He stayed for dinner, which neither of them planned.
It happened the way things happened between them now gradually, without a decision point, one moment dissolving into the next until they were sitting on the floor of her room again with takeout containers between them, the notebook closed, the investigation set aside for no agreed reason except that neither of them reached for it.
“Tell me something,” Zara said, pulling noodles apart with her fork. “Something I don’t know. Not about any of this.”
He looked at her sideways. “What kind of something?”
“Anything. Something real.” She glanced up. “I know what you order at the café and how you look when you’re angry and what you sound like when you’re pretending to be fine. I don’t know very much about your actual life.”
He was quiet for
