They stayed long after the food was gone, sharing a bottle of white wine that was cold and simple and exactly right. Most of the other tables had emptied. The teenagers who had been noisy two tables over had paid and left. A couple nearby were talking quietly, turned toward each other like two plants toward a single light.
Ethan had turned his chair slightly — not much, just a degree or two — so that he was facing her more fully.
"Can I ask you something honest?" he said.
"You've been asking honest things all evening."
"More honest than that."
"Go ahead," she said, and was surprised to find she meant it.
"Why did you agree to this?" he asked. "Sofia told me you said no twice before she convinced you. I'm curious what changed."
Nora looked at her wine glass. She turned it slowly by the stem.
"I was tired of being careful," she said finally. "I've been careful for two years. I'm very good at it. And I just —" she looked up at him. "I wanted to do one thing that felt like a risk."
He looked at her steadily. "And does it? Feel like a risk?"
"Less than I expected," she said. "Which is maybe its own kind of risk."
He smiled — and something shifted in it, became warmer, more specific. Not the easy smile from before. Something quieter and more deliberate.
"You're good at this," he said.
"At what?"
"At saying the true thing."
"I'm a translator," she said. "Precision is professional."
He laughed. And then, without making a thing of it, he reached across the table and rested two fingers lightly on the back of her hand — just for a second, just long enough to ask the question. She didn't move her hand away. He left his fingers there.
The candle between them had burned low. The wax had pooled and the flame was small and very still, barely moving, as if it too were paying attention.
"Should we walk?" he said.
"Yes," she said.