“This feels strange,” she says, glancing around.
“Bad strange?”
She shakes her head. “No. Just…new.”
“Yeah.”
A beat passes.
“You know,” I say quietly, “this is technically our first date.”
Her mouth curves. “Technically?”
“If you don’t count the ice skating. You kept saying no.”
“I did.” She meets my eyes. “And I meant it.”
“I know.” I hesitate, then say it anyway. “You didn’t trust I was being real.”
“You weren’t,” she says gently. Not accusing. Just precise. “You were trying to win.”
The old sting flares, then settles. “And you were trying to want someonesafe.”
“Yes.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “Trying. Failing.”
I lift her hand and press my mouth to her knuckles. “Good.”
Dinner comes and goes. We fall into an easy rhythm—bread passed without asking, knees brushing, my thumb tracing the inside of her wrist where her pulse jumps. I notice. She notices that I notice.
We talk about Cluj at night. Larisa’s drawings. The piano in Buni’s apartment.
I tell her about the hotel—clean, anonymous, waiting.
Her foot hooks around my ankle under the table.
On purpose.
“I couldn’t forget you,” I admit. “Even when it would’ve been easier.”
She studies me. “Steel blue.”
“What?”
“Your voice,” she says softly. “I heard it everywhere. I just stopped answering.”
“And now?”
“Now,” she says, squeezing my hand once, deliberate, “I am.”
Conversation thins, not because we’re out of things to say, but because everything that matters is already sitting there between us, humming.
“You’re quiet,” she murmurs.
“I’m trying not to rush this.”
She smiles. “I don’t feel rushed.”
When the plates are cleared and the wine is gone, I stand and offer her my hand.
