Among the things Phei knew best, making a woman's heart flutter was one of them. Not always through grand gestures, though he was very clearly guilty of those too. Sometimes it was in the smaller things. The angle of his smile, the patience of his silence, the way he remembered how she liked her wine, how much light she preferred, the kind of food that made her eyes soften before she realized she had given herself away.
Phei had learned that romance did not always require thunder:
Sometimes it arrived quietly on a plate, in a glass, in the warmth of a hand held beneath a table, in the painful softness of being seen by someone who could have chosen spectacle and instead chose detail.
Tonight, however, he had chosen both; moderation had been murdered somewhere in his childhood and no one had bothered reporting the body.
