He had been there for twelve minutes before she arrived.
He knew the exact number because he had checked his phone twice—not for messages, just for the time, the way a person checked the time when they were trying to look like they weren't watching the door. The restaurant was the kind of place that existed in the middle register between formal and casual: white tablecloths but no dress code, good lighting but not the kind engineered for occasion. He had chosen it carefully, which was to say he had chosen it in the way he chose most things he didn't want to appear to have chosen carefully.
When she walked in, he looked up from his phone.
