"I mentioned this place once," I said as the host led us to our table. "Years ago, we walked past it on the way to that terrible movie you made me see?—"
"It wasn't terrible."
"It was objectively terrible. The plot made no sense, and the lead actor kept doing this thing with his eyebrows?—"
"I remember the eyebrows."
"But I said the restaurant looked nice. Just once. Passing by."
Garrett held my chair for me. Old-fashioned, something his father had probably taught him. Something that made my heart squeeze.
"I told you." He sat across from me. "Everything."
We ordered wine. Appetizers. Things that required decisions I couldn't quite focus on, because I was too busy watching the way the candlelight played across his face, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled.
The conversation flowed like water finding its level. He told me about the call that almost made him quit, a building collapse, two hours trapped. I told him about the story that almost got me fired, a corruption investigation where I'd pushed too hard, too fast.
We talked about the case. Rebecca Marsh. The danger still lurking at the edges of everything we'd rebuilt.
Even that felt manageable with his hand reaching across the table to hold mine.
"I'm happy," I said, the words surprising me as they came out.
Garrett's thumb traced circles on my palm. "Yeah?"
"Really happy." I shook my head, laughing at myself. "I almost forgot what it felt like. I'd gotten so used to functioning. Getting through days. Achieving things that looked like happiness from the outside."
"And now?"
"Now I feel like I'm actually inside my life instead of watching it happen to someone else." I met his eyes. "You did that."
"We did that." He lifted my hand, kissed my knuckles. "Together."
Dinner came and went. Dessert, something chocolate I barely tasted. The restaurant emptied around us, but we stayed. Talking. Laughing. Rediscovering each other in the space between words.
"We should go," Garrett finally said, glancing at the patient waiter. "Before they call the cops on us for loitering."
"They wouldn't dare. I'm a journalist. I have connections."
"Terrifying." He grinned. "Let me get the check."
"I can?—"
"Sloane." He said my name the way he always had, like it meant something important. "Let me do this. Please."
I let him do it.
We walked through Brooklyn.
The night had turned cool, that particular crisp that settled over New York in autumn. I'd left my jacket at the restaurant. Probably on purpose.
"I used to walk these streets and think about you." Our fingers laced together, his palm warm against mine. "After I came back. I'd wander at night, too restless to sleep, wondering if you were happy. If you ever thought about me."
"I thought about you every day." Quiet. Honest. "Read every article you published. Kept them in a stack on my coffee table."
The first night I'd come to his apartment to work the case. The stack of newspapers under his coffee table that I'd assumed was research. My own byline staring up from the top of the pile.
I'd pretended not to notice.
