“It’s hot, actually.” She grinned. “Functional is sexy.”
I snorted. “Tell that to the flannel.”
“Flannel’s welcome to stay. But so is a plan.” She started ticking off on her fingers. “One: do not ask her to stay today.”
My stomach punched upward. “Riley—”
“Two,” she barreled on, “do not make a grand gesture that fixes nothing. No sleigh rides. No flash mobs. No guitar on the riverbank unless you learned how to play in the last twelve hours, which you didn’t.”
“I can play three chords.”
“Exactly. Three: do make a small, specific proposal that respects the situation. Not forever. Not even next month. A pilot run.”
“A what now?”
“A test.” She spread her hands. “Thirty days. You both commit to trying. Scheduled calls. One visit each direction. No disappearing, no martyring, no kisses as punctuation for avoidance. If it’s awful, you both bow out. If it’s good, you figure out the next thirty.”
“That’s… practical.”
“Practical keeps people together after the snow melts.”
I rubbed my jaw. “She’ll say it’s naive.”
“She’ll say it’s honest,” Riley countered. “And if she doesn’t, you’ll be okay. Because you won’t have lied to yourself about what you want or what she can give.”
I stared past her to the window. The glass had fogged where the heater breathed on it, and someone had traced a heart in the condensation, then hastily smeared it out. The shape lingeredanyway, ghosting softer, like it didn’t know how to stop being what it was.
“You ever get tired of being right?” I asked.
“Hourly,” she said. “It’s a heavy crown.”
We were quiet long enough for Mariah to flip to silence and some crackly Bing Crosby to replace her. The shop felt like a snow globe. A couple in scarves argued affectionately at the pickup counter about whether to split a scone. A kid in a puffer jacket pressed both palms and most of his face against the pastry case like he could teleport a cinnamon roll.
“I saw her at the door,” I said, the words coming slow now that they’d decided to exist. “Hair a mess. Nightshirt. Bare feet. Looked like a life I wanted to be in. And all I could think was if I kissed her, she’d pull away, and then she’d leave tonight, and I’d spend the next six months turning that moment over like a stone until it was sharp on every edge.”
“Look at you,” Riley said softly. “Being careful with someone else’s morning.”
“I don’t want to be careful,” I admitted. “I want to be brave. But I don’t know where the line is between brave and selfish.”
Riley nodded like that was the only question that mattered. “Brave tells the truth and lets the other person decide. Selfish decides for them and calls it chivalry.”
I winced. “That feels specific.”
“It is,” she said brightly. “I’ve known you for too long.”
I looked down at my hands. The new ink on my forearm winked up—a compass. Keep your bearings. But what I put inside the ink reminded me of Melanie every single time I looked at it.
“Okay,” I said. “Pilot.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“Thirty days,” I said, meeting her eyes. “Calls we put on the calendar and don’t cancel. I’ll go to Seattle once. She comes here once. We stop pretending geography is a personality trait.”
Riley’s smile broke wide and smug. “I’m going to throw in a bonus rule.”
“Of course you are.”
“No flirting with peppermint martinis.”
