And then the door of the restaurant opened.
I did not look immediately. I was looking at Damien and he was looking at me and the moment had a quality that resisted interruption.
But he looked.
And something happened in his expression — a very specific thing, fast and controlled and almost invisible, the specific expression of someone who has seen something they were not expecting and has had approximately one second to decide how to receive it.
I turned.
The man who had walked in was sixty-three or sixty-four, with the careful posture of someone who had spent years making themselves take up less space. Grey at the temples. Well-dressed in a quiet, considered way. He was looking at the reservation desk with the expression of someone who had made a booking and was second-guessing the de
