I’m standing outside the main entrance at 6:45 in the morning with the cup held between both hands, using it for warmth as much as anything else. Early March in Seattle still cuts deep. The sky hangs grey and low, the pavement never fully dries, and the damp works its way into your bones if you stand still too long. San Diego cold was different. You could shake it off with a walk or a deep breath. I haven’t figured out how to do the same with this version yet.
I’ve got a thermal on under a heavy jacket, jeans, and boots that should be more than enough. It isn’t. Fifteen minutes under the overhang and the cold has already settled into my joints. I knowthe rhythm of this place now—which doors Lance usually uses, roughly when he comes through, which staff run early and which ones always cut it close.
Two months of this routine has taught me the patterns, the gaps, and the exact way time stretches when you’re waiting for one specific person to appear. I make it work four days a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays I’ve got nothing in the mornings. The other days I build everything around Professor Hendricks’ schedule and whatever gaps I can carve out without falling too far behind. It’s a ridiculous way to live, but it holds.
When I moved up to Seattle back in very late December, I called Marcus. Got his number through the firm website and asked for Lance’s schedule. I wasn’t in any state to hide how desperate I was, and for some reason he didn’t ignore me. I know he doesn’t like me much. Still, he started texting me his brother’s hours. Without those messages I’d be guessing, showing up on the wrong days, driving back across a city that feels too big when you miss what you came for. I leave early to beat traffic, grab the coffee, and push to make it on time.
On class days, I cut it closer, slotting everything between lectures and trying to make it back across town without running late.
I check my watch. There’s still time, even if it’s not much.
What I’m not expecting is to see Marcus here right now.
He notices me immediately and changes direction, walking across the pavement where I’m standing. His gaze drops to the cup in my hands, then lifts to my face.
“You’re here,” he says.
“Lance?”
He stops a few feet away, just near enough for conversation. He’s in a good coat, bag slung over one shoulder, already carrying himself like his day started hours ago.
“He’s not coming in today,” Marcus tells me.
My grip tightens around the coffee cup until the cardboard starts to buckle. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine. He just needs the day off. He’s been pushing himself too hard lately.”
I look past him toward the entrance, like that might change the answer. The cold morning air cuts deeper now, settling heavy in my lungs.
“Can I see him?” I ask, voice scraping out rough. “Even just for five minutes, please.”
When I went to their family’s house, Patrice told me Lance stays at Marcus’s. I then realized that showing up at his door felt like taking something from him—the option to walk away, to close it in my face, to not be cornered in his own home by a man he has every reason not to want standing there.
That’s the deal I made with myself. I show up here. He gets to choose what happens next. This time though, I’m feeling really fucking desperate.
Marcus closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, looking exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with lack of sleep. “George…you were gone for over a week.” He isn’t accusing me, but the words still land like one. “He didn’t want to admit this, and he’d kill me if he knew I told you, but…he’s gotten worse. That’s especially when he noticed you’re not…coming as usual.”
The idea that Lance noticed my absence twists something sharp and ugly behind my ribs. I swallow, but it doesn’t loosen the knot.
“You’ve been coming here for months,” Marcus continues. “You rearrange your entire life around a window that might not even open on any given day.” He holds my eyes, steady and unrelenting. “Aren’t you tired?”
“No.”
The word comes out too fast. Too raw.
I’m not tired. I’m fucking terrified of what happens if I stop showing up.
“I didn’t disappear on him. Had a really nasty fucking cold. Couldn’t come. Didn’t want to risk passing it on to him, to the food, the coffee. That’s it.”
My hand grips the coffee cup a little too tightly now.
“I wasn’t stopping,” I add quickly, like if I slow down I’ll lose my window to talk. “I just needed a few days. That’s all. That’s literally all it was.”
Marcus watches me for a long second, then reaches inside his coat and pulls out a plain dark green envelope. He holds it out between us.
I take it without a word.
He nods once, like that settles something for him, and walks through the sliding doors.
