Adrien’s smile faltered.
“That’s not what I was doing.”
“It is.” She lifted her chin. “And I’m embarrassed I used to confuse this with charm.”
Someone coughed.
Tessa covered her mouth, but her eyes were bright with pride.
Celeste moved toward Laya.
“Sweetheart, maybe this conversation should happen privately.”
“No,” Laya said.
One word.
Clean as a match strike.
Her mother stopped.
“I spent a year making myself smaller so everyone else could stay comfortable. I’m done.”
Adrien looked at me then, like maybe I had installed this backbone while repairing the window.
I gave him nothing.
After a strained pause, Miles said, “Adrien, I think you should leave.”
Adrien laughed once.
“Seriously?”
Tessa stepped beside Miles.
“Yes. That did it.”
Adrien’s mask slipped just enough to show irritation underneath. He collected his coat, kissed Celeste’s cheek again because of course he did, and walked out without looking back.
The room exhaled.
Then Tessa crossed to Laya and hugged her hard.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Laya laughed shakily.
“I love you too. Sorry I made a scene.”
“You made the best scene.”
A few people clapped.
Not a lot.
Just enough to make Laya blush crimson and press her forehead briefly to my shoulder.
“Can we leave?” she murmured.
“Absolutely.”
Outside, the city had turned silver with mist.
We walked three blocks before either of us spoke. Her hand stayed in mine, swinging slightly between us, no longer for show.
At the corner, Laya stopped under the glow of a streetlamp.
“I’m shaking.”
I took off my jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“Cold?”
“No.” She looked up at me. “Free.”
The word was small.
It landed huge.
I wanted to kiss her then, but I waited.
I was learning the shape of her silences.
She stepped closer.
“This is the part where you kiss me, Caleb.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Her laugh broke against my mouth as I kissed her.
It was different from the kiss in the restaurant. No witnesses. No ex. No family. Just wet pavement, distant traffic, and Laya’s hands sliding under my open shirt collar as if she had been waiting all night to touch skin.
I backed her gently against the brick wall of a closed bookstore, one hand at her waist, the other braced beside her head.
She kissed like she had decided not to apologize for wanting.
Soft, then hungry.
Careful, then not.
When we finally separated, she kept her fingers curled in my tie.
“Quietly devastating,” she whispered.
“You’re revising your review?”
“Upgrading it.”
I smiled against her temple.
We found a late-night diner two blocks from my building because neither of us wanted the night to end. Laya sat across from me in my suit jacket, green dress beneath it, hair coming loose from its pins. She looked less like a woman dressed for a party and more like a woman returning to herself.
We ordered fries and two milkshakes like teenagers with better credit scores.
“So,” she said, stealing a fry from my plate even though she had her own. “You kissed me in public and against a bookstore. Are you always this literary?”
“I adapt to my surroundings.”
“What happens near a hardware store?”
“You’ll have to find out.”
She smiled into her milkshake straw, and I felt absurdly lucky to be there.
Then her expression turned thoughtful.
“You were quiet in there when Adrien started.”
“You didn’t need me talking over you.”
“No.” She studied me. “But you stayed.”
“I said I would.”
“People say things.”
“I know.”
Something in my voice must have given me away because her teasing vanished.
“Your fiancée didn’t?”
“She said a lot of things.” I rubbed my thumb along the edge of my glass. “Most of them weren’t lies when she said them. That was the hard part.”
Laya’s foot nudged mine under the table.
Not playful.
Present.
“I think that’s what scares me,” I admitted. “Not being left exactly. Being wrong about what’s real.”
She reached across the table, palm up.
I took her hand.
“This is real,” she said.
I let out a breath.
“It’s also new,” she added. “And strange. And started with you accidentally seeing more of my evening routine than planned.”
“I will spend years apologizing if necessary.”
“Years?” Her eyebrow arched.
I realized what I had said.
She did too.
The air between us warmed.
“I didn’t mean to sound—”
“I liked it,” she said.
My heart kicked once.
Laya looked down at our hands, her thumb moving over my knuckles.
“I’m scared too. Adrien made me feel like wanting affection was needy, and wanting space was cruel. I don’t always know how to ask for things without feeling guilty.”
“Ask me anyway.”
Her eyes lifted.
“I might not get it perfect,” I said. “But I want to learn you.”
For a moment, she did not speak.
Then she whispered, “That may be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me in a diner.”
“I was aiming for top five.”