It was Tav's face. Not the quick-in-the-corner sketch from the lecture room. A proper portrait, carefully made, the prolonged attention visible in every line.
Tav looked at it.
He watched Alistair.
"You have a lot of these," Tav said.
"Yes," Alistair said. "I've been drawing you since week two."
"You've been watching me since week two."
"Yes." He held the look. "Was that—"
"No," Tav said. "It was reciprocal."
"Yes," he said. "I know."
The Sunday morning continued. The coffee was good. The portraits stayed on the table between them — not as an admission or a declaration but as a simple fact: evidence of the time they'd been paying attention, that was the evidence that didn't need a verdict.
• • •
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They talked about it the next morning. Or attempted to.
Alistair made coffee — proper coffee, with the expertise that had appeared in the second week once the kitchen-rule détente had been tacitly negotiated — and set two mugs on the island and stood on the kitchen side of it while Tav sat on the stool side, which had become their respective positions for serious conversations as distinct from their respective positions for routine conversations, which were more flexible.
"Tell me about Ablation," Tav said.
Alistair wrapped both hands around his mug. "That's a broad opening."
"You've been receiving their communications since before I arrived."
"Yes."
"You knew about my placement before I arrived."
A pause. "Yes."
"You were already here." It wasn't a question. "You were placed first. I was placed into a situation you'd already established."
Alistair watched his coffee. "Not exactly."
"More exactly, then."
He exhaled. "I was placed four days before you. The apartment was arranged for two occupants from the start — Iwas just told my second occupant was coming." He looked up. "I wasn't told it was you specifically until move-in day."
"And when you found out?"
"I confirmed it and proceeded."
"You had the option to withdraw?"
"Theoretically."
"But didn't."
The word sat in the kitchen air between them.
