Vivienne's POV
I heard him before I saw him.
Not because he was loud exactly, though he was, but because he had the specific quality of a person whose arrival announced itself before they had fully completed the act of arriving. A voice that carried without appearing to try. A laugh that broke out of whatever conversation it belonged to and distributed itself generously across the surrounding space without asking anyone's permission.
I was at my window table with the salmon and my phone face down beside the water glass, which was how I kept my phone during meals at The Harlow now, a habit that had developed so gradually I hadn't noticed it becoming a habit until it already was one, when the voice came through the restaurant from the direction of the entrance and several people looked up
