It's supper time in Nuance.
Sébastien-André has joined Gosie at her table without making a thing of it. The kind of table that feels slightly tucked away, as if the room has quietly agreed to leave them to it. No one has asked what they want; something arrives that suits them both, and neither questions it.
He isn’t trying to impress her. That’s the point. He’s steady, present, and, crucially, available in the most unremarkable way. No complication, no performance, no faint whiff of someone else waiting somewhere. Just him, here, now.
Gosie relaxes into that faster than she expects to.
They talk, but not in a way that fills space. It’s not a torrent. It’s precise, occasional, and then they let the silence sit between them without rushing to fix it. She laughs properly at something he says; no deflection, no irony, and then seems faintly surprised that she has.
At some point he says something about her work. Not flattery. Not critique. Just something accurate. She pauses, looks at him properly for the first time, and doesn’t brush it off.
The wine is red now, obviously. Something local, but deeper, slower. They don’t discuss it; they just drink it as if it belongs there. The food arrives in stages, shared without negotiation. Bread broken, something passed across the table, fingers brushing once and neither of them pretending it didn’t happen.
There’s no declaration. No pivot into anything defined. But the energy has changed from detached to interested.