It was warm. Solid. Real.
“Tell me more,” I said softly.
His eyes dropped to the point of contact, then returned to my face. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, more intimate, as if the rest of the café had fallen away.
He told me more about ancient Greek principles and mathematical harmony and how certain patterns seemed to resonate in him on some level deeper than reason. I listened, and for once I was not even pretending to focus solely on the words. I was aware of his hand under mine. I was aware that neither of us had moved away.
A group of college students came in then, louder than everyone else in the café put together. I glanced over automatically. One of them pointed in our direction while whispering something to his friend. Rion’s posture tightened almost imperceptibly.
I gave his hand a tiny, deliberate stroke with my fingertips. “Ignore them,” I said. “Tell me more about the project.”
His eyes met mine again, and something in his face softened.
He began to answer, but before he could get far, one of the students wandered over to the bookshelf behind us. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had the kind of earnest, open expression that usually meant trouble arrived through enthusiasm rather than malice. He reached for a book on the top shelf, lost his balance, and bumped into the back of Rion’s chair.
“Sorry, man,” he said, then paused and did a visibly startled double take. “Whoa. You’re huge. Do you play basketball or something?”
I closed my eyes for one brief second.
Rion, to his credit, did not look annoyed. “No,” he said evenly. “I do not.”
“You should,” the student said, apparently oblivious. “What are you, like, seven feet tall?”
“Approximately.”
The student nodded as if that were an entirely normal answer. Then he glanced at the napkin model on the table and brightened. “Wait, are you into this stuff too? I’m studying engineering.”
Something in Rion’s expression shifted. He turned slightly in his chair, no longer braced for scrutiny but for conversation.
“I am an architect,” he said.
The student’s face lit up. “No way. That’s awesome. I’m getting murdered by a structural integrity assignment right now.”
Rion held out his hand. “May I see it?”
The student immediately pulled out his phone and showed him a sketch. Rion studied it, then pointed out two weaknesses in the load distribution and suggested an alternative support strategy. His tone became focused and precise. Within seconds, the student was hanging on every word.
I sat back and watched.
It was strangely moving.
Rion still looked unmistakably out of place in the tiny café, in his ridiculous coat and doomed hat, but as he explained stress points and material limitations, the student stopped seeing a spectacle and started seeing expertise. Intelligence. Authority.
The student listened, asked questions, and then broke into an impressed grin. “That makes so much more sense. Thanks. Seriously.”
“It was an unsound design,” Rion said. “It would have failed.”
The student laughed. “Well, thanks for saving my hypothetical building.”
When he returned to his table, Rion looked back at me with something almost sheepish in his expression.
“I apologize for the interruption.”
“Don’t.” I smiled at him. “That was nice of you.”
He gave a small shrug. “He was receptive to correction.”
“My hero,” I said before I could stop myself, and something flickered in his eyes at that, quick and unmistakable.
