Leo
Wednesday comes like a held breath.
I don’t rush it. I don’t fill it with meetings, calls, or noise. I work in the morning because I don’t know what else to do with my hands. I knead dough I don’t need. I bake bread I give away. I scrub a counter that’s already clean. I try to exhaust myself into calm, and it almost works.
By late afternoon, my apartment feels too big again.
I shower. I change. I change again.
I don’t wear anything expensive. I don’t wear anything new. Dark jeans. Soft black sweater. Scuffed boots. I leave the watch behind. I leave my phone face down on the counter for a long moment before picking it up again, because part of me wants to walk into this empty-handed.
I check the time. Early. Of course, I’m early.
The Moonlight Lounge sits on a quiet side street, half-hidden between a florist and a closed tailor shop. It looks exactly like Tess described it. Small. Dim. Unconcerned with impressing anyone. The kind of place that survives because people who find it don’t want to tell anyone else.
I arrive fifteen minutes early and wait outside anyway. I don’t want to take a seat before she does. I don’t want to claim space that isn’t mine yet.
I lean against the brick wall and let myself feel it: the nerves, the ache, the hope I don’t deserve but can’t seem to kill. My chest tightens every time someone walks past with blonde hair, with that purposeful stride, with shoulders that look like they know where they’re going.
When she finally appears at the end of the block, my breath leaves my body like it’s been stolen.
She’s wearing a pink dress. Her hair is down, loose around her shoulders, and I have the strangest, most inappropriate urge to thank her for that, like it’s a gift she didn’t owe me.
She spots me before I spot her. I can tell because she slows just a fraction. I hate cataloging her reactions like this again.
But she keeps walking. She doesn’t turn away. That feels like permission.
I straighten as she approaches, my pulse pounding loud enough that I’m sure she can hear it.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she replies.
It’s not warm. It’s not cold. It’s open. Cautious. Real.
“You’re early,” she says.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I didn’t want to be late.”
“I appreciate that,” she says, and something in my chest loosens.
I gesture toward the door. “Shall we?”
She nods.
Inside, the bar is quiet but not empty. Low lights. Soft music. A bartender who looks like he’s seen everything and is deeply uninterested in seeing more. It’s perfect.
We sit at a small table near the wall. Not across from each other, beside each other. Close enough to talk without leaning in. Far enough to breathe.
We order drinks. Nothing fancy. She gets a gin and tonic. I get a beer.
The bartender leaves us alone.
Silence settles. Not awkward, but weighted. The kind that asks who’s going to be honest first.
“I want to say something,” I begin, because if I don’t, I’ll lose my nerve. “You don’t have to respond. You don’t have to reassure me. I just… need to say it.”
She studies me for a second, then nods. “Ok.”
