He doesn’t have to look to sense the confusion in that break, buttoned down as he is in a vice of personal dismay, frustration, and so on. There isn’t much buttery lamplight can do to soften the lines drawn in hard around his mouth, along his nose, between his brows.

But packing it all away still comes naturally -- a kind of psychological reflex upon recognition of how far off the cliff edge he’s strayed. All it takes is a pause for perspective to check against the dazzling flash of an impulse that’d see the table turned over and the lamp spilled and the wine bottle broken, very wasteful. And embarrassing besides.

So he’s quiet until it’s neutral on neutral.

“I could send Thot with you.”

She’s cleaning between her toes, which are splayed like Ellis’ hand over her belly. The faint fork to her tongue rasps once or twice at his wrist along the way.