She shifted slightly in the booth, not pulling away, not leaning in either — just settling. Letting herself take up the space she’d already claimed. Her fingers rested on the edge of the table, thumb brushing absentmindedly over a scratch in the laminate like it was a familiar habit.

“Yeah,” she said softly, nodding once. “It’s… a lot.”

She smiled at his description of it — that’s a lot to hold — because it felt accurate without being heavy. Seen without being pried open.

“When I accepted the job, I thought it would feel more… surreal,” she admitted. “Standing in the same halls, teaching in rooms I used to sit in.” A small, thoughtful pause. “Mostly it just feels strange in quiet ways. Like the building remembers me even when I’m trying to be someone new in it.”

Her gaze flicked down toward the tote when he mentioned it, then back up, almost sheepish.

“I keep telling myself I’ll get better at boundaries,” she said. “Not bringing everything home. Not rereading the same essay five times.” A breath of a laugh. “But I care too much to be efficient about it yet.”

The word yet surprised her, but she didn’t take it back.

When he said his name — Miles — something softened further. The missing piece clicking in. A name finally attached to the face that had lived unnamed in the corners of her memory.

“Miles,” she repeated quietly, like she was filing it somewhere important.

She hesitated, then added, almost gently, “I remember you too.”

Not rushed. Not heavy.

“You were always carrying a camera,” she said, her smile turning a little more personal now. “At games. Assemblies. Just… everywhere.” She shook her head softly. “I don’t think I ever saw you without it.”

Her eyes lifted back to his, steady.

She tilted her head just a little at his observation about her — organized, always knowing where she was going — and her smile turned shy, almost rueful.

“I don’t know if I always knew,” she said. “I just… liked having a plan. It made everything feel less loud.”

Then he offered the back booth.

Not as an ask. Not as an expectation. Just a possibility.

Ava let the silence sit for a beat, eyes drifting toward the empty booths behind him, imagining it — grading papers without feeling rushed, someone else existing in the same quiet without needing anything from her.

“That actually sounds…” She paused, choosing the word carefully. “Nice.”

Her shoulders loosened, just a fraction.

“A standing truce feels low-pressure,” she added. “I like low-pressure things.”

She smiled then — warmer, more open than before — not because she felt swept up, but because she felt comfortable.

“And for what it’s worth,” she said, echoing his phrasing gently, “pretending to work is sometimes the most productive thing I do all day.”

Her eyes met his again, steady this time.

“So,” she continued, voice still soft but surer now, “if you see me back here with my red pen and too much coffee… feel free to ignore me.” A small pause. “Or not.”

She didn’t rush to fill the quiet after that.

She let it stretch.

Let the calm she’d named settle between them — not as something she was chasing, but something she was, finally, allowing herself to have.

He smiled when she said his name again.

Not because it meant something big—just because it meant it stuck.

He remembered the camera too, the way it used to feel like an extension of his hands. The weight of it. The permission it gave him to observe without having to explain himself. He almost laughed at the irony of her remembering it more vividly than he’d touched it lately.

“Yeah,” he said, a little sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. “Guilty.”

He glanced down at his hands, then back up at her. “It’s still around. Mostly just… sits on a shelf these days. Collects dust. I keep telling myself I’ll pick it back up when things quiet down.” A small, self-aware pause. “Funny thing is, things are quieter now. I just haven’t figured out how to meet that version of myself yet.”

He meant it plainly. No fishing. No melancholy performance.

When she talked about the building remembering her, something in his chest tightened—not painfully, just with recognition. Bedford Falls had a way of doing that. Of holding onto earlier versions of you whether you asked it to or not.

“Plans make sense,” he said simply. “Especially when everything else is loud.”

He let the silence breathe again after she called the truce nice. Let the warmth of that word settle without trying to turn it into anything else. He wasn’t here for sparks or games. He was here to work, to think—and yeah, maybe to not do it alone for once.

Not Declan’s voice filling the space.
Not the familiar rhythm of a friendship that never asked anything new of him.

Just… company.

When she joked about pretending to work, he huffed a quiet laugh. “Dangerous honesty. I respect it.”

He shifted then—not abruptly, not like he was cutting things short, but enough to signal the moment had reached its natural pause. He lifted his mug slightly, a casual little salute.

“I’m gonna head back to my seat,” he said. “Give you your calm.”

A beat.

“But—” he added, easy, “I’m usually here Tuesdays and Thursdays. Same time. Back booth’s fair game.”

He took a step away, then another, stopping just long enough to glance back at her—not lingering, not loaded.

“Good luck with the essays,” he said. “And the boundaries. Or… the lack of them.”

There was a softness in his smile as he turned back toward his table, settling into his chair, opening his laptop—not because the work suddenly felt urgent, but because it felt easier knowing someone else was quietly existing in the same room.

