"I brought dinner."
"I see that."
He stands there—tall, steady, wearing a leather jacket over a T-shirt that I recognize from the inn, the one that fits him in ways that should be regulated. His hair is slightly longer than it was two weeks ago. His jaw is darker with stubble. He looks like he hasn't been sleeping well, and the fact that I can tell—that I've memorized his rested face well enough to identify its absence—sends a jolt of guilt through me.
"Can I come in?"
I step back. He enters, and my small apartment shrinks by half. He fills the space the way he fills every space—not with noise or aggression but with presence. The quiet authority of a man who's been trained to occupy a room and make it safer.
He sets the food on my kitchen counter and looks around. I see the apartment through his eyes: neat, organized, every surface arranged with intent. Bookshelves categorized by genre. A writing desk by the window with a notebook centered precisely. A corkboard above it covered in index cards—my outline, color-coded, the architecture of my novel visible in pink and blue and yellow rectangles.
"You color-code your outlines," he says.
"Pink for emotional beats. Blue for plot points. Yellow for dialogue I need to write."
"That's the most Kassidy Monroe thing I've ever heard."
"Tucker—"
"I know. We need to talk." He turns to face me, and his expression is the one I remember from the beach—open, direct, refusing to look away. "But first, can we eat? I drove two and a half hours and I'm running on Calder's terrible office coffee."
We eat at my tiny kitchen table. The Thai food is good—better than good, takeout selected with care because he paid attention to what I like. He remembered. During one of our late-night conversations at the inn, I mentioned that green curry was my comfort food. He remembered, and he drove two and a half hours to bring it to me.
The realization sits in my chest like a stone.
"How's the book?" he asks, chopsticks in hand, as if this is a normal dinner and not the most emotionally loaded meal of my life.
"Almost done. Diana's been emailing me feedback. She says it's the best thing I've written."
"It is."
"You only read twelve chapters."
"They were enough."
"The dedication—" I start, and my voice catches. "You saw the dedication."
"I saw it."
"T.B. For Tucker Brennan. Because you—" I put down my chopsticks. The pretense of normalcy crumbles like wet paper. "Because you walked into my life during the worst creative drought I've ever had and made me believe I could write again. And I dedicated my book to you and then spent two weeks pretending you were a pen pal."
"Why?"
The word is simple. Not accusatory—curious. Like he's asking about the weather.
"Because I'm terrified."
"Of what?"
"Of needing you." The truth comes out raw, unedited, the way the best sentences always do—before the internal critic can touch them. "Ryan didn't just leave me. He rewired me. He made me believe that the things I am—organized, intense, invested—are flaws. That the way I love is too much. That wanting someone is the same as losing yourself."
"It's not."
"I know it's not. But knowing and feeling?—"
"Are different things. You told me that."
"I did."
