“Oh look,” Clara shout whispers, excitedly. “We don’t even have to gawk from across the cul-de-sac. The fit rugby player is here.”
I attempt a smile but it feels fragile.
The queue has stalled because half of Oakwood appears to be cooing over him. Teachers. Parents. Curious onlookers. He handles it with that same relaxed composure he always had, like attention is something he is just used to.
I consider my options. Hide behind the sugar station. Dive under a table. Pretend I have never consumed caffeine in my life and must leave immediately.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
Clara glances at me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” I say, which is a blatant lie. “You grab the coffee. I’ll find a table.”
I wedge myself into a corner booth and pick up the menu purely for something to hold. My pulse is sprinting for reasons I refuse to unpack.
Do not stare. Do not blush. Do not behave like a teenager who used to write “F and R 4eva” on her notebooks.
I glance up. And of course, he looks up at the same time. Bloody typical. It’s not a polite acknowledgement. It is in no way casual. It’s direct. My cheeks betray me instantly, heat blooming as though I have no control over my own body. I am a grown woman. I pay bills. I attend staff meetings. And yet here I am, blushing like an idiot.
Clara slides in beside me and nudges my leg under the table. “Did he just…Wait… Why are you so…”
“Shh,” I hiss.
Rory’s gaze shifts briefly elsewhere, a smile thrown at someone nearby, and I sigh in relief.
Freya. This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.
It has been years. Entire relationships. Entire lives.
And yet one look and my face turns tomato red.
Clara leans closer. “Go and say hi.”
“No,” I whisper. “Absolutely not. He probably doesn’t even remember me.”
That is a lie and we both know it.
He looks over again. For a heartbeat everything narrows. The café noise fades. The smell of coffee and sugar dissolves. There is only him and the fact that Oakwood suddenly feels very, very small. I grip my cup like it might anchor me.
“Breathe,” I mutter to myself. “Just… be normal.”
Clara snorts. “That is not what you are currently doing.”
“You could say I knew him,” I admit, still not taking my eyes off him.
“Ah,” she says knowingly. “So we’re talking history.”
I don’t answer. Because explaining what he was would require admitting that some stories never quite end, they just lie dormant until someone walks back into your café and smiles like nothing ever happened. And I am not ready for that conversation. Not with Clara. Not with him. Not even with myself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rory
The second I step into Rose’s Café, I regret it. Not because of the croissants, which smell criminally good, but because every head turns like someone’s rung a bell. Conversations dip. A couple of parents freeze mid-sentence. A teenager near the window mouths my name like he’s just spotted an alien. Small-town fame is exhausting. In the city, you disappear. Here, you are still Rory Bennett from the cul-de-sac, only now with headlines attached.
I nod at a few people, offer a half-smile, keep moving. If I stop too long, it turns into questions and crowds and autographs. I don’t mind talking rugby. I just don’t particularly want to be dissected before coffee.
Mark is behind the counter.Thank God!A familiar face. We both grew up in this town and although we were never close, not a single week would go by where we wouldn’t run into each other. That and the fact that every kid in Oakwood used to basically see his Grandma, Rose as their own Grandma. He took over Rose’s Café when she passed a few years back, and somehow the place still feels like hers.
