Damien began joining her for dinner regularly after that particular evening, more nights than not. She noticed the shift happening before she properly let herself believe it might actually mean something significant.
"You're here again," she said one evening, doing her best to sound casually unbothered rather than quietly pleased by his presence at the table.
"I do live here," he said, taking his usual seat directly across from her. "Where else would you expect me to be at this hour?"
"Your study, usually. Working steadily through dinner instead of actually eating any of it."
"I finished early tonight," he said, though something in the careful way he said it made her wonder whether that was entirely true, or whether he had simply chosen, for once, to stop working early on purpose.
