SERA
“You have never done this before.”
She said it not as an accusation. As an observation. The kind she made when something was true and worth naming simply because it was.
Elliot looked at the menu in his hands. A small restaurant on a street neither of them had walked before. No associations. No history. Just a room with good light and tables that were not too close together and a smell that suggested someone in the kitchen actually cared about what they were making.
“Done what,” he said.
“Sat somewhere with no agenda.” She looked at him across the table. “No meeting after. No call to take. No strategy being built in the background while the foreground runs.” She tilted her head slightly. “You look slightly uncomfortable.”
He set the menu down.
“I am slightly uncomfortable,” he
