Rain slicks the streets as I walk to the café, the kind that soaks through your jeans and drips off your sleeves no matter how fast you go. I keep telling myself I’m early because I hate being late, not because I’m nervous. But my heart’s been a mess since his text last night, and the truth is, I barely slept.
When I push through the door, warmth hits me first, then the smell of espresso and cinnamon. There’s a soft buzz of conversation, the gentle scrape of spoons in mugs. I pick a corner table and try not to fidget, pretending I’m interested in my phone instead of the door.
He walks in a few minutes later, damp hair pushed back, a hoodie under a leather jacket, looking unfairly good for someone who probably got up at dawn for training. He spots me immediately, and his smile does something stupid to my chest.
“Hey,” he says, voice low and rough, indicating he hasn’t used it yet today.
“Hey,” I manage. “You found me.”
“Couldn’t miss you. You’re kind of hard to miss.” His grin flickers, boyish and teasing, before he drops into the seat across from me. The table suddenly feels too small, his presence taking up all the space between us.
We order coffees, and the moment the waitress leaves the noise around us fades. He leans back, studying me. “You okayafter the shoot? Looked like hard work, chasing us around the rink.”
I laugh, relieved for the safe topic. “You lot don’t make it easy. Half the time I was dodging pucks.”
“That’s just part of the test.” His eyes glint with humour. “See if you’re quick enough to hang with the team.”
“Quick enough, maybe. Brave enough? Jury’s still out.”
He chuckles, the sound rich and easy, and something tight in me starts to uncoil. Talking to him feels too natural. We slip into conversation as though we’ve known each other longer than a few weeks. He asks about photography, how I got into it, if I always knew this is what I wanted. I tell him about my dad’s old film camera, how it smelled dusty and metallic, how I used to photograph everything from hands to light on the kitchen table, and stray dogs in the park. His expression softens as he listens, as though he’s seeing something in me that most people miss.
When I ask about hockey, his face changes, it lights up, then darkens. “It’s the only place I still feel like myself,” he admits after a pause. “Everything else… I don’t know. Feels as if I’m watching it happen instead of living it.”
“You don’t seem lost,” I say in a low voice.
He looks at me as though the words catch him off guard. “I am,” he says, then smiles, almost shy. “You just make me forget it.”
The air between us stills. I can hear the rain outside, the soft clatter of mugs somewhere behind me, but it all feels distant. I should say something and laugh it off, steer us back to neutral ground, but my pulse is too loud in my ears. Before I can find words, the waitress sets our coffees down, and the spell breaks. We both murmur thanks, suddenly awkward. He stirs his drink, eyes down, then says, “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
“It didn’t,” I say, before I can stop myself.
He looks up, and for a moment neither of us breathes.
We talk for a long time after that, but the conversation shifts. It’s slower, heavier, like we’re walking along a narrow edge neither of us means to cross. He tells me he moved out of Talia’s place. The words hang there, quiet but sharp.
“Are you okay?” I ask, because I can’t not.
He nods, staring into his coffee. “Yeah. It was time. I think we both knew it wasn’t right anymore.”
I watch him carefully. He doesn’t sound heartbroken, just tired. The kind of tired that sits in your bones. “You sound relieved,” I say gently.
He huffs out a laugh that isn’t really a laugh. “Maybe I am. I spent so long trying to be the guy she wanted, or the guy everyone wanted. I don’t even know who that is anymore.”
“You don’t owe anyone that version of yourself,” I say.
He gives me this look that’s long, searching and grateful in a way that makes me want to look away. “You always talk like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you actually mean it.”
“I try to,” I say, smiling faintly. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”
He sits back, shaking his head. “You’re something else, Rose.”
I feel my pulse flutter at the sound of my name on his lips, but I don’t trust myself to answer. Instead, I sip my coffee, hoping he can’t see how much he’s affecting me.
The café starts to empty as the morning drifts on. Our mugs sit half-drained between us, and neither of us makes a move to leave. The rain outside slows to a drizzle, the light turning soft and grey through the window.
