The park still had a few kids running around despite the hour, their parents on benches watching with the patient exhaustion of people who had long since stopped trying to hurry children along.
Leo walked the outer path slowly, hands in his pockets, with the dinner he had had half an hour ago still settling in.
He'd been thinking about it since the table, when Mia and Sofia were still giving him looks and finally began pushing him to reach out.
He put himself in her position and held it there long enough to be honest about it.
Three messages.
A month and a half. No explanation.
If Vittoria or anyone else had done that to him, he'd have felt it, and he knew it, and that was enough.
He stopped walking a while later, found a bench to sit on and pulled his phone out before he typed a short hey.
He sent it before he could think too much about it, and stood there watching the screen like it owed him something.
Delivered.
