Toni had put the glass down three times and picked it back up twice.

The third time he left it on the sill. The windows had gone dark around nine and he had stopped seeing the city through them about an hour after that. All he had left was the sound of the elevator, and the sound of Virgilio not saying anything on the sofa behind him, which was somehow louder.

Virgilio said, from the sofa.

Toni said.

Then the doors opened, and everything in him went quiet at once, which was the only kind of quiet he had ever been good at.

His voice came out low. He had meant it to be steady.

He crossed the room before he had finished deciding to.

He heard the sideways glance land behind him and did not care.

He let that one go by; he had other things to say, and he had been holding them since nine o'clock with a glass he kept putting down.

He got one hand to your waist and stopped himself there, and left it only because you had not moved away from it.

He exhaled, and rubbed the back of his neck, and said the rest of it with his hand still where it was.