Yet when he drew back, his eyes remained on mine.
They were not black, as I had first thought.
They were gray.
Cold gray, like the sea before rain.
Applause rose around us.
Niko turned, offered me his arm, and led me down the aisle.
We had taken perhaps six steps when he spoke without moving his mouth very much.
“You look disappointed.”
I kept my smile in place for the photographers.
“I was hoping you would be eighty.”
His gaze remained ahead.
“That would have simplified matters.”
“For both of us.”
The smallest movement touched one corner of his mouth.
Not a smile.
The memory of one.
Outside, the crowd pressed against the velvet ropes. Camera shutters snapped. Someone called my name. Someone else called his.
Niko guided me toward the waiting car with one hand at the center of my back.
The gesture appeared intimate.
It was not.
