“Jim’s loosening up, don’t you think?

This trip’s been just the thing for him.”

“Has it?” I said.

I kept my voice idle, mild, a wife making small talk.

“He looked a little tense this afternoon.

When you two were talking down by the water.”

For one fraction of a second, something moved behind Julian’s eyes — a flicker, there and gone, the micro-expression that only a person who has studied a face for six years would ever catch.

Then the easy mask slid back into place.