Page 120 of Fate Fiction

“Girlfriend? Not even a little,” Evan cut me off with a boisterous laugh. My relief could’ve made me float out of the car. “We’re good friends, great friends. And I’m great friends with her fiancé, Ash, too. Wait, were you keeping tabs on me through gossip pages? Is Miss ‘I don’t want anything to do with Sword of Thorndown’ actually a fan again?”

“N-no! No. Definitely not.” I sputtered as I tried to defend myself. I only broke my self-imposed public figure Evan McLeod ban twice. The first time was when he texted me ‘happy christmas’ and I checked his public account to see if he was in the same time zone as me.

The second time was after he told me he was in Boston again. I was looking for proof that he wasn’t actually here in the same city as me and I’d manifested a new figment of my imagination, despite him inviting me to dinner. Unfortunately I’d been swiftly proven wrong when I saw a post from the Bruins that showed Evan attending a recent game.

The imaginary girlfriend moat had been drained. I could storm into this hypothetical relationship castle.

twenty-four

. . .

When we entered the bar it was busy, but not so packed we’d need to dodge around overgrown frat boys and their girlfriends.

I spotted an empty booth in the corner and beelined to it, Evan stood at the bar to order for us, the acts were choreographed as if this was a plan we had devised ahead of time. As I slid onto the vinyl seat, I realized we should have done the inverse. The very public figure should hide out in the booth while I subjected myself to the bartender—but he looked so natural, smiling and chatting up the bartender, and having a passing conversation with a patron in the stool beside him.

Could this be a glimpse of what our life could be? I didn’t care about the high end restaurants or expensive gestures, I wanted someone who could order me a beer without even asking and bring it back to our tucked away booth with a broad smile across his face, exactly like Evan was doing right now. Two dewy bottles dropped onto the table, he slid one across the sticky scratched wood and settled into the seat across from me.

“I like this place, a lot. I’m definitely coming back, it’s only a few blocks from where I’m staying.” He broadly grinned and adjusted himself in the booth, his knees bumped against mine.

“You’ve been here less than 10 minutes.”

“And already it’s far better than Lunar.”

“I think you fall in love a little too quickly, Evan.” I took a swig of beer and looked out to the crowd in the bar, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility that I’d see someone I knew here. I didn’t know if I’d be thrilled or panicked at the idea. Evan got the dig, and took a long sip himself before he changed the subject.

“I kind of hate Boston,” he mentioned as I played with the puddle of condensation that had formed beneath my bottle.

“Do you? Already?” I asked, wondering if the romanticized version I’d promised eight months ago didn’t actually exist.

“Your winters are so much worse than New York, it’s colder and darker somehow,” he leaned back next to me and looked out his window.

“They are dark, and cold,” I follow his gaze to the window. He's in a penthouse but I know the view couldn’t be half as good as New York’s. Boston is good for a lot of things, the skyline isn’t one of them. “What have you been doing when you aren’t shooting?”

“I go for a lot of walks,” he said without follow-up.

“Walks?”

“I have a loop I walk each night around the neighborhood,” he replied quietly.

I thought of us running into one another as I jogged in circles around to calm myself down. We may have already passed one another.

Did he ever wander past my apartment? He could have watched my life from outside the window without me so much as noticing.

I wished now that I spotted his silhouette on the sidewalk, standing in a long coat, looking at the glow of the table lamps and the fuzzy outline of my body distorted from the curtains in my front window. Could he hear the beat of my music from outside? Did he hear the laughter from Andrea and Caroline and I as we watched some dumb teen movie?

Why was I romanticizing some light stalking from him?

We seamlessly fell back into other conversation, easier here than on Lunar’s rooftop. Just as easily as we had when it was the two of us laying on the dock. Our food showed up, and somehow the talking still didn’t stop, both excitedly speaking between bites, not caring about maintaining the same high society politeness we had when at Lunar.

Evan and I migrated outside, hanging underneath the neon lights like two moths. The bar was still open but it was getting louder and Evan’s privacy was slowly dissolving. After a drunk twenty-something stumbled up and shouted, “for the good of the kingdom!” at him, he opted to leave.

We couldn’t be pulled from each other yet. Our two magnets had found their polarity again.

And someone who’d perpetually been a hair out of reach always looked better when lit by the fluorescent sign of a bar.

“I can walk you home if you want,” Evan offered during a pause in conversation, “or I can get you an Uber if it’s too far.”

And that was it, the magic of the night would fizzle out. It was for the better this way, end on a sweet high note then figure out what came next. We’d have time, still finite, but enough for us to figure something out.