“Yes,” he says. “You did.”
The words carry more than the plate. I ignore that because I have to. We move through the menu with the pace of people who have stopped pretending this is a polite meeting. He pushes back on the fish. I push back harder on the lamb. He defends the non-wine pairing with the expression of a man prepared to die for black tea and bay leaf. I tell him the pairing was the stronger choice, and his satisfaction is immediate enough to be irritating.
Then we reach the single-ingredient dish, a small course of roasted carrot that had no business being memorable and somehow became the cleanest statement of the meal.
“That dish should not have worked,” I say.
He looks at me. “But it did.”
“It did because it did not ask the carrot to become anything else.”
His gaze locks on mine.
For the first time in the conversation, we stop fighting.
He says, “Exactly.”
The word lands too hard.
I feel it in my chest, not because he agrees with me, but because the agreement comes from the same place. The sameconviction. The same private irritation with food that tries to apologize for being simple.
He continues, “People ruin ingredients because they do not trust them to be enough.”
I say, “People ruin a lot of things that way.”
The silence after that is brief, but it’s not empty. His eyes drop to my mouth for less than a second. Mine should not drop to his hands—but they do. I close my notebook, even though I have not written a single usable note.
He sees the gesture. “You cannot use any of this.”
“No,” I say. “Not directly.”
“Then why write it down?”
“Because I need somewhere to put it.”
His expression changes, almost imperceptibly.
“The review?”
“Partly.”
“And the rest?”
I meet his eyes. “That is not part of the meeting.”
He sits back, and the professional line returns between us.
“Understood,” he says.
Two hours have disappeared. The coffees are empty. The pastry is gone. My original composure is still present, but it has scratches in it now. He looks toward the window, then back at me.
“You’re very good at what you do.”
I hold his gaze. “So are you.”
He doesn’t smile. For some reason, that feels more intimate than if he had. I look away first because the café has become too small around us, and I need the room to remember we are not alone. The waiter approaches with the bill, but Damien reaches for it before it touches the table.
I give him a look. “This is an official meeting.”