“I prefer evidence.”
“Then ask me about the third course,” he says.
My breath pauses for half a second. Of all the things he could say next, that is the one that steadies me. Food is safer than memory. Food has structure. Food can be argued with.
I set my cup down. “The turbot was technically exact.”
He watches me. “But?”
“The tarragon arrived almost too late.”
His eyes sharpen. “Almost.”
“Yes,” I say.
“One more second and it would have read as absence. But it landed at the finish, and that made the sauce more interesting than if it had announced itself earlier.”
He sits back with a look I recognize now. The test has begun.
“That was intentional,” he says.
“I assumed.”
“Did you?”
“I hoped,” I say. “There is a difference.”
His mouth curves. “Good.”
I point lightly at him.
“Don’t sound pleased. I’m not finished.”
“Then continue,” he says.
So I do—and just like that, the war begins. Not the kind that raises voices enough to draw attention. Neither of us is sloppy enough for that. This is quieter, sharper, and far more dangerous because it happens over coffee, a cooling pastry, and the exact distance between two people who know what the other one feels like without clothes.
“The third course worked because it trusted the fish,” I say.
“The fifth course almost didn’t work because it trusted itself too much.”
His eyes narrow. “The lamb?”
“The lamb,” I say.
He leans back, and his expression turns almost offended.
“That dish was built around shadow. It needed weight.”
“It had weight,” I say. “It nearly had ego.”
His mouth curves without warmth. “Nearly.”
“Yes,” I say. “The eggplant was excellent. The jus was excellent. The bitter undertone was smart. But together, the plate started making its argument too loudly.”
He looks at me like I have placed a bad ingredient in front of him.
“That is not a loud plate.”
