“I can manage devotion.”
Her mouth curved, slow and knowing. “Careful, Nate.”
I liked the way she said my name. Liked the way she didn’t say anything else after that. How she stood there with the wordsstretching out between us, warm in a way that had nothing to do with the steam from her coffee.
I watched the way she handled them—gentle, steady, unembarrassed—and felt the familiar tug of a question I kept not asking. Graham hovered at the edge of my thoughts, something unfinished I didn’t know enough about. I could ask. Or I could let it be. And for now, letting it be felt like the kinder choice.
“I should let you finish your walk,” I said, even though I didn’t want to.
She hesitated. “We’re looping back toward town.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I fell into step beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world. The cats tolerated it. She did too. And as we walked, close enough that our arms brushed now and then, I had the strangest, quietest thought: This. Me and her.Thiscould be something.
I couldn’t help but grin, imagining her leading this little parade through the frosty park, getting side-eyed by boring dogwalkers. “Well, you’re definitely making this place more interesting. What are their names?”
“Remy and Linguine.”
“Ratatouille. Right? Their names.” I laughed, and she glanced up at me through her eyelashes. The sharp edges of her expression softened, just for a second. “Tilly loves that movie. I do too, if I’m being honest.”
“It’s one of my favorites.”
I remembered what my grandma had said about her cooking and smiled at her. She stopped and studied my face—not the way customers looked at me, not the way people in town looked at the guy who took over the Pennywhistle—but the wayElizaalways looked at me. Like she saw too much and didn’t know what to do with it.
“Kid-free night?” she asked.
“Yeah. Tilly’s having a sleepover at my grandma’s. I was going to do exciting things like fold laundry and buy milk, but decided to go for a jog instead.”
“You know how to get wild.”
I hesitated, shifting my weight from foot to foot. The night felt unusually quiet, punctuated only by the distant hum of cars passing and the faint jingling of the cats’ collars. There was a comfort in the silence between us, a sense that we didn’t need to fill every moment with words. Still, I found myself searching her face for answers I wasn’t brave enough to ask for yet. I wanted to ask her out again. I wanted more with her, but wasn’t sure if asking would put pressure on our—whatever it was we were doing.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” I said carefully.
Her brow lifted. “Oh yeah?”
“I want to ask you something. But not here. Not while your cats are watching me.”
Her smile froze—hesitant, like maybe she didn’t know what to do with flirting that didn’t ask for anything in return. As I looked at her, a flicker of worry crept in. There was a heaviness in her eyes tonight, a sadness she tried to mask with laughter, but I could feel it lingering between us. It made me want to ask if she was really okay, even though I knew she’d brush it off.
“Go home,” she said eventually, tucking her chin down into her scarf. “Buy your milk. Fold your socks. Maybe I’ll let you ask me later. And uh—I need to talk about something with you too. Stop by in the morning for coffee?”
I nodded. “Okay.” And then, because I couldn’t help myself, I added, “You look good tonight, Eliza. More than nice—beautiful.”
She didn’t say anything. But I saw the smile she tried to hide. Before I could leave, Graham turned the corner, jogging in ourdirection. She didn’t see him; her back was turned, but the cats circled her legs, their leashes tangling as they paced, suspicious of every breeze and twig snap in the dark.
Eliza tugged her coat tighter around herself and nudged Remy back gently with her foot. “You sure you don’t want to adopt one? He growled at the vacuum this morning and then tried to fight it.”
“I respect a man who knows his enemies,” I said, smiling as I kept my eyes on Graham and hoping he’d pass us by.
She laughed under her breath, the kind of laugh you only earned if you’d known her more than five minutes. The quiet, real kind.
“I should let you go,” she said. “You have things to do that don’t involve cats on leashes.”
“Laundry can wait.” I paused. “Though if I keep running into you like this, I might pretend I forgot detergent just to get out again.”
