Between the overlapping voices and garbled announcements overhead, the station was always loud. The noise barely registered for me anymore, but Rowan seemed to be counting the seconds until we got out of there.
I nodded toward the exit. "You hungry? We can grab a bite before heading to mine."
"Sure." He smiled again, but it didn't quite land. He was bracing himself for the chaos outside.
We stepped out onto the street, and the city hit us in full force. A car blared its horn as it zipped past. Motorbikes weaved through traffic, and hordes of people packed the pavement in every direction. It always gave me a rush. I thrived on the energy that pulsed through every corner of this place.
Rowan, on the other hand, shrank a little as we walked. His eyes darted around as if the noise and movement were pressing in on him. He buried his hands in his pockets and kept his shoulders tight to make himself smaller.
A man distracted by his phone barrelled past us and clipped Rowan hard enough to send him off balance. I caught him around the waist on instinct to steady him before he could hit the ground.
He stiffened under my arm, frozen somewhere between surprised and embarrassed.
"You're tense," I teased. "Still don't get along with the city?"
Rowan ducked his head as he pulled himself free. "What gave you that idea?"
I laughed at the way he brushed away imaginary dirt from his shirt. He shot me a look, half amused, half irritated.
Rowan had always been the down-to-earth one. He liked things predictable, and I respected that about him. But sometimes I wondered how he hadn't gotten bored with the slow pace of Tunbridge Wells and seeing the same faces every day. It drove me crazy when I lived there.
Then again, he wasn't me. He was content with things as they were.
By the time we made it to the relative quiet of my flat that night, Rowan looked a little more at ease. He dropped his bag by the door and took a slow look around. He always did that when he visited. His gaze moved over the scattered photo gear, the mismatched throw pillows, the prints leaning against the walls instead of hanging on them. The space worked for me, but I imagined it just felt like one big mess to him.
The flat still held a bit of warmth from the afternoon, so I tossed my keys onto the counter and nudged open the windows in the sitting room. A light breeze drifted in, cooler than expected but more than enough to cut through the leftover heat. It carried with it some faint traffic sounds and muffled chatter from the street below.
I lingered to listen for a moment, then headed for the kitchen. "Beer?"
"Yeah, that sounds good." He sank into the nearest chair, leaning back with a quiet sigh.
I grabbed a couple of bottles from the fridge and handed one to him before flopping onto the sofa. We sat in comfortable silence for a little while, sipping our drinks and listening to the faint evening noises outside. Rowan's posture was much more relaxed now, his unease from earlier in the day mostly gone.
It didn't matter that we hadn't seen each other in over a year. We fell back into this quiet routine as if no time had passed at all. It felt familiar. Easy.
"You really live for this, don't you?"
I glanced over. "For what?"
"This." He nodded toward the city beyond the open windows. "The noise and the crowds."
I smiled. "Yeah, I guess. I love it. There's always something happening. Keeps me on my toes."
He gave a quiet nod and looked down at the drink in hislap. I knew this hadn't been his world for ages, but I liked having him here, anyway. He was good company, and he never asked me to be anything other than what I was.
We moved out to the balcony once the sun had mostly gone, leaving the sky streaked in pale oranges and dark blues. The air had cooled enough to be comfortable, and the city noises had mellowed into a calmer kind of buzz. Rowan lounged in the chair next to me, nursing the last of his beer in comfortable silence.
He stared out at the skyline for a minute, then said with a faint smirk, "So. Another one bites the dust."
I groaned. "You're really going to quote Queen to me now?"
He grinned over the rim of his bottle. "Why not? It's true. And you don't make it tough to see the pattern."
I sent him a look as I took a slow sip of my drink. "It's not my fault things don't work out."
"It's not always theirs, either." He was still teasing, but there was a glint in his eyes that gave me pause.
"What're you implying?"
