Fake it with me
Then she typed it again.
"You're here early," said a voice, and Ava looked up to find Lily Carter standing two tables away with a library book under her arm and the expression of someone who was genuinely surprised rather than performing surprise, which Ava had learned to tell the difference between.
"I'm always here early," Ava said.
"I know," Lily said. "I've just never been early enough to see it."
There was a brief pause that wasn't quite awkward, the kind of pause that existed between two people who knew each other well enough to be aware of the complicated thing between them but hadn't yet decided how directly to address it.