As I drive, my phone buzzes on the passenger seat, the notification coming through my Bluetooth speaker.
Rafe: You alive?
I smile without meaning to when the speaker reads out his message, then return my own:
Me: Barely. Media day is a special kind of hell.
A beat follows before another notification, and I tell my phone to read me the new message.
Rafe: Proud of you. Okay if I steal you for dinner tonight?
My chest tightens, warm and aching all at once.
Me: Yes.
I don’t mention the invitation for the weekend. I don’t say that I probably should be more visible, more social, more available. I don’t tell him that saying yes to him feels like a no to something else I might need later. Right now, I just drive. Toward him.
We meet at a little place tucked between a nail salon and a liquor store, the kind of spot you only find if you already know it exists. There’s no valet or hostess stand. There are just mismatched tables, a chalkboard menu, and a bell over the door that jingles when we walk in.
Rafe’s already hunched over the counter when I arrive, studying the menu like it’s a personal challenge. He looks up when he hears the bell and breaks into a grin that hits me right in the chest.
“Hey,” he says, like he hasn’t been counting the minutes too.
“Hey,” I answer, suddenly lighter than I was five seconds ago.
We order without much discussion—something spicy for him, something safe for me—and claim a small table away from the window. The chair legs scrape softly against the floor.Outside, the street is quiet, unremarkable. No one is looking in. No one is looking at us.
That matters more than I want to admit.
We sit across from each other, knees brushing under the table. It would be so easy to lace my fingers through his, to rest my hand on his wrist, to do any of the small things my body keeps reaching for out of habit. I don’t. Instead, I tap my foot against his sneaker, once, just enough to feel him there.
He notices, of course. His mouth curves like he’s holding back a smile. “So,” he says, “tell me about your day.”
I snort. “You want the exciting version or the honest one?”
“Always honest,” he says. “I get enough hype everywhere else.”
I tell him about media day—the lights, the questions, the way everyone seems to want a sound-bite version of my life. I keep it surface-level. He doesn’t push. He never does.
“That sounds exhausting,” he says, reaching for his water. “Did you at least get free stuff?”
I grin. “A bag. A hat. Something I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to wear in public yet.”
He laughs, full and warm, and it feels like something in me settles into place.
I ask about rehearsal. He tells me about a fight over tempo that somehow turned into an argument about drumsticks. I listen like it matters, because it does—to him. Because this is what it means to love someone: to care deeply about things that don’t touch your world at all.
Our food arrives. We eat and talk about nothing important. A terrible movie he watched on a flight last week. A guy on the team who insists pineapple on pizza is a crime. The stray cat that keeps showing up outside his band’s apartment and refuses to befriend Rafe no matter how many times he tries.
“I think it knows,” he says seriously. “It can sense desperation.”
I laugh, nearly choking on my food. “You’re projecting.”
“Am not,” he says. “I’m charming.”
“You tried to name it.”
“That’s bonding.”
