"And missed watching you react to overpriced food and fumble through fancy dining etiquette like a feral cat?" A pause. "I have limited entertainment options."
"I'm entertainment now."
"You've always been entertainment." He said it like a fact. "Occasionally exhausting entertainment. But consistent."
Wish threw her napkin at his face.
He caught it without looking. Set it aside. "Childish."
"Says the deity who treated pulling out a chair like an Olympic sport he'd decided not to compete in."
"That was strategic resource allocation."
"That was weaponized laziness."
"I prefer," he said, with the faint satisfaction of someone who had prepared this phrase, "'optimized energy conservation.'"
The server reappeared like a silent thought and removed their plates. The second course arrived—something involving truffle and what appeared to be actual gold leaf pressed into the surface of things, which probably cost more than most buildings.
