"You don't have to—"
"I do." He takes another step toward me, and now he's close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. "I do not want you thinking—" He stops. "Please. Just—tomorrow. Let me explain tomorrow."
"Okay."
Some of the tension leaves his shoulders. "Seven-twenty-three." He reaches out again—and this time he doesn't stop. His hand finds mine. Squeezes once. "Goodnight, Thea."
"Goodnight, Santino."
He lets go. Steps back. Walks to the door.
He pauses with his hand on the handle. Looks back at me one more time.
"I meant what I said," he says quietly. "About wanting to find out where this goes."
Then he's gone.
The door closes. I watch through the window as he walks to his car, gets in, sits there for a moment before starting the engine.
Then he drives away, and I'm standing in the empty café with my hand still tingling from that last squeeze and this question echoing in my head:
Which version of you is real?
The one who told me about factory jobs and go-karts and being seen?
Or the one who just walked away looking like all that warmth was something he could turn on and off with a switch?
I finish closing. Lock the door. Count the register. Turn off the lights.
And I try not to think about the fact that for twenty minutes, sitting at a table with our hands linked, I let myself believe again.
But then that phone rang.
And the professional version of him came back.
And I'm not sure which one I'm going to see tomorrow at
seven-twenty-three.
I drive home counting streetlights (forty-three from the café to my apartment), and I try to convince myself that tomorrow will be different.
That tomorrow he'll come back, and the warmth will be real, and the phone call won't matter.
But I saw his face when he answered that call.
I saw the way the warmth just—vanished.
Like it was never there at all.
And I don't know which scares me more:
That he can turn it off that easily.
Or that I'm already hoping he'll turn it back on tomorrow.
Chapter Six
THE WINTER FESTIVALhappens every February in Jackson Hole.
