There’s a pause, but I don’t let it linger. “That’s not why I’m here,” I say, and it comes out softer than I meant. Probably too soft.
Her eyes go laser-sharp. “Then why are you here, Evan?”
The way she says my name hits me somewhere old. Somewhere filled with memories of high school hallways, pep rally noise, and the bleachers behind the gym where she pressed me back with her hands in my shirt and kissed me like she didn’t care who saw.
We were eighteen. We made out like the world was ending. We didn’t know it wouldn’t last. Everything seemed forever back then.
I clear my throat and keep my face steady. “Because I like being around you.”
Molly’s mouth twitches like she’s offended by the softness of that answer.
“Don’t,” she says.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t talk like that.” She gestures between us. “Like there’s… whatever this is.”
I lift my glass. “But there is.”
Her stare turns lethal. “I said one drink.”
“And we’re having one drink.”
Molly’s eyes drop — just briefly — to my mouth, then snap back up. She looks annoyed at herself for it.
“You’re enjoying this,” she says.
“Yes. I’m also enjoying you trying to pretend you’re not enjoying it.”
She makes a small sound, half scoff, half laugh, as if it slipped out against her will. “God. You’re still like this.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Still like what?”
“Like you know exactly how to get under my skin.” Her fingers tighten around her glass. “Like you walk in here and act normal and…” She stops. Her jaw sets. “Why are you here? Why are you back in Ironwood Falls?”
There it is. The real question.
Not ‘where have you been?’
Not ‘who are you, really?’
Just…Why?
I keep my posture easy, but something inside me goes taut.
“I’m working,” I say.
That’s not enough for her. “You’re working,” she repeats, slow and skeptical. “In Ironwood Falls. After all this time, you’re just… working.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
She lets out a low whistle and shakes her head. “You disappeared. You know that, right? Like, rumor had it you were dead, or in prison, or on the run. Nobody just leaves unless they have a reason, Evan.”
I look down at the table, tapping a small rhythm with my thumb against the glass. “It wasn’t exactly a choice.”
Her eyes flicker, something almost like sympathy passing over them. “Then tell me what it was.”
“My parents died.”
