Valerie

It took several more minutes of thinking before I left the bathroom.

“You were gone a while,” Alistair commented as I sat down, “is something wrong?”

“Something about the food here perhaps,” I said, barely keeping the acidity in my voice to dismiss him. It took a millisecond after to regret my harshness. He was just worried for me.

That pushed me to offer a gentle apologetic smile his way.

As I kept on eating my gaze flew to the empty seat beside Alyn.

The ...