His coat still hung open because he never zipped it properly. His posture carried that familiar caution I’d started recognizing before he even spoke. None of that had changed.
What changed was me. Seeing him in front of me after spending two miserable days trying not to imagine where he was or what he was thinking hit hard enough that I briefly forgot how breathing worked.
Beside me, Ethan leaned back in his chair wearing the satisfied expression of a man who believed himself responsible for successful diplomatic relations between hostile nations.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You did this.”
Ethan blinked. “Who, me?”
Brooke let out a snort. “Aw, sweetie, whoever told you that you could do innocent? They lied their ass off.”
I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “You invited them.”
“What a cynical worldview.” Ethan shook his head sadly. “Sometimes people simply gather organically in the spirit of international friendship.”
“Ethan,” I ground out.
“Dean.” He teased the syllable out.
I would’ve kept glaring at him if Luka hadn’t been standingacross the café looking at me as though he wasn’t entirely sure this had been a good idea after all.
That knocked every other thought right out of my head.
I crossed the space between us, careful not to make this harder after everything else that had happened between us.
“Hey,” I said again.
Luka’s Adam’s apple bobbed before he answered. “Hello.”
Even hearing his voice again felt like relief.
I wanted to touch him so badly, even if it was just my fingers on his wrist, to feel the pulse of his heart. My hand twitched at my side, but memory intervened fast enough to stop me: Luka standing near my door trying to convince himself walking away counted as survival.
Beside him, Mila folded her arms and looked directly at Ethan. “You planned this.”
Ethan pointed at himself. “Me? I’m just fostering international relations.”
Nathan barked out a laugh.
Ethan pointed at himself with exaggerated innocence. “Why does everybody keep accusing me of crimes?”
“Because you have the face of a man planning several at once,” Nathan replied.
Mila narrowed her eyes suspiciously before muttering something in Velkaran that definitely sounded like an insult.
Ethan grinned. “I don’t speak the language, but I feel judged.”
To my right, Luka let out the smallest laugh, low and reluctant, and the sound went through me so fast I had to look away for a second before I embarrassed myself publicly.
God. I missed hearing that.
Sasha coughed. “Okay, let’s all agree that Ethan is a sneaky little fu—” Noah nudged her with his elbow, and she frowned. “All I wasgoingto say was, time’s a-wasting.” She pushed back from the table and clapped. “Okay, that’s enough emotional eye contact. Some of us came here to see Milan.”
“You say that like you aren’t enjoying this,” Brooke said.
“Oh, I’m enjoying it tremendously.” Then she glanced at me, her eyes twinkling. “Hey, do you guys need a chaperone?”
“They already have one.” Mila grinned.
