The heart had started to melt enough to look like an uneven, gaping butt.

Following suit, Zechariah took a roll and swept it through his soup. Once, twice, not particularly paying attention to it. He nodded to Crane’s evaluation of the day and took a bite, chewing. Life was so much easier when he was not (actively) seeking to impress someone. That was why he moved countries away from his family, after all.

He swept the newly exposed bread through the soup to saturate it, biting half off this time as Crane worked himself up to speak. A tilt of his head in surprise, even though he had hardly noticed the constable until after he had already unwittingly came to the thought of him. A raise of the brows when he surmised he only invited him because of the article. Did the letters mean so little to him? He popped the rest of the roll into his mouth.

Zechariah took a curated, moderate sip of his drink to wash it down before answering.

“It was the first invitation you accepted.”

He closed his eyes, then shook his head.

“That is not fair. You did accept that time a shipwrecked man streaked through here. Had I known you crashed on some of the same islands?”

He took another, less moderate sip of his martini.

“We would have had our maiden voyage years ago.”