That didn’t quite answer it.
She glanced around again, noticing the way eyes lingered on him with something like fondness.Respect, sure, but there was also affection.
“Why do they all know you?”she asked lightly.
Ivy tried to keep the curiosity from sharpening into something too pointed.Havoc didn’t answer right away.
He dropped his gaze to the tabletop, to the scarred wood worn smooth by decades of elbows and coffee cups.Names and initials were carved into it, some shallow, some gouged deep enough to catch a fingernail.Without realizing it, he brushed his thumb over one set of letters, slow and absent.
“Libby worked here,” he said finally.
The name landed between them with quiet force.Ivy felt it in her chest, a small tightening that had nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with recognition.Some names carried weight.This one did.It wasn’t just a person, it was a history.
“Libby?”she echoed gently.
He nodded once.“Yeah.”
The way he said it told her more than any explanation could have.The careful control, the restraint layered over something raw.He hadn’t softened the name or rushed past it.He’d placed it down like something fragile.
“Who’s Libby?”Ivy asked softly, though she already knew the answer mattered.
He flexed his jaw, then inhaled through his nose and exhaled just as slowly.
“My high school sweetheart,” he said.A beat.“Old lady.”
Was.The unspoken word hovered there, unfinished and heavy.
“Was?”Ivy asked, her voice barely above the hum of the diner.
Havoc lifted his eyes to hers.For a second, something open flickered there, a crack in the armor.Then it shut.Whatever warmth had been lingering cooled, replaced by distance.
“She’s gone,” he said.
Gone how was a question Ivy felt in her bones but didn’t dare voice.Did Libby die?Was it an accident?
“I’m sorry,” she said instead.
He nodded once, sharp and final.The conversation was closed.
Still, Ivy had already seen it.Havoc’s pain, stark and undeniable.It lived in the lines around his eyes, in the way his shoulders held tension even when he was sitting still.It slid into place now, connecting dots she hadn’t realized she’d been tracing.
The sorrow she’d sensed the first time she met him.The heaviness under his irritation.The way he looked like a man always braced for impact.
So that was it.She could’ve pressed.The artist in her itched to understand, to map the lines of his story, to know what had shaped him into this rough-edged, tightly held version of himself.However, this wasn’t a wall she could sketch her way into.This was a door he hadn’t opened.
So she didn’t touch it.Instead, Ivy took a sip of her coffee, then set it down.
“This place has good energy,” she said, deliberately changing course.“Feels lived in.”
The tension in his broad shoulders eased, just a fraction, but she noticed.
“Yeah,” he said.“Food’s decent too.”
They ordered, burgers for him and soup and a grilled cheese for her.Simple, comforting choices that matched the place.The waitress grinned at Havoc, teasing him about disappearing for weeks at a time.He rolled his eyes but smiled back, and Ivy caught the ease there.Another piece of the puzzle.
As they waited, Ivy studied him openly now.The way he wrapped his fingers around his mug, scarred knuckles thick and steady.The ink that disappeared beneath worn leather at his wrists.He looked out of place in the diner, all sharp edges, and yet he belonged here completely.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
