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His heart under my ear, steady and unhurried.

This is enough.

CHAPTER EIGHT

PATRICK

It starts as a normal evening. Anders texts at six — a few colleagues going out, a bar in De Pijp, nothing planned, just drinks. Patrick, you in? I haven't been out since Cape Town, which feels like a reason to go. Jan has a finance team dinner, something quarterly, obligatory, he mentioned it on Monday with the expression he uses for things he considers a necessary cost of professional life. He'll be home by ten. I text him: Anders and the crew, going for drinks. See you after. He replies: have fun. Then: don't be stupid. Which is Jan for I love you, approximately.

The bar is good, loud in the way of places that have decided their energy is the point, the kind of place I used to come to before Maya and I got serious and then stopped coming to once the engagement made certain things feel like they required explanation. I haven't missed it particularly. I am here because Anders asked and Anders is good company and it seemed like a normal thing to do on a Wednesday evening.

For the first hour it is entirely normal. Anders and I at the bar, another colleague arriving late, a running debate about a routing decision from last week's Nairobi leg that we are both convinced we are right about. The kind of evening I have always liked — people I know, easy conversation, somewhere warm.

Then someone sits beside me.

I notice him the way you notice a decision being made, the quality of someone choosing a seat they don't need, the bar having three empty stools. Late twenties, dark hair, the ease of someone comfortable in this room in a way I am not quite.

"Patrick Sutton," he says. Not a question.

I look at him. "Yeah."

"I saw the video." He smiles. It's a good smile, deployed with awareness of that fact. "Welcome to the club."

I look back at my drink. "Thanks."

"I'm Finn." He extends a hand. Easy. Like we've been heading here the whole time.

I shake it. "Patrick."

"I know." He turns to the bartender with the ease of someone who knows this room, signals without looking. "Can I get you something?" Back to me. His attention is direct. Assessing without being aggressive, the look of someone taking stock.

"I'm fine."

He orders anyway. He turns to look at me with the quality of someone who has decided something and is seeing it through. "So. First time out properly?"

"First," I say.

"Cape Town doesn't count if you were working."

I glance at him. "How do you know I was in Cape Town?"

He shrugs. "Instagram. I've been following you for a while." A pause. "Before the video, actually. The aviation stuff."

I nod. I am aware, with growing clarity, of the specific shape of this conversation and where it is going. I have not been in this situation before. I am working out, in real time, that there is a grammar to this situation that I don't know and that Finn knows very well.

"You here with someone?" he asks.

"Friends." I gesture toward Anders without looking away from my drink. "Crew."

"Ah." A pause. "And otherwise?"

"I have a boyfriend," I say. Simply. The way I have learned to say things — directly, without qualification, the way Jan taught me without meaning to.

Finn tilts his head. "Jan."

"Yes."

"Right." He nods, not retreating, exactly, but acknowledging the information. "Is it… I mean, are you…” He makes a small gesture that means open without saying it.