Lia came back from the kitchen and settled at the other end of the sofa, drawing her knees up, saying nothing. She was good at this, at being present without filling the space with words that weren't needed.
"She called me last night," Leo continued. "After..." He didn't finish that sentence. "She said it wasn't what it looked like. That Axel was an old friend. That they'd just.." He laughed, and it was the worst kind of laugh, the kind with nothing of humour in it. "I hung up. I couldn't.." He shook his head. "Eight months. I'd been with her for eight months."
"I'm sorry," I said. And I meant it straightforwardly, which surprised me slightly not sorry in the complicated, qualified way I'd been feeling about Leo for months, but just genuinely sorry, the way you were sorry when someone wa
