“Anytime,” I said quietly. “Really.”
We walked back side by side, our arms brushing just once, but it was enough to send a little spark through both of us.
And for a moment, it felt like the whole world was unfolding one little, sweet possibility at a time.
12
ELEANOR
It had been a week since coffee with Alex, and I was still thinking about it.
Not in the obsessive way I used to think about things when I was younger, just in that soft, constant hum of memory that lingers when something good happens.
Ava had gone straight into rehearsal today, already waving to Leo and his moms before I’d even finished signing her in. She was getting comfortable here, something that still amazed me every time.
I hadn’t seen Alex yet. Part of me tried to pretend I wasn’t looking for him, but my eyes kept flicking toward the door anyway.
When the minutes stretched, and he still hadn’t appeared, I decided not to wait. I carried my coffee over to one of the corner tables at the café next door and opened my sketchbook.
The page was blank for about thirty seconds. Then the pencil moved.
A little girl on skates, knees scuffed, hair wild, grin wide enough to split the page appeared, Behind her was a swirl of color full of freedom, joy, motion.
The character had been whispering in the back of my head all week, waiting for me to listen. She wasn’t Ava, not exactly, but she had Ava’s courage. She wasn’t me, either, but she carried something of me in the way she kept getting back up.
Before I knew it, the coffee had gone cold, and I was surrounded by smudged graphite and a growing sense of peace I hadn’t felt in ages.
Then a warm voice broke through my focus.
“Is this seat taken?”
I looked up.
Alex stood there, sunlight catching the edges of his hair making it look like he almost had a halo, a chocolate-chip cookie in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. His smile was cautious but hopeful.
“Thought I’d bribe the artist with snacks,” he said, holding up the cookie like a peace offering.
For a second, I just stared, the way you do when your brain short-circuits betweenohandwow.
Then I smiled. “Depends. Are you offering that cookie or using it as collateral?”
“Depends,” he said, eyes crinkling. “Would it help my chances of joining you?”
I gestured to the empty chair across from me. “I don’t know, that’s prime real estate. Might cost you half a cookie.”
He laughed, settling in across from me. “Deal.”
He tore the cookie in half and pushed the plate toward me.
He glanced down at the sketchbook, eyebrows lifting. “That's her?”
I followed his gaze. “Kind of. She’s . . . a work in progress.”
He smiled softly. “Looks like she’s having a great time.”
“She is,” I said, surprised by the warmth in my own voice.
For a heartbeat, everything else, the chatter, the clatter of cups, the hum of the espresso machine, faded away. There wasjust the two of us, coffee cooling between us, cookie crumbs scattered on the table, and a small, electric feeling that maybe we were both exactly where we were supposed to be.
