your lungs ache when you breathe, the kind that turns the inside of your nose into ice the second you step outside. The sun's already setting—it sets so early here in winter, sometimes as early as four-thirty, and it's past five now. The sky is doing that thing where it turns purple and gold and pink all at once, like someone spilled watercolors across the horizon, and the mountains in the distance are dark silhouettes against all that color.
It's beautiful.
I hunch my shoulders against the wind and head toward my car. The parking lot is mostly empty now—just a few cars scattered around, the staff vehicles clustered near the back door, and—
And his car.
I see it immediately because it's impossible to miss. It’s sleek and low and the color of wet slate, that dark gray-blue that probably has some fancy name like "graphite pearl" or "midnight steel" or something equally fancy. It has a logo on the front that I don't recognize—some kind of emblem, silver and elegant, the kind of thing that screamsexpensivein a language I don't speak.
Honestly, I know more about the migration patterns of elk than I do about luxury vehicles. I could tell you that elk winter in the valley and summer in the high country, that they can weigh up to seven hundred pounds, that the bulls' antlers can span four feet. But cars? Cars are just things that get you from point A to point B, and as long as they do that without exploding, I don't really care what logo is on the front.
So this car...
I know it should impress me, but I’m just not cool enough to understand how appealing it is. All I care about this car...is the person driving it.
I can see him through the windshield. He's in the driver's seat, and he's looking at his phone, and the interior light is on, so I can see his face—the strong line of his jaw, the dark fall of his hair, the way his brow furrows slightly as he reads whatever's on the screen.
He looks up, sees me, and our eyes meet across two parking spaces and approximately seven feet of cold February air, and I freeze.
I should keep walking. I should get in my car and pretend I didn't see him, pretend this is a normal Tuesday evening and I'm just leaving work like I do every Tuesday evening and there's nothing unusual about a customer sitting in the parking lot.
But I can't move.
He's still looking at me, and I'm still looking at him, and the moment stretches out like taffy, long and thin and slightly uncomfortable.
Then he opens his car door, and just watching him move suddenly makes the world feel like it’s turning in slow motion, and everyone and everything is fading away.
The café ceases to exist. The parking lot becomes our own universe, and it suddenly feels like it’s just me and him and the dying light and the cold.
He leans back against his car. Casual. Like he's been waiting for this. Like he planned it.
Maybe he did.
I force myself to keep walking, keys jangling in my hand. I find myself wondering if he’d stop me as I walk past his car. But he doesn’t. I find myself holding my breath as I continue to walk away, but...nope. It’s all silence, and it’s heartbreaking.
But as soon as I make it to my car—
"Those tires."
I realize that the loud pounding of my heart has probably drowned out the sound of his footsteps behind me. Either that or he’s like stealth personified because he’s right behind me when I turn around.
But instead of looking at me, he’s looking at my decades-old Honda, which is the opposite of his in every way.
“Have you noticed they’re not in good shape at all?”
The words have me blinking.Really?I glance at my tires. “They look fine to me.” They got me through last winter, and they'll get me through this one.
"They are not fine."
"I drive on them every day—"
"That doesn’t make them less bald. The roads are icy. You will slide."
"I won't slide—"
"You cannot know that."
"I've been driving these roads for two years. I think I know—"
