But the more she tried to say goodbye, the more she caught herself falling deeper for it—street by street, sip by sip, like the city was clinging to her, too.
There was so much she still hadn’t touched. So many corners she’d never wandered down. Flavors and people and stories tucked between buildings and bus stops, waiting to be found. And she wanted to find them.
The barista set the drink down first.
Clear, double-walled glass mug with coffee the color of volcanic rock, topped with a thin golden crust of crackle glazing the top like frost on asphalt.
She cracked it with her teaspoon. Took a sip.
It was strong. Violent and alive.
Then came the scroll.
Golden. Beautiful. Flaky in a way that implied structural instability.
She pulled it apart, devouring it one spiral at a time.
It started with crunch. Cinnamon and heat and burnt sugar.
Then it went quiet. Softer. Deeper. Like it had something to confess the further you got inside.
She took another bite. And felt it hit.
Not the pastry. The ache.
Because this—this scroll, this coffee, this corner of Dover Street she’d never paid attention to until she thought her time was running out—this was the problem.
She didn’t want to leave.
She wasn’t done with the UR.
And the truth was even more damning than that: she wasn’t done withherselfhere.
She opened her Notes app once more.
Black Sugar Flat + Burnt Cinnamon Scroll – the unnamed café off Dover Street
I thought this was a goodbye list. But maybe it’s just been a map…leading me all the way back to the beginning.
Her eyes stung. She took another sip. Burned her tongue.
Good. She deserved it.
Chapter Forty-One
GAGE
He found her in the living room.
Laptop open, legs tucked beneath her, tea gone cold beside a scatter of notes. She hadn’t heard him come in—her head bent, a soft line of concentration in her brow, hair pinned haphazardly like she’d stopped halfway and forgotten to finish.
Gage stood at the threshold and just watched her for a moment.
This. This was what he wanted.
Her. In his home. Studying. Waiting for him like she belonged there.
Bea looked up then, caught his gaze, and smiled. “Hey,” she said, closing the laptop halfway. “You’re home earlier than I thought.”
