Reece:I’ll be there at six. Not five fifty-eight. Six.
Me:Thank you.
Reece:Ava?
Me:Yeah?
Reece:Breathe.
I laugh, and it comes out slightly fractured, but it’s real. I pick up my coffee, take a long sip of something gone lukewarm, and stare out the window at a Sunday that looks entirely normal and feels anything but.
Then I go buy groceries for three.
By five fifteen, the apartment smells like roasted garlic and something that might generously be described as confidence.
I made pasta. My grandmother’s recipe, the one that requires three separate pots and approximately forty-five minutes of stirring. It’s the kind of meal I cook when I need my hands busy and my brain occupied, and tonight both of those things are critically necessary.
The table is set. The wine is breathing on the counter. I’ve changed my outfit twice, settled on dark jeans and a soft green top, and told myself I’m not nervous approximately seventeen times, none of which have been convincing.
At five fifty-eight, my buzzer goes.
I check the time. Then I check it again.
“You said six,” I say into the intercom.
“I was eager,” Reece says through the static.
“Reece.”
“I’m buzzing in from the corner of the building. I’m not actually outside your door. I just wanted to tell you I was here.” A pause. “Is that better or worse?”
I press the button to let him up because arguing through an intercom at five fifty-eight on the most nerve-racking evening of my recent life is not how I want to spend the next two minutes.
Reece knocks softly before I open the door. He’s holding a bottle of red wine and wearing dark jeans and a navy shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and he looks so steady and certain that something in my chest loosens slightly on the spot.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi, yourself.”
He steps inside, pressing a kiss to my temple as he passes me into the kitchen. “It smells incredible in here.”
“Grandmother’s recipe.”
“You cooked a grandmother recipe?” He sets the wine on the counter beside the one already open. “I’m honored.”
“Don’t be honored yet. Wait until he leaves.”
He turns, studying my face with the focused attention I’ve come to know means he’s reading more than I’m saying. “How are you doing?”
“Somewhere between fine and terrible.”
“That’s honest.”
“I promised myself I’d stop lying about it.” I move to check the pasta. “He texted that he was leaving his apartment at five forty, which means he’ll be here right around six. You have four minutes.”
“What do you want me to do for four minutes?”
I point at the wine. “Open that one too. We’re going to need it.”
