“It’s fine. You should go home and get some real sleep,” I interrupted, not needing her explanation.
Aven straightened in her chair, rolling her shoulders. “Raina’s kids were having a sleepover. Nothing like trying to sleep through ten kids laughing and playing.” She made a face.
Despite myself, I chuckled.
She gestured to her screen. “Besides, I was making progress on this timeline. If we could establish a pattern to his movements, maybe we could predict where he’ll?—”
Her words were cut short by the loud growl in her stomach. Embarrassed, she pressed a hand against it. “Guess I forgot to eat too.”
Before I knew it, I was reaching for my phone.
“Golden Palace delivers until three. Still like kung pao chicken?” I asked, already pulling up the number.
Her eyes widened slightly, surprised at the personal detail I shouldn’t remember but did. “You remember my order?”
I shrugged, not meeting her gaze. “You got it every time we studied at my grandparents’ place. Some things stick.”
Twenty minutes later, we sat on the floor of my office, backs against the wall, surrounded by white takeout containers. I had dimmed the overhead lights, leaving my desk lamp on for mood lighting over our impromptu picnic. The scent of soy sauce and ginger filled the air, which was surprisingly comforting in the sterile office environment.
“God, this is good. Nothing in South America comes close to good American Chinese food,” Aven stated around a mouthful of noodles.
“I thought the whole point of traveling was experiencing authentic cuisine,” I replied, using chopsticks to snag a piece of kung pao chicken from her container, something we used to do from our high school days that happened before I could stop myself.
Aven didn’t seem to mind; she returned the gesture by stealing a spring roll from my container in retaliation. “That’s what I thought too. The Facepage version, right? Beautiful local markets, exotic street food, cooking lessons from smiling grandmothers? The reality was more like me crying in a bathroom after I’d thrown up for three days straight after eating some sketchy empanadas.”
The casual admission caught me off guard. This wasn’t the glamorous world traveler I’d pictured, the fearless woman chasing stories across continents. “That bad?”
She set down her chopsticks as vulnerability crossed her face. “Sometimes worse. Don’t get me wrong. There were amazing moments — sunrises over Machu Picchu, dancing until dawn in Rio, and making friends despite language barriers. Yet, there was also loneliness. It hit me one day when I realized no one would notice if I… disappeared.”
The raw honesty in her voice struck something in my chest. “I would have noticed,” I replied quietly, the words escaping before I could evaluate them.
Her eyes met mine, something unreadable in their depths. “Would you? We haven’t exactly kept in touch.”
“That’s not — I just mean someone would have noticed… your sister, your friends.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t funny. Aven looked down at her food, pushing noodles around with her chopsticks. “You knowwhat the worst part was? Failing at what I went there to do. I was supposed to write this groundbreaking novel,
about finding yourself through travel. You know?Eat, Pray, Lovefor the millennial set. Instead, I got food poisoning, maxed out my credit cards, and wrote exactly seventy-three pages of unrelatable garbage.”
I watched her profile. “Damn. Is that why you came back? The book didn’t work out?”
She sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. “That, the stalker, and the mounting debt. The perfect trifecta of failure. Twelve countries, five credit cards, and all I have to show for it is a man who thinks folded paper birds are a love language and a sister who reminded me that she warned me ‘gallivanting around the globe’ would end badly.”
Now, I was seeing the reality — the struggle, the fear, the same human vulnerabilities I’d worked so hard to hide in myself.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re braver than most. Even with how it turned out, you went for it. Most people never even try,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
She turned to look at me, surprise evident in her expression. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve said to me since I got back.”
“Don’t get used to it,” I replied, although I couldn’t suppress my half smile.
Aven returned the smile with one of her own. “Right, professional distance.”
She reached over and snatched another spring roll from my container. Her touch sent a jolt of awareness through me. Sitting here on the floor of my office at two in the morning, sharing food and truths we’d both been avoiding. The distance I’d insisted on maintaining felt like the flimsiest of pretenses, especially when she looked at me with the same eyes that would make me forget my name back in high school.
“Eat your food before it gets cold,” I said gruffly, breaking eye contact to focus on my container.
Yet as we continued eating, I couldn’t help thinking that some distances, no matter how professionally necessary, were never meant to last.
