Rain pressed its quiet fingers against the window, drawing soft vertical lines that blurred streetlights and faces into one slow river of colour. The plates were nearly finished. Aiden's knife lay still, aligned with a care that felt ceremonial. The room had settled around them, patient and warm, as if holding its breath for what would come next.
Elira let the moment hang, delicious and fragile. Across from her, Aiden lifted his glass and set it down again with exact precision, the base returning to the faint watermark it had left on the linen. She felt the tug of a shared rhythm, as if the space between their breaths had learned a single measure.
The phone vibrated.
It was small and private, a quiet tremor against the table's edge. Aiden glanced at the screen. His face did not change, but something in the air did. He shifted the device a fraction, shielding it with his hand while his eyes read. One message. Then another.
Elira watched the way his thumb moved. Not hurried. Not casual. The motion was economical, the kind of movement that belonged to habit. She told herself it was nothing. She told herself it was ordinary. Still, a thin line of heat moved through her. The phone was an intruder. It had entered their circle without permission.
"Something urgent?" she asked, the words soft, carefully weightless.
"Brief," he said. His tone was even, almost gentle. "I apologise."
He lowered his eyes to the screen again. A green light, a name she could not see, and the time. He typed a reply with two short sentences. The phone vibrated once more, and a call flashed. He answered it. One hand remained on the table, the other lifting the phone only halfway.
"Yes," he said. A pause. "Understood. Send the file. I will read it tonight." Another pause. "No. Do not escalate. I will call if needed."
He ended the call. The entire thing lasted less than twenty seconds. His expression never shifted. He placed the phone face down and met her gaze as if nothing had occurred.
"The walk will have to wait," he said, voice even. "I will need to postpone. A matter requires my attention tonight." He paused just long enough to make the words clear rather than evasive. "If you are open to meeting again, I may need to adjust that timing as well."
Elira smiled and took a measured sip of tea. The jasmine was warm and floral, a clean ribbon through the mouth.
The phrasing was courteous and precise. It offered no explanation and admitted none. Elira felt the small blade of dislike again, bright and exact. The phone had given him permission to step away from her. She set her cup down with care and kept her smile where it belonged.
"What kind of work follows you to dinner?" she asked. The question sounded like idle curiosity. It was not.
"Consulting," he said. "A client prefers to feel attended to."
She turned the cup slowly on its saucer. "And are they."
"For now," he said. The tiniest flicker moved at the corner of his mouth. "They can wait."
The phone rested between them like a third presence. Elira disliked it. The feeling was immediate and precise. She wanted to move it away, to slide it to the edge of the table and turn it toward the wall. She wanted to be the only focus in the room, the only light, the only decision worth making. The thought surprised her with its clarity. It felt like a small blade, cool against the inside of her wrist.
The waitress arrived with the bill folder and a quiet question about dessert. Elira was not hungry. Aiden declined with courtesy. He reached for the bill the moment it touched the linen, skimmed it, and set his card inside. Routine. Efficient. The waitress disappeared in a sweep of black fabric, and Elira watched as the door tilted on its hinges and settled again.
"Do you often finish at the window?" Aiden asked, as if he had noticed her habit of looking past the glass rather than at her plate.
"I like to see who leaves and who returns," she said.
"Patterns," he said.
"Stories," she corrected, allowing a slight smile.
The card returned, the pen appeared, and Aiden signed with concise strokes. No flourish. No hesitation. He set the pen down and closed the folder with a neat press of his fingers, then rested his hands lightly on either side of the place setting. He was preparing to leave. The knowledge brushed the inside of her chest like a change in weather.
"Thank you for tonight," he said, tone even. He looked at her, not quite searching, not quite satisfied. "I enjoyed our conversation."
The phrasing was precise. It opened no door and closed none. Elira felt her smile hold. "So did I."
"Shall I call you a car?" he asked.
"I am close," she said. "I will walk."
He nodded once, stood, and reached for his coat. The movement was calm and unhurried. He slipped the phone into his inner pocket, the fabric falling smooth over the shape of it. Elira's eyes tracked the line of the coat, the quiet gleam at his wrist, the pale thread of hair that caught the light near his temple.
"Good night, Elira," he said. Her name sounded different now. Not a test. A record.
"Good night, Aiden," she said.
He left the table with a steady pace, neither lingering nor rushing, and passed through the doorway into the rain-dulled glow of the street. Elira remained seated. She counted three heartbeats. On the fourth, she stood.
She adjusted her dress with a light touch that felt like a ritual. She knew the waitress glanced over and looked away again. The room had softened at the edges, as if the departure had loosened a knot in its middle. Elira lifted her bag and moved to the window. The glass showed her a layered world: her own face, the spill of light, and the street beyond where Aiden's silhouette had already become part of the crowd.
She waited until his reflection pulled free of the window's frame, then turned and walked toward the side exit. The corridor smelled faintly of citrus and damp coats. Outside, the rain met her with a hush. She drew beneath the nearest awning and let the cool air settle over her skin. The street swam with colour, headlights dragging long lines through shallow water.
Aiden was a steady, pale figure ahead, his coat collar turned up against the weather. He did not look back. Elira set her distance with care. Far enough to keep her own reflection off his glass. Close enough to measure the rhythm of his steps.
She used the city the way she used a camera. She watched through surfaces. A darkened florist's window gave her a clear slice of him, shoulders square, head inclined from time to time as if he was listening to the street itself. A passing bus threw a wash of light across the pavement and erased him for a breath, then returned him whole. She matched her pace to the metronome of the traffic lights, pausing when he paused, rolling forward when he did.
He reached a corner where the footpath narrowed and a stand of plane trees shook rain from their leaves. He checked the crossing without breaking stride and moved into the glow of a pharmacy's sign. Elira stopped beneath the awning of a closed bookshop and watched him pass through pale green light that made his hair look almost silver.
The phone interrupted again. Not as a sound. As a posture. He touched his pocket without taking the device out, then left it where it was. The choice satisfied her more than it should have. She breathed out, very quietly, and tasted rain at the back of her throat.
He turned down a quieter street where the noise from the main road fell away and the pavement shone like slate. Elira followed at a measured remove, using glass and shadow the way a diver uses air. A mirror behind a cafe counter kept him in view as he passed. The windows of an office lobby gave her his reflection twice, one inside the other, until he moved beyond their frame.
He slowed near a narrow lane and paused, not to look back, but to confirm the path ahead. Elira waited in the pocket of a doorway, her pulse lifting with the fine excitement she associated with perfect marks and perfect lines. The rain softened around them. She could hear water travel along a gutter and disappear.
Aiden continued. Elira stepped out and matched the distance again. She did not know yet where he was going. She only knew that she wanted to be the first to see the place where he stopped. She wanted to be the closest person to his front door without ever being seen.
The thought warmed her. It did not feel like danger. It felt like intimacy arranged by weather and glass.
At the next intersection, he crossed under a streetlight that buzzed faintly with moisture. He took the right-hand turn and was gone from her view for a moment, then appeared again in the long pane of a dark shopfront, his outline clean against the reflection of the road. Elira held her position and watched him reach the far end of the block. When he was almost lost to the next corner, she moved.
She did not hurry. She refused the clumsy speed of people who fear being alone. She let the rain write soft lines on her arms. She let the city fold and unfold its curtains of light. Somewhere ahead of her, Aiden walked with his strange, exact calm. She allowed herself a small smile that belonged only to the night.
She would follow him as far as the city allowed. Then she would choose where to stop. She preferred intention. She always had.