For dinner,we stop and order from different storefronts at Pike Place. The market smells of brine, fried oil, and buttery crust. To begin with, we share something battered, something pickled, and something neither of us can pronounce. We standmore than sit, bodies angled close to hear each other over the noise.
“I mapped out a couple of stops for tomorrow,” I say, wiping my fingers on a napkin. “Before we drive back, there’s something I think you’d want to see.”
He pauses, fork hovering, then sets it down carefully. His smile doesn’t disappear, but it changes, loosening at the edges. “Oh yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah, it’d be a waste not to.” I reach into my jeans and pull out two folded sheets of paper, smoothing them on the table between us. Two tickets to an architectural walking tour of Pioneer Square ending at the Smith Tower.
Nate examines the two pieces of paper, his hands shaking. When he looks up at me, his eyes shiny and pupils huge, I recognize the memory tightening without permission at the edges of this moment. There was another set of tickets once, for a trip we never took. Those tickets are expired now, just like that version of us when I thought we’d never spend another Christmas apart.
These tickets are different, though, newly printed, even if they can’t pretend they’re devoid of history.
“It’s just…” I shrug, too lightly. “We’re already here.”
He nods, swallowing, eyes back on the paper. For a moment, neither of us reaches for our drinks. The market noise swells and recedes around us, forks clinking and the city life coming forward in a way it doesn’t in Bend.
“There were a lot of places we could have gone. We didn’t have to do my thing.” His tone isn’t accusatory, it just calls the truth forward.
“I know. I wanted to.”
The space between us holds the weight of what we didn’t do together and the quiet fact that we’re here now anyway. Not together but also not apart.
“I don’t want to tell you how to take care of yourself,” hesays, folding the two pieces of paper with reverence they don’t deserve. “I know you can. I don’t know better than you.”
I wait, letting him finish.
“This is just how I process things now,” he continues. “I read. I listen. I… teach—there’s this kid I’m mentoring. I try to understand the world around me… and myself. Help others do the same.” He inhales, putting the tickets in the breast pocket of his casual button-down. “I’m not trying to fix you, Robyn.” His voice lowers, steadying. “I just wanted to share what helps me make sense of things. In case it helps you too.”
It isn’t a speech. It isn’t polished. It’s him choosing care without control.
“Maybe it comes off as sudden to you,” I say slowly. “But it isn’t.” I glance down at the table, then back at him. “There’s a quiet in the lab. A logic to it you can actually measure with variables and control samples.” I exhale. “After everything… that kind of failsafe is steadying. Especially when I think of patients like Mom.”
“I hate that your dad doesn’t see how fucking amazing of a doctor you are.” He taps on the acrylic surface, as if he wants to hold my hand but doesn’t dare. “I wish I could say I’ve never made you doubt yourself, becauseI’venever doubted you.”
Reaching across the narrow table, I touch his hand. “Thank you for sharing this new part of you. It means a lot.”
We drift through the market for a while, tasting small bites: a cup of mac and cheese, cold crab and oysters, lemon on our fingers. The smell of something sweet curls through the air, and he steers us toward a warm hand pie. Later, he offers me the last bite of his fish taco for the flaky edge of the empanada I saved. The shape of his mouth around it, lips pressing to the crust, makes me hungry. I don’t bring up dessert—it’s not his thing—but he knows just the place. Eating eclairs, staring at the Pacific, I don’tknow what he hoped to get out of this trip, but I’m convinced we’re both satisfied.
We findour way back to the hotel room. In the quiet dark, I listen to Nate shower, then his steadying breaths from the other side of the bed. Lying on my back, I stare at the ceiling until the urge to look at him wins, and roll onto my side to face him. He’s at the edge of his mattress, one foot out of the quilt, shoulders relaxed beneath his gray T-shirt. His body’s angled toward me, hand stretching yet finger curled, holding back. The space between us hums with electricity. When his breathing stutters and then steadies, I can tell he’s fighting the impulse to cross it—his want held just as carefully as my own.
Yep. We should’ve argued over that second room.
“Nate,” I whisper.
His eyes open immediately, dark in the low light. I can’t tell if they’re brown or that warm-cognac shade, but I know the look. Awake. Enthralled.
“You said you haven’t been with anyone since…”
“Since you. It’s not a curse word. I’m not embarrassed by it.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs, the mattress squeaking with his movement. “Because it’s my choice.”
“Present tense?”
“Yes.” He nods. “Present tense.”
I trace the seam of the sheet with my fingertip, gathering my nerves. “Was it—why did you—” I stop, frustrated with myself. The real question presses harder. “Do you not find me attractive anymore?”
