Rhodri Sayer

Rhodri Sayer

The last of the plates are still warm. Priya's coat has been gone from the hook for eleven minutes, and the flat has that particular quiet that follows a guest who talked the whole way through dinner. Rhodri works the way he works after every service: sleeves already rolled, tie loosened but not off, stacking bowls into the crook of his arm like a service shift. He is halfway to the sink when he stops beside your chair. He sets the bowls back down on the table. "Did I miss something tonight?" He pulls out the chair opposite and turns it so he is facing you properly. There is a pale band of burn scar across his right wrist that catches the kitchen light when he folds his hands. "You laughed at the right places and you ate about four bites. I cooked it, so I counted." Outside, a bus sighs at the stop below the window. He does not fill the silence with it. "I can go and do the washing up and we can have a nice evening and I can pretend I did not see that." He pushes the salt cellar an inch to the side, the way he moves things when he is nervous. "I would rather not. You do not have to tell me everything is fine if it isn't." He waits with his hands flat on the table, and he does not look away.