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She knew better than to try to talk to him right away, so she waited for him to take a seat, said 'good morning', accepted the obligatory grunt in return, then continued to sip her coffee in silence, because on some mornings even that proved to be way too much interaction, way too early.
He had a large glass of orange juice. Then another. A piece of sweet cinnamon roll. Some tea and bourbon. Some more juice. Another roll. More bourbon. Then she slid his calendar over to him across the table. Slowly. Gently.
For a moment she thought she had miscalculated her timing, because he looked down at it with a frown, but just as her hands started to ache to take it back, he ignored his napkin, licked his fingers clean and opened it with a deep sigh, so she raised her cup back to her lips and kept on acting like she wasn't watching his every move.
"Didn't you miss something?" he asked after a minute or so, going through a couple of pages.
"What?" She put her cup down right away. "No. Everything's in there, I checked it."
"I can't see my lunch with Tremaines," he said.
"Oh," she said, feeling a wave of relief wash over her. "You don't have one this year."
"What?" He looked back at her. "Why?"
"Well, she had another stroke in the spring, so she is in no condition to have visitors and her husband’s not interested."
He parted his lips for another question, or maybe for some profanities, then pressed them back together and turned his head from her.
"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice, and almost reached out for his hand too when he closed his eyes and bit down on his lip a little harder. "I never knew you... liked her."
"I didn't. I don’t know," he said, hanging his head and dragging his fingers across the back of his neck so hard they left a mark. "But she paid for the coffins."
“The what?”
“The coffins.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “But I always thought…”
“Nope,” he said. “You have to bribe them. Otherwise they put them in a wooden box the way they get taken out of the arena.”
“But that’s just… awful!” She felt her voice quiver with the very thought.
“It is,” he agreed, opening his flask and taking a long swig.
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know how to feel, so she watched the light dancing on the surface of her coffee for a moment, then reached for her own notebook and started going through the pages.
“We need to find someone new,” she said, scanning the names of their potential sponsors. “And we will.”
“Well, good luck with that,” he snorted before taking another sip.
“We will,” she said, reaching across the table and giving his hand a squeeze.
He didn’t believe her, she could tell. But he wanted to, and that was all that she needed.