle – one she’d always regret not appreciating enough at the time – The Hog’s Head’s dank, grimy interior could only be unwelcome compared to the sunlit day they were currently experiencing.
“You might need to lower your expectations of normal date locations within the boundaries of Hogsmeade,” Harry informed her with a smirk. “Unless you have a suggestion?”
Ginny tucked her bottom lip thoughtfully between her teeth. In truth, she’d given the matter quite a lot more thought than she was lettting on. “I might have an idea…”
Harry’s eyebrows rose expectantly. “Go on…”
Unconsciously, her fingers tightened around his. “It’s incredibly lame.”
Harry’s smile curved further upwards; Ginny couldn’t tell if the swarm of butterflies set loose in her stomach was a result of that or what she was preparing herself to say.
“Sounds great already,” he said dryly.
Her gaze wandered purposely away from his face and fixed on the brick wall behind him. “We’d be going ironically, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Harry agreed, nodding seriously, before adding, “going where ironically exactly?”
The question barely penetrated the nervous haze that had begun to cloud Ginny’s mind. “I know it’s usually filled with disgusting, gooey couples, but we’re not like that so, if we went, it would just be a joke, a laugh, you know?”
“I might,” Harry said, his voice brimming with barely contained amusement. “If you told me what you were suggesting?”
“Madam Puddifoot’s,” the name escaped her in a rushed breath.
Resolutely, unwilling to watch Harry’s reaction, her gaze remained fixed so determinedly on the wall that the bricks began to blur.
For a moment there was silence; Ginny couldn’t blame him for his lack of response. She couldn’t quite believe she’d suggested it either.
“Forget it,” she said quickly, still not daring to look at him. “It was a stupid idea, I don’t know what made me say it.”
She’d never wanted to be one of those simpering girls who became all doe-eyed while her boyfriend poured tea for her in a sickeningly cosy cafe, their hands clasped together on the table top, so little space between them that their knees touched, and, maybe Harry’s arm would fall over the back of her chair, and, of course, for the sake of privacy, they’d have no choice but to speak in soft whispers, with their heads bent closely together, staring deeply into one another eyes…
“Ginny?” Harry’s voice recalled her from the vision she’d accidentally begun to construct in her mind. His fingers landed softly on her chin, guiding her face back to his.
“Yes?” She tried to sound indifferent but the word escaped her on a shaky breath.
“Do you want to go and be – how did you put it? – disgustingly gooey in Madam Puddifoot’s with me?”
*Merlin, yes,” she said before she could stop herself. She cleared her throat, determined to return to some semblance of her usual cool demeanour. “I mean, if that’s what you want, I won’t make fun of you for it.”
“Thanks,” Harry said through a laugh he was clearly trying to suppress. “Very considerate of you.”