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"Nothing," I say. "You should try it sometime."

"Skiing."

He looks at me for a moment with the expression of someone who is not sure what he is looking at. I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. He says nothing. He picks up his glass. The table moves on.

The conversation, somewhere between the main course and dessert, arrives at children.

It happens the way these things happen… sideways, without announcement. Eline mentions a friend who just had twins, and somewhere in the middle of the sympathetic responses I say, without entirely planning to:

"I'd be an amazing father." I say it the way I mean it… with complete conviction and no irony whatsoever.

A beat.

Lars puts down his fork. "I would not expect anything else from you," he says. Very drily.

"What?" I say. "I love kids. Kids love me."

"Based on what?" Tom says. "You don't have any kids around."

"I just know it," I say.

"That's not evidence," Tom says.

"It's instinct," I say.

Mia is looking between me and Jan with the expression of someone assembling a picture. "I actually think Jan would be a fantastic father," she says. "Like… I can see it. Jan would be the one actually raising them. Making sure they do their homework, eat properly, go to bed on time." She pauses. "Patrick would just spoil them rotten."

"Take that back," I say.

"You absolutely would," Lars says.

“I…” I stop. I think about it honestly. "Okay. Yes. I would spoil them. But Jan would balance it out. That's why it would work."

Jan has been sitting beside me through all of this with the expression of someone who has wandered into a conversation about themselves and cannot locate the exit.

"I'll get more water," he says. He doesn't move.

"Jan would also be an excellent father," Tomas says, to the table at large, with the weight of sixteen years of friendship. "I want that on record."

"You have never said this to me," Jan says. He is looking at Tomas with the expression of someone who has been ambushed at their own dinner table.

"I've thought it." Tomas is entirely unrepentant.

"Those are different things." Jan's jaw is doing the thing.

He reaches for his water glass and takes a deliberate sip.

Lars raises his glass. "Let's not put pressure on Jan."

The table laughs. Jan puts down his glass. He has the expression of someone who would like to be somewhere else and is too polite to leave.

"Thank you," he says. Very drily. "Lars."

We talk about something else. But I am aware, for the rest of the evening, of Jan beside me and the thing that is now sitting in the room between us, unspoken, waiting.

After everyone leaves Jan and I wash up in the comfortable quiet of people who have done this enough times that it doesn't require coordination. He washes. I dry. The apartment settles back into itself around us.

At some point he says: "Patrick."