“How is it?” I asked, nodding towards the sandwich.
“Good.” He considered it. “Balanced.”
I laughed. “You make turkey on wheat sound like a design principle.”
“Everything follows design principles if you look closely enough.”
“Is that how you see the world?”
He thought for a moment. “I see potential. What something is. What it could become.”
The room felt even smaller when he said that.
“And what do you see when you look at me?” I asked.
I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
His gaze locked on mine, but he didn’t answer right away, which somehow made it worse.
“Someone who sees me,” he said at last. “Not what I am. Who.”
The words hit hard enough to steal my breath. Under the table, I let my knee press a little more firmly against his. He answered the pressure without hesitation.
“I like who you are,” I said. “I like the architecture and the cookies and the way you talked to Jeremy. I even like the terrifyingly efficient texts.”
“I’m not terrifying.”
“You’re a little terrifying.”
His eyes narrowed.
“In a good way,” I added, and that almost made him smile again.
The silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t awkward, just weighted with things not yet said.
Brenda stuck her head into the room, took one look at us, and grinned. “Just grabbing my yogurt. Ignore me and continue your emotionally significant lunch.”
“Brenda,” I said.
She disappeared, still grinning, and Rion looked at me. “She suspects.”
“Brenda suspects everything.”
“And what does she suspect?”
There was a careful neutrality in his voice that made my heart beat faster.
I set my sandwich down. “She suspects that this is more than friendship.”
He didn’t move, his eyes fixed on my face.
“And is it?” he asked.
I could have laughed it off. I could have hidden. Instead I said, “I think it is. I know I want it to be.”
His gaze darkened with something that made my pulse jump.
“I would like that,” he said, and the room seemed to go very still.
