I let that echo in the space between us, unspeakably grateful for his gentleness. The fries cooled, and we ate them one by one.
If I reached across the table, he would let me. If I asked to go somewhere else, he’d drive for hours, no questions, just to show me that leaving wasn’t always about running away.
But I didn’t reach, and I didn’t ask. I wanted to stay in this moment, small and quiet as it was, because it was real and mine and not infected by the rot of memory.
When the coffee was gone and the check paid, we walked out into the cold. The sky above the lot was perfect black.
Dante stood with the car door open, waiting, and I saw in his shape the outline of all the nights we’d spent together, the ones I’d tried so hard to bury.
He started the engine, and the heater gasped to life. We pulled out onto the main road.
“Where to?” Dante asked, briefly looking at my slouched frame in the passenger seat.
“I’m staying at the Pathosbury Inn, you can drop me off there.”
I almost wanted to tell him to keep driving.
He nodded and drove onwards.
The inn came into view, a shadow in the moonlight, and he parked. I thought he would drive away once I stepped out, but he didn’t.
I saw him turn the engine off and hop out with me, shutting the car door.
“I can help with the boxes.” Dante offered, and I thanked him. I had almost forgotten about my mother’s possessions sitting in his trunk.
I looked around and didn’t see Caiden’s car, which caused a worrisome knot to form in my gut.
“Caiden isn’t here. I wonder if he’s okay.”
Dante peered around the lot, and his face darkened with concern. “Shit. Hopefully, he passed out in his car. But, I have a bad feeling as to where he might be.”
“Where?”
He shook his head, dismissing it. “I don’t want you to worry. I’ll find him.”
Dante walked with me as I approached the motel door. Once inside, he set the boxes onto the desk, then turned towards me. He was hesitating to leave, I could see it.
I hoped he would stay, just for a little while longer.
Dante stepped towards me. Then another step. Until we were so close.
“It really was nice seeing you,” he confessed, his eyes lingering on my face, absorbing every feature, as if I would disappear.
He had one hand in his pocket, the other drumming restless patterns on the back of a chair. “I didn’t know if I should say this, but… I missed this. I missed you.” His voice was soft.
I blinked, unsteady. “I missed you too, more than I thought I would.” The truth of it left me exposed.
Dante smiled, and the whole shape of his face softened. “Good. I was hoping you’d say that.”
Something narrowed between us then, a corridor of held breath and old longing. I could have stepped away, could have turned the moment into a joke, but neither of us did.
He closed the distance. The cold from outside clung to him. He was shaking a little, whether from nerves or cold, I wasn’t sure, but there was nothing tentative in the way he touched my cheek. His thumb found the line of my jaw, hovered there, and waited for me to flinch away.
I didn’t.
He kissed me. Not the way teenagers do, desperate for friction or the taste of someone else’s mouth, but careful, measured.
For a moment, I let myself sink into his slow and intimate kiss. I enjoyed the way his lips swallowed mine, delicately, as ifthey were made of glass. I enjoyed how he didn’t try to push the kiss into something lustful or meaningless.
