Monday morning I texted him.
No preamble, no reason given. Just: Are you free Wednesday evening?
He replied twenty minutes later: I'm in D.C. but I can be in Atlanta by six. Where?
I told him the place on Moreland a wine bar I'd been to once with Amara, quiet, the kind of room that didn't require anything from you. He said: See you at six.
Done.
No spiral. No revision. Just sent and finished.
That was new, too. The not second-guessing.
He was there when I arrived. Same as always good instinct for a table, same settled quality of a man who hadn't been tracking the clock.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey."
We ordered. Red wine, both of us. The room was doing what I'd wanted it to do low light, low noise, the kind of place that allowed conversation without demanding it.
We talked easily enou
