Drew went quiet in the way that meant everything was working. He moved closer to the railing and leaned his forearms on it, the wreath dangling absurdly from his wrist. His flannel darkened where mist kissed it. He looked… right there. Not out of place. Just different than my usual view and better for it.
“You okay?” I asked, because sometimes when I’m overwhelmed, I narrate like a sports announcer.
He didn’t answer right away. “Yeah.” He glanced sideways at me. “You?”
“Yeah.”
We stood like that, shoulder to shoulder, while the city breathed around us. It wasn’t quiet, but it was peace anyway. The kind that comes when the noise matches your heartbeat.
“I know you don’t love this,” I said finally, because I had to trip over the obvious. “The crowds. The… everything.”
He considered it.
“I don’t love the crowds,” he said. “But I love your face when you show me things.”
“Don’t say stuff like that.”
“But it’s true.”
There didn’t feel like a good response that wasn’t running or kissing him, and both would have consequences I wasn’t prepared for. So I did what I do best and pivoted with precision.
“You hungry again?” I asked. “Because we didn’t do the mac and cheese. Or the piroshky. Or—”
“Mel.”
I looked at him. The scruff shadowed his cheek, and his green eyes met mine. He lifted our still-laced hands without making a ceremony of it and rested them on the railing.
“I came because I wanted to see your life,” he said. “I’m staying the night because I’d like to try being in it without a countdown clock.”
The words slid into me like a key that had been made quietly, carefully, while I wasn’t looking. I could feel the panic beast open one eye, probability, risk, schedule, future…but underneath it, louder rang the relief.
“Okay,” I said, because it turned out I could be brave in one-syllable sentences.
He nodded once, like that was enough for now, and looked back at the water. A ferry blew its horn; a gull screamed at no one in particular; someone laughed behind us.
I pressed my shoulder to his. He pressed back.
We did the rest of the loop more slowly, our pace matching the evening. By the time we walked back under the sign, the clock hands were snuggled near seven. His phone buzzed; mine did too. The world tugged at us like it always does, with obligations tapping politely at our elbows. But when we stepped into the crosswalk, he squeezed my hand and said, “I love being here with you.”
“Thank you for surprising me.”
We stepped into my building, and Tad looked up, pretending not to watch us come in. Drew held up the wreath like a passport.
“Good evening, Tad,” Drew said with a wide grin.
Tad’s mouth twitched. “Evening.”
In the elevator, our reflections rode up with us again as two people I recognized and two I was just starting to meet. When the doors opened, I felt the city sigh behind us and the apartment breathe ahead of us.
The lights around my window glowed, and the little tree waited like a well-behaved secret.
He stepped inside and took off his boots, and I suddenly, irrationally wanted to cry because it was some abstract sign of belonging. I took the salmon from him and secretly wished that this could be my norm.
“Should I hang this on the door?” he asked, holding up the wreath.
“Yes, and hopefully nobody will take it.”
His brows lifted. “They do that here?”
