Evan stood in the doorway like he was considering whether entering was worth the potential emotional damage.
He was beautiful. Still. Always.
And I was still apparently seventeen years old inside my head, because looking at him made my stomach do stupid things that had nothing to do with Martha's coffee.
“Nate.” His voice was deeper than I remembered, rougher around the edges. Like he'd learned to use it more but still chose his words carefully.
“Evan.” I lifted my coffee cup in what I hoped looked like a casual greeting instead of a desperate attempt to have something to do with my hands. “Small town, huh?”
“Something like that.” He moved toward the counter with that silent grace I remembered, ordering coffee from Martha.
The smart thing would have been to finish my coffee and leave. To avoid the awkward small talk and painful catching up that was bound to happen if we shared the same air for more than five minutes. The smart thing would have been to protect what was left of my dignity.
Instead, I heard myself say, “Want to sit? I promise not to make it weird.”
Evan's mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. “How weird we talking?”
“Scale of one to ten? Maybe a six. Seven tops.”
“I can handle a seven.”
He settled into the booth across from me, coffee cup cradled in hands that were bigger than I remembered, scarred in places that spoke of manual labor.
“So,” I said, because apparently my mouth had decided to work without consulting my brain. “How've you been?”
It was a stupid question. But Evan considered it seriously, like he was actually trying to find an honest answer.
“Busy,” he said finally. “Work. Family stuff. The usual small-town excitement.”
“Right. The lumber mill.”
“Among other things.” His fingers drummed against his coffee cup, a nervous habit I didn't remember from high school. “What about you? Chicago treating you well?”
The question hung in the air between us like a loaded gun, and I found myself choking on the urge to laugh. Or cry. Maybe both.
“Chicago's been...” I searched for words that wouldn't make me sound like a complete failure. “Educational.”
“That's one way to put it.”
There was something in his tone, a gentleness that suggested he knew exactly how much I was leaving unsaid. Which was either intuitive or devastating, depending on how you looked at it.
“You always were good at reading between the lines,” I said.
“Had a good teacher.”
The compliment hit harder than it should have, carrying echoes of afternoons spent in this exact booth while Evan sketched and I chattered about photography and dreams that felt possible when you were eighteen and stupid.
“I'm sorry,” I said, the words escaping before I could stop them. “For leaving the way I did. For not...” I gestured vaguely, encompassing six years of radio silence and cowardice. “For not staying in touch.”
Evan was quiet for a long moment, studying his coffee like it held answers to questions I didn't know how to ask.
“You had dreams,” he said finally. “Big city dreams. I understood that.”
“Did you?” The question came out sharper than I'd intended. “Because I'm not sure I did. Understand it, I mean. What I was really running from.”
His eyes met mine across the table, hazel depths that held too much knowledge and not enough judgment.
“Maybe that's something you had to figure out for yourself.”
