Page 57 of We Are Just Us

He deleted it.

It was fine. It had been one day. People didn’t text every day. Normal people didn’t need constant reassurance that last night had been real. He knew that.

He showered, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. The fresh sheets smelled like his own detergent, with no lingering trace of Rory. For a second, the absence unsettled him.

But his body was heavy in the good way. From a full day and a night he’d remember for a long time.

His bed was empty tonight.

He’d slept alone most nights for thirty-four years. Another night wasn’t going to kill him.

SEVENTEEN

Two days later, Kieran was at FOAM, trying and failing to finish a draft about the Del Mar Dog Beach.

The piece was supposed to be a straightforward thing about off-leash culture, the unspoken rules of dog beach etiquette, the way people formed these fragile little communities around their animals.

He had good material.

He’d been there yesterday with Hank and Mabel, watched a woman in head-to-toe Lululemon bury her golden retriever’s shit in the sand with her foot, like she was committing a crime in slow motion.

He’d watched a guy who let his off-leash husky terrorize a group of toddlers while he stood ankle-deep in the surf doing breathwork.

The older couple who brought matching lawn chairs and a full charcuterie board and watched the chaos like it was dinner theater.

Good material. But every time he started writing, his brain drifted. Not to anything specific, just a kind of ambient hum that made it hard to pin down a sentence.

His phone had been quiet. Two days now.

Which was fine.

“You’re doing that thing again.”

Kieran looked up. Devon was leaning against the counter, retying her apron, studying him with the unearned confidence of someone who’d memorized his coffee order on day three and been psychoanalyzing him ever since.

“What thing?”

“The thing where you stare at your laptop like it personally wronged you.”

She set a fresh oat milk latte in front of him. He hadn’t ordered it. “On the house. You look like you need it.”

“I didn’t—”

“You’re welcome.”

Kieran took a sip. Perfect, obviously. Devon had figured out his exact ratio of oat milk to espresso sometime during his first week in Encinitas and never once asked him to confirm it.

“You’re in a good mood,” he said.

“I’m in a regular mood. You’re the one who’s different.” She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “You look…relaxed. Which is new, because you never look relaxed. You usually look like someone who’s mentally rehearsing an apology for something that hasn’t happened yet.”

“That’s not—”

“It’s exactly what you look like.”

Kieran pressed his lips together. She wasn’t wrong.

“So?” Devon prompted. “What’s different?”