He followed suit in taking care no contact be made. It was not that he feared such a thing would set either of them off, but it still felt awkward. The half-hearted taunt in his words was one thing, but it had always just been talk between them and he was cautious now not to suggest he expected or even craved more. He did speak up on protocol at last, though he had thrown it out the window plenty this morning.
“I trust you have not forgotten about that crown you are wearing.” Still, he had taken the glass, so the rebuke did not hold up especially well. If she wished to bring him wine, who was he to tell her otherwise?
“My Avalynn,” he echoed, his tone a poor imitation of amusement. “I have no fear of it becoming a public spectacle of that sort. It would not be the first of its kind with her. I would prefer it to her insistence she follow through for duty’s sake. I have never treated that as a dirty word, but I do not find myself fond of it from her lips.”
Perhaps worse than if his name had caught his attention, he continued as if it were natural between them. He cradled the wine glass in one hand, and it became a sort of prop he seemed to have mostly forgotten about. “My Avalynn has always resented that privilege for caging her. You are right, I suppose, that the past has changed me. This may as well. In the end, it may be best and I may be a better man for it, but that hardly makes it pleasant. She was a challenge at first. I could try and deny that, but I see little point. She was a prize, a victory I would have flaunted had she ever given in. Now… Announcing this publicly is a formality my place here demands of me, but it is not the part I find myself anticipating. I know that you must have trouble seeing it. Your experiences with her have been tense, at best. But I love her.”
He remembered the wine all at once, indulging in a drink that made up for lost time. Those words were dangerous, spoken in the wrong company, and he knew it well. “The trouble with that is that it makes logical perspective hard to come by."