Not hitting on her.
Not chasing anything.

Just thinking, not for the first time, that this—this low-pressure, shared quiet—might be exactly what he’d been missing.

Ava tilted her head slightly as she listened, eyes steady on him, the way they always were when something mattered enough not to interrupt. Her fingers rested loosely around her pen now, not writing, just holding it like an anchor.

“Yeah… that lands,” she said softly.

She glanced down again, thumb brushing the red ink smudge on her skin, and huffed a quiet breath through her nose.

“I think when things finally slow down,” she continued, voice thoughtful, “it gets harder to pretend we’re not avoiding something. There’s less noise to hide it in.”

She looked back up at him then, not intense, just present.

“It’s strange,” she added, choosing her words carefully, “how we expect the next version of ourselves to arrive fully formed. Like it’s been waiting somewhere offstage, ready to step in when the timing’s right.”

A small, almost embarrassed smile tugged at her mouth.

“But maybe it doesn’t work like that,” she said. “Maybe you have to meet it halfway. Even if you’re not totally sure what you’re meeting yet.”

When he talked about plans, she nodded, the movement slow and instinctive.

“I like thinking of them as scaffolding,” she said. “Temporary. Useful. Not permanent solutions.” She shrugged lightly. “Something to hold you up while you figure out what you’re actually building.”

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the window, the muted afternoon light slanting across the diner, before returning to him.

“And pretending,” she added, softer now, “feels a lot less dishonest when you admit you’re doing it.”

She smiled at that, gentle and self-aware.

As he shifted to leave, Ava straightened a little, not pulling away from the moment but acknowledging its shape. She respected the way he didn’t linger too long, didn’t turn it into something heavier than it needed to be.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, meeting his eyes again. “I didn’t realize how much I needed the quiet until it showed up.”

Tuesdays and Thursdays settled somewhere in her mind, tucked away like a note she didn’t need to reread right now.

“I’ll remember that,” she added, warmth threading into her voice. “The booth.”

When he mentioned the essays, she let out a soft laugh, the tension she’d carried in with her easing another notch.

“If I ever crack the boundaries thing,” she said, lifting the pen slightly in a mock toast, “you’ll probably hear about it.”

Her smile softened.

“And if I don’t… at least they’ll be graded.”

She watched him walk back to his table only long enough to register the ease of it — the way he settled, the way the space seemed to accommodate him. Then she turned back to her work.

She pulled one essay free, uncapped the pen again, and paused — just for a second — before making the first mark.

The diner felt different now. Not louder. Not fuller.

Just shared.

And as the red pen finally moved, steadier than before, Ava found herself thinking that maybe calm wasn’t something you chased or earned.

Maybe it was something you recognized when it showed up quietly, sat nearby, and didn’t ask you to be anything other than exactly where you were.

He had his laptop open, screen tilted just enough to cut the glare from the front windows, the cursor blinking patiently in the middle of a half-formed sentence he’d been circling for days.

A personal project.
Private.
The kind he didn’t talk about because saying it out loud made it feel fragile.

A screenplay draft lived in the document—sparse dialogue, more white space than words, scenes sketched in impressions instead of structure. He’d written three versions of the opening and hated all of them in different ways. Today’s goal wasn’t progress so much as showing up. Sitting somewhere neutral. Letting the words know he hadn’t abandoned them.

One earbud in, the other loose, music low and unobtrusive. Something instrumental. Familiar enough not to pull focus. He took a sip of coffee—too hot, still—and nudged his plate farther from the keyboard. Scrambled eggs, dry toast, a side of hash browns he picked at carefully, fingers wiped on a napkin every time. He’d learned the hard way not to trust syrup or grease anywhere near a laptop.

A few booths away, she’d settled into the back section like she belonged there now.

Close enough that he could register the soft scrape of her pen against paper, the faint rustle as she shifted essays from one pile to another. Close enough that her presence wasn’t a concept—it was part of the room’s rhythm. He tried not to look too often. Not because he didn’t want to—because he didn’t want to make it a thing. This wasn’t about that. This was about working. About having another quiet presence nearby that didn’t demand anything from him, didn’t pull him out of himself.

He typed a line. Deleted it. Typed another.

The earbud slipped then—just a little, loosening when he shifted his shoulder. He noticed immediately, fingers lifting to adjust it, but before he could—

Her voice cut through the space.

Not loud.
Not meant for anyone else.

“You can’t cite TikTok like it’s a primary source.”

He snorted.

The sound escaped him before he had time to stop it—sharp, surprised, undeniably amused.

He froze for half a second, hand still hovering near the keyboard, then looked up, already half-grimacing as his gaze found her only a few tables over.

