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Robin stopped laughing. She looked closer at Sienna’s face. Sienna looked... off. Tired.
‘Hey,’ Robin said, her voice dropping a notch. ‘You alright?’
‘I’m fine,’ Sienna said flatly. ‘We should go in. Dora’s going to be frantic.’
Sienna pushed through the heavy wooden door, her heels clicking loudly against the tile floor.
Inside, the restaurant was loud, dimly lit, and smelled aggressively of garlic. Dora was standing near the back of the dining area, hovering over a young sound technician, who was unwinding a tangle of audio leads.
Nearby, Valeska and Claire were already seated opposite each other, two empty gin and tonics sitting between them. They were leaning across the small candle, laughing together at something Claire had just said.
‘There they are!’ Dora called out across the dining room, tapping her clipboard. ‘You’re twenty minutes behind schedule, girls. The tech’s already mic’d up the guests.’
‘Please don’t call us girls,’ Sienna said. ‘We’re in our thirties.’
Valeska turned to Sienna’s voice with a bright smile. ‘Hey! We were starting to think you two had run off together.’
Robin forced a quick laugh. ‘Yeah, right. Tube was mental.’
Claire smiled warmly up at Sienna, gesturing to the empty chair beside her. ‘Hey. No worries at all. Valeska’s been telling me about her trip to India. It sounds incredible.’
‘Sorry we kept you waiting,’ Sienna said. She sounded quiet, almost subdued. She sat down next to Claire, pulling her chair in with a stiff, scraping noise.
The sound tech scurried over, dropping two bodypacks onto the wooden table. Robin shoved her pack into her back jeans pocket and threaded the wire under her top with practised speed. Beside her, Sienna did the same.
They both hit record.
Robin took a deep breath and leaned into the centre of the table, trying to seem like she wanted to be there. ‘So! Here we are. And there’s bread! I love a breadbasket.’
‘I don’t,’ Sienna muttered. ‘You don’t know how long it’s been sat out.’
‘More bread for me, then,’ Robin said.
There was a stiff pause before Valeska picked up the thread of some story she’d been telling Claire. Robin wasn’t really listening. Valeska was cool, but sitting across from her now, Robin felt entirely flat. Valeska was just a place to point her face so she didn’t have to look at Sienna.
As Valeska’s story wound down, Sienna’s eyes darted toward the back of the restaurant. ‘Waiter been yet?’
Apparently, no one could catch his eye. Robin muttered something under her breath about desperately needing a drink, but the staff just drifted past their section like they were invisible.
Left stranded without a menu or a distraction, Robin’s eyes strayed back across the table to Sienna, who was laughing at something Claire had just said. She looked a lot happier on her half of the double date.
Or… did she? Looking a bit closer, was she actually being slightly weird?
She was asking polite, attentive questions about Claire’s work, but her smile was tight, and her voice sounded strained. She’d grabbed a roll despite her reservations about bread baskets. But she didn’t eat it. Her fingers nervously shredded it onto her side plate while her eyes flicked past Claire, still searching the room for a bloody waiter.
‘How was your week?’ Claire asked Sienna.
‘Fine,’ Sienna said, picking at her bread. She didn’t say more.
Claire leaned back, taking a slow sip of her water before setting the glass down. ‘I was reading this wild write-up yesterday about a logistics firm in Rotterdam. Apparently, they spent eighteen months ignoring a minor shift in local maritime insurance clauses and ended up having three cargo ships impounded overnight.’
‘That’s incredible,’ Sienna said, leaning forward. ‘Everyone focuses on the market, but it’s the regulatory fine print that actually sinks you. Did they manage to retroactively cover the indemnity?’
Robin looked between the two of them. ‘Wait, what are we talking about? Did someone lose a boat?’
Claire chuckled. ‘Just a story about supply chain oversight, Robin.’
‘Ah,’ Robin said. ‘Right. Very dramatic.’
