The morning after Julian’s speech, the boutique felt unusually still. There was no hum of early customers yet, no footsteps on the pavement outside, just the faint sound of the kettle coming to boil in the back. I had arrived earlier than usual, partly because I wanted the quiet and partly because my mind was still turning over the words Julian had spoken the night before.

He had surprised me — not with what he said, because I knew those truths already, but with how openly he gave them to a ...