"How do you like the food? What do you think?"
Athena's tongue approved of the dish she was eating—the way the flavors melded together, the way it was made with so much intention, so much care, so much… love. But her mind was in turmoil, tangled between memories and present emotion, holding her speech captive.
Ewan, misreading her silence, dropped his cutlery on the table slowly, the faint clatter loud in the otherwise soft, candlelit air. His smile slipped as fast as a startled deer. "That bad?"
The uncertainty on his face—the worried crease on his brow, the subtle tightening at the corner of his lips—had Athena smiling, a genuine one, because anything less would have tipped Ewan that something was really wrong with his food. When in fact, the opposite was true.
The only thing wrong was that she could get used to eating his food on a daily basis.
