Ryan was different at dinner.Not obviously. not in ways that anyone who didn’t know him well would catch. He sat at the head of the table in the small east wing dining room, dressed and composed, eating with his usual precise economy, and the conversation moved around him the way it always did — Lila with scheduling updates, Marco with a brief security report, Victor smooth and attentive at the far end of the table.But Dave felt it.The quality of Ryan’s attention had changed. It was harder tonight, less filtered, the way metal felt different in cold weather — the same material but with less give. He had been back from the city for less than twenty-four hours and something from the thirty-six hours before that had not fully left him.Dave ate quietly and watched and said very little, which was normal enough that no one commented on it.Victor said something at the end of dinner that Dave didn’t catch, something light and smooth about a scheduling matter, and Ryan looked at him acros
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