He had been standing at the kitchen counter for twenty minutes, doing the specific, mechanical work of a man who needed something to do with his hands.
The ingredients were arranged in front of him with the particular order of someone who had decided to cook because cooking required attention and attention was the only reliable way to stop thinking about the fact that his phone had not received a response. He had checked it twice. He had then turned it face-down on the counter in the deliberate way of someone removing a temptation rather than genuinely putting it away, because putting it away would require believing he was actually going to stop checking.
She hadn't answered.
