Becca stayed for another twenty minutes, talking nursery plans while Ethan and Wyatt drifted back to work. The baby was due in February. Wyatt was building the crib at home from a plan he’d found online and modified because Wyatt couldn’t follow someone else’s plan for anything. Their lives were expanding. New room, new name, new person.
After they left, Dawson stood at the workbench, eating the last roll. The shop was quiet except for the compressor cycling and Ethan’s radio in the next bay.
Leo wouldn’t tellhim where they were going. He just gave directions. South on 43, keep driving.
“You have to tell me at some point,” Dawson said.
“No, I don’t. That’s the whole point of a surprise.” Leo had his feet on the dashboard again. If it was anyone else, Dawson would have told them to put their damned feet down. He tapped at his screen a few times, turning it away before Dawson was able to glance at the map. “Take the 794 split when you get there.”
“You missed a good one Friday,” Leo said. “We put up six on Iron Bay.”
“I heard.”
“You heard, or you watched?”
“I heard.” He had watched. Hadn’t meant to. He’d been at The Penalty Box with his book, same as any other Friday, and the game was on the TV above the bar. He’d caught Leo’s number out of the corner of his eye during the first period, and that was it—the book stayed open, but his eyes kept drifting up. By the third period, he’d given up pretending and just watched. Gunnar had noticed but hadn’t said anything.
Dawson wasn’t about to admit to Leo that he now had a copy of the Stags’ schedule tucked into his wallet. If anyone did notice, he could easily play it off as taking one from the youth team who was handing them out at the grocery store the first week of the season.
Leo grinned and turned the heat down. “Liar.”
“Believe what you want.”
“I want to believe the guy I’m seeing watched my game.”
Seeing.Dawson’s hands tightened on the wheel. Leo had said it without slowing down, without checking if it was okay, like it was a settled fact and Dawson was the last one to find out. His throat went tight.
“Fine, I watched,” he said. “Are you happy now?”
Leo’s grin went wider.”Yep.”
He parked in the Third Ward and killed the engine. Leo was already opening his door, and the shift was immediate. City-Leo was a different animal. He moved faster, stood taller, his wholebody looser than Dawson had ever seen it in Port Haven. He looked comfortable here in a way he never had back home.
That realization should have served as a reminder of why Dawson should keep his distance. Leo had no plans to stay here, and Dawson no plans to leave. They were just too different for anything other than a bit of fun.
“Come on.” Leo was halfway across the lot before Dawson had his jacket zipped.
The Third Ward was brick and iron and coffee shops Dawson wouldn’t have walked into alone. Leo moved through it like he’d been coming here for years, hands in his pockets, head up. His shoulder bumped Dawson’s as they walked.
Dawson’s eyes swept the sidewalk before he could stop them. Checking faces, scanning parked cars, looking for a plate from Door County or a bumper sticker he’d recognize from the garage lot. His shoulders had crept back up around his ears. Fifteen years of habit didn’t switch off just because Leo was walking close enough that their arms kept brushing.
No one he knew would likely be walking around the historic, artsy area in the middle of a weekday. His shoulders dropped an inch. Then another. By the time they hit the next crosswalk, he’d stopped checking.
Leo ducked into a coffee shop with exposed brick and a chalkboard menu that Dawson would’ve walked past on his own. He ordered something with too many adjectives in the name. Dawson ordered a black coffee, and Leo looked at him like he’d committed a crime.
“You’re in a city with actual espresso machines, and you order drip.”
“I like drip.”
“You like what you’re used to.”
Dawson took his cup and didn’t argue because it was true. He’d never understood the appeal in paying three times as much just to get a couple pumps of syrup and too much milk.
Leo led without asking, which Dawson let him do because Leo in discovery mode was something worth watching. He stopped at a vintage store and walked out with a leather jacket that looked like it’d seen some things in its lifetime, dragged Dawson into a bookstore where Dawson found a Jim Thompson paperback he’d been looking for. They ate lunch at a taco place Leo found on his phone, sharing a table so small their knees touched, and Dawson didn’t move his leg away.
“This is good,” Leo said, mouth full.
“It’s a taco.”
