"You're scared," she said.
“For the first time in my life.”
"Good." She reached across the table and put her hand over his. Her skin was thin and warm and her grip was stronger than it looked. "The ones who aren't scared don't understand what they have."
Jake looked at their hands on the table. This woman who'd lost her own son, who'd watched Jake become a person she could love without replacing what she'd lost, who'd fed him and listened to him and never once asked for anything in return except that he keep showing up.
"She's different, Anna. From anyone I've ever known."
"Different how?"
He thought about it. The honest answer, not the easy one. "She makes me want to be still. I've been moving my whole life. Running toward the next thing, the next mission, the next problem to solve. And she makes me want to sit at that kitchen table and not go anywhere."
Anna's eyes were bright. She squeezed his hand once, then let go.
"Your mother would have loved her."
The words landed in a place he kept protected. The vault where he stored the things that were too important to leave exposed. He didn't trust himself to respond, so he nodded. Once. Anna understood.
His phone buzzed on the table. A text from Emily.
Pick me up at 7.
Jake stared at it. Read it again. Felt the grin building before he could stop it.
Where we going?
Three dots. Then:
You'll see.
He laughed. Couldn't help it. The sound filled the small restaurant and Anna tilted her head, watching him the way she watched everything, with patience and attention and the wisdom of a woman who'd seen enough of life to recognize the important parts.
"She flipped my script," he said, holding up the phone. "I'm always the one with the plan. She just told me to show up and trust her."
Anna smiled. Not the polite version she gave customers. This one made her look twenty years younger, and it said she'd been waiting for this longer than he knew.
"Then show up," she said. "And trust her."
Emily was waitingon the steps of her building when he pulled up at seven.
Jake saw the outfit before he saw her face, and the outfit almost stopped his heart.
Not a dress. Not what he'd expected. Dark jeans that fit like they'd been designed specifically to end him, heels that added three inches to a woman who already made him feel like he was losing an argument, and a top that was simple and dark and left her shoulders bare. Her hair was down, which he'd seen before, but tonight it fell in waves she'd put there on purpose. And earrings. Small ones that caught the light.
Emily Callahan had gotten ready for him.
He'd seen her in courtroom armor. In the casual efficiency of a day at the office. In his t-shirt at the kitchen table, sleep-rumpled and devastating. But this was different. This was Emilychoosing how she wanted to look and deciding she wanted to look like this. For him. For tonight.
She opened the passenger door before he could get out to open it for her, which told him the evening was going to run on her terms.
"You look incredible," he said.
"I know." She buckled her seatbelt. "Drive."
"Where?"
"I'll navigate."
