Ezra had not been able to effect his goodbyes to the young woman before Rosalie reached them, and he had braced himself internally for having to interact with her for at least a few minutes... but then she didn't talk to him at all. She was here for Priscilla, apparently (whom Ezra was sure he hadn't exchanged names with yet, as he certainly would have recalled that one). Listening to her talk Ezra bristled, though it was hard to say exactly what it was about her words that put him off. Maybe it was the implication that this girl she knew (they were evidently on a first-name basis, though beyond that Ezra couldn't guess at their connection) would be better off talking to anyone else than talking to him, as though there were something horribly wrong with him and he ought to be avoided at all costs. Maybe it was how she'd managed to say the whole thing without looking at him once, as though he weren't there at all. Maybe it was some deeply buried disappointment in the fact that she'd been crossing the ballroom for someone else and not for him resurfacing as resentment. Maybe it had just been long enough since she'd left him that anything she said would have irritated him; maybe he'd just hit the anger stage of grieving their relationship.

Whatever it was, he was disinclined to slink away to the edge of the room, as he had been fully prepared to do a minute earlier. "That's a shame," he said to Rosalie, and nevermind that she'd been purposefully ignoring him. He rolled his shoulders back, trying to stand a little taller — trying to look as confident as she had always made him feel, before. "I was hoping for a dance."

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