“—Sorry,” he said quickly, pitching his voice low so it didn’t carry. “Didn’t mean to—”

He gestured vaguely toward the earbud, then toward her stack of papers, like that explained everything.

“But that,” he added, a corner of his mouth lifting despite himself, “was fair.”

He leaned back slightly in his chair, careful not to invade her space even from a distance.

“I keep forgetting that sentence would’ve sounded insane five years ago,” he said, more to the room than to her. “Now it feels… inevitable.”

He took another sip of coffee, letting the moment settle instead of pushing it further, aware of the easy way the quiet had bent rather than broken.

Then, softer—almost an aside—
“Strong boundary, though. I respect it.”

He glanced back down at his screen after that, fingers returning to the keys, but the cursor blinked a little less accusingly now.

Not because the work had solved itself.

Just because the room felt… human again.

Ava looked up slowly this time, not startled—just drawn out of the steady, careful rhythm she’d settled into. Her pen hovered over the page, blue ink bleeding softly into the margin where she’d just written good instinct—push this further. She let it rest there for a second before answering, eyes lifting to him.

“It’s fine,” she said quietly, voice controlled and even, the way it always was when she meant it. Not dismissive. Not performative. Just true. “That one slips out sometimes. Teacher reflex.”

She tipped the pen toward the essays spread in front of her—AP Lit on top, junior comp underneath, the corners flagged with color-coded tabs only she fully understood.

“I’ve spent all week explaining what counts as a source,” she added. “And why confidence isn’t the same thing as credibility. TikTok just happens to be today’s battleground.”

Her mouth curved faintly, tired but amused, and she leaned back against the booth, easing some of the tension from her shoulders. She’d been carrying it since first period—since a student had asked if their argument mattered if no one agreed with it, since another had stayed after the bell pretending to ask about commas.

“Five years ago,” Ava went on, softer now, “I would’ve laughed at that sentence too. Now it’s just part of the syllabus.”

Her eyes flicked briefly to his laptop—not the screen itself, but the posture. The way he sat like he was negotiating with the work instead of forcing it. The care he took not to sprawl, not to intrude. She noticed those things instinctively. Always had.

“Strong boundaries are kind of my whole job,” she said simply. “Teenagers will walk right through the ones you don’t defend.”

She paused, then added, quieter—more human—

“But I appreciate the respect.”

It wasn’t flirtation. It wasn’t an invitation. Just acknowledgment.

When she nodded, it was small but intentional, and she turned back to her papers, grounding herself again in ink and structure.

“Good luck with the sentence,” Ava said, eyes already scanning the next paragraph. “They usually come back once they know you’re not giving up on them.”

Her pen moved again—underline, margin note, a softened question mark—and the quiet settled back into place, not empty but shared.

He watched the pen move again before he answered.

Not because he didn’t know what to say—but because there was something grounding about the way she slipped back into her work so cleanly, like the interruption hadn’t rattled her rhythm, only widened it for a second. The red ink stood out sharply against the page, decisive but not cruel, her notes precise without being punitive. The way she marked things told him as much about her as anything she’d said aloud.

“Teacher reflex seems useful,” he said quietly, a small, thoughtful smile pulling at his mouth. “Better than most instincts people default to.”

He left it there. Didn’t turn it into a joke. Didn’t push the moment past where it wanted to be. He respected the way she’d framed it—not as irritation, but as care. That line she’d drawn between confidence and credibility lingered with him, threading itself into places he hadn’t expected. It felt transferable. Necessary.

When she wished him luck with the sentence, something in his chest loosened—not in a dramatic way, just a subtle easing, like a knot he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying finally giving way.

“Thanks,” he replied, just as softly. “I’ll try not to scare it off.”

He let the exchange close naturally, without forcing another beat out of it.

He turned back to his laptop, shoulders settling, fingers returning to the keys with a little less resistance than before. The music slipped back into his ear—still low, still unobtrusive—but he kept the volume down, leaving room for the diner to exist around him. The clink of mugs. The muted scrape of plates. The steady, deliberate scratch of her red pen nearby.

He reread the sentence on the screen.

It wasn’t good.
But it wasn’t nothing.

He shifted a phrase. Changed the order of a line. Let the scene breathe instead of insisting it prove itself. He stopped trying to muscle it into shape and trusted that, like she’d said, it might come back once it knew he wasn’t giving up on it.

A few booths away, the red pen paused, then moved again—underline, margin note, a softened question mark. The sound of it anchored him more than the music did, a quiet counterweight to the blinking cursor.

Shared quiet, he thought.
Yeah. That was it.

He took another careful bite of toast, wiped his fingers on the napkin again out of habit, and kept working—not faster, not better.

Just steadier than before.

Main Street felt too normal for what had happened.

That was the first thing Lucy Corbett noticed.

Not the people. Not the storefronts. Not even the way the morning light