"Izzy." His voice was rough, uncertain. "I know I don't deserve it, but... can we talk?"
I looked down at Cap's letter, at his final words about not letting pride cost me the best thing that had ever happened to me.
"Where?" I said.
chapter
thirty-four
The Daily Grindlooked exactly the same as it had all those weeks ago when we'd sat at this corner table. Same chipped mugs, same indie music playing too loud, same barista with the elaborate sleeve tattoos who remembered everyone's order except mine.
But everything else was different. I was different. Broken down and rebuilt by bourbon and brutal honesty in a dive bar that smelled like decades of bad decisions. Hollow from weeks of mechanical competence that fooled everyone except the people who actually mattered.
I checked my phone for the dozenth time. 2:47 p.m. She was seventeen minutes late, and I was starting to wonder if she'd changed her mind. If the woman I'd heard on the phone — careful, guarded, but still willing to meet — had reconsidered in the harsh light of day.
The bell above the door chimed, and I looked up to see her.
Izzy stood in the doorway for a moment, scanning the café until her eyes found mine. She looked... tired. Beautiful, always beautiful, but worn down in a way that made my chest ache. Her dark hair was pulled back in its usual severeponytail, and she was wearing jeans and a simple gray sweater that somehow made her look smaller than I remembered.
But it was her eyes that broke my heart. Those fierce, intelligent eyes that had first caught my attention were carefully neutral, guarded in a way they'd never been even when we were strangers.
She walked over to my table with the measured stride of someone approaching a crime scene, and I stood up too quickly, nearly knocking over my coffee mug.
"Izzy." Her name came out rougher than I'd intended.
"Jimmy." She nodded formally, like we were colleagues meeting to discuss a patient. "Thank you for... for meeting me."
For meeting you?I thought.You're thanking me for the privilege of letting me grovel?
"Of course," I said instead. "Can I... do you want coffee? I can — "
"I'll get it." She was already moving toward the counter, and I watched her order — medium dark roast, no cream, no sugar. The same order she'd gotten that first time, when I'd teased her about drinking coffee that could strip paint.
When she came back, we sat across from each other like awkward strangers. The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything we weren't saying.
"How's work?" I asked finally, because it seemed safer than any of the things I actually wanted to say.
"Fine." Her voice was clipped, professional. "Busy. You?"
"Same. Yeah, it's been..." I trailed off, realizing how absurd this was. We were sitting here making small talk like we hadn't torn each other's lives apart, like we were distant acquaintances catching up instead of two people who'd once been so in love it hurt to breathe.
"Izzy," I said, abandoning the pretense. "I need to — "
"Jimmy, I — "
We spoke at the same time, then both stopped. For just amoment, I saw a flicker of the old Izzy — the one who would have laughed at the awkwardness, who would have said something sarcastic about our timing.
"You first," she said quietly.
I took a deep breath, hearing Kellen's voice in my head:Fix what's broken.
"I need to apologize," I said. "For everything. But mostly for the letter."
Her face went very still.
"I’m sorry my letter destroyed your promotion. I’m sorry they used it as evidence that you were 'too emotional' to handle command." The words tasted like ash in my mouth. "I was arrogant and naive. I thought I was helping, but I was just an outsider who didn't understand your world. I am so, so sorry I took your fight away from you."
Izzy's carefully controlled expression cracked slightly. "You wrote three pages about how amazing I was."
