A best man who Matti wanted with a slow, awful burn of hunger, which he was ignoring as he ignored hunger when he worked through lunch, or when he needed to make Merri smile by sliding oil-dipped bread off his own dinner plate and onto hers. It wasn’t the hunger of the truly desperate; it couldn’t hold a candle to the hunger of the beggars who sat on the bridges by day and curled themselves into doorways by night. It was bearable. It would pass.
