Jake listens.
He’s good at it. Really good, actually, and the wine is better than I expected. I’m having a nice time with a nice person and this is exactly what distance looks like and it’s working.
It’s working.
And then I look up.
MATEO
Chen suggests Tierney’s and I say yes because it’s Saturday and the alternative is the apartment and the ceiling.
We walk over around nine, no plan beyond a drink or maybe two, the kind of evening that doesn’t need to be anything. Chen talks about hockey and I listen and chip in with my thoughts about what he’s saying.
We push through the door.
It’s busy and loud. Chen heads for the bar and I scan the room for a table and that’s when I see them.
It takes me a second.
Not because I don’t recognize her - I’d recognize her anywhere, that’s part of the problem - but because my brain needs a moment to process what I’m looking at.
Elida.
She’s at a table by the window with a wine glass in her hand. She’s leaning forward in the way she does when she’s engaged in something, and across from her-
Skelly.
He’s saying a joke that makes her laugh. Not the polite laugh, not the professional version. The real one which I’ve only seen a few times - the one that changes her face completely.
They haven’t seen me.
I could tell Chen something came up. I could turn around and walk back out the door and no one would know. I could go and walk it off.
“Table’s free near the back,” Chen says, appearing at my elbow with two beers.
We sit at the table he pointed out, which has a sight line to the window table that I’m aware of but categorically not looking at, and Chen talks about stuff while I listen and drink my beer.
She laughs again, loudly.
I take a long sip of beer and look at Chen and talk about our position in the conference that makes sense in context. Chen nods and says something back.
That’s when I hear my name.
I look up.
Jess is threading through the crowd toward me, glass in hand, bright-eyed, in the middle of what is clearly a girls’ night with three friends clustered near the bar behind her. She’s smiling an easy smile, and she drops into the chair beside me like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which until last night it would have been.
“Didn’t know you’d be here,” she says.
“Same,” I reply.
She says hello to Chen and then steals a sip of my beer. Her friends find chairs and join us.
I glance at the window table.
Elida is looking at me.
Our eyes meet across the bar and she takes in exactly what she’s looking at.
