The event was a fundraiser for something architectural, held in a glass building downtown that seemed designed to make everyone inside it feel slightly on display. Champagne from the first minute, soft music that no one was listening to, and the particular social energy of a room full of people who were all deciding simultaneously how much they wanted to be there.
It had been four days since Damien asked me to meet up, and I couldn't help but think about what had happened three days before that, in my bedroom. Neither of us had brought it up since then, and we'd fallen into a routine that seemed normal, but only on the surface. We'd have meals together, spend quiet evenings at home, and our conversations were always careful, like we were walking on eggshells. But beneath all of this, the
