Bruce looked at her. She looked back. The outcome of this exchange was never genuinely in question.
Sophie had stepped through the doorway in time to catch the tail end of it. Lucy turned to her with a warmth in her face that was immediate and unguarded, reaching out to take Sophie's hands in both of hers for a brief moment in the way she had of greeting people she was genuinely glad to see.
"Come in," she said simply. "You're not leaving on an empty stomach."
"We really did eat," Sophie began.
"Restaurant food," Lucy said, with precisely the same inflection she'd used on Bruce, and turned back toward the kitchen with the decisiveness of someone who had already moved on from the debate portion of the evening.
Sophie looked at Bruce.
Bruce looked at Sophie.
"Don't," he said.
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were about to say something."
