Seeing the tension ease, Simone took charge. He straightened in his seat, gestured broadly, and told everyone to eat. The waiters appeared. Plates were set down. For a few minutes, the room sounded almost normal.
Then Silvana stood up.
She held a glass of juice, because of course she couldn't drink, and her free hand rose to the hollow of her throat. Two fingers resting there, light as a whisper. The room shifted. Conversations didn't stop, exactly, but they thinned, the way sound thins when everyone starts listening without wanting to be caught doing it.
"Grazia, I want to apologize to you too." Her voice was warm, pitched perfectly for an audience. "Simone and I had a past, so with our situation now, I think I've made things difficult for you."
Simone moved immediately. "Hey, Silvana, no. You didn't do anything wrong."
His thumb traced the edge of his jaw. Slowly. The gesture I'd learned to recognize in our first year together. The one that meant a lie was coming, or had just arrived, or had been living in his mouth so long he'd forgotten it was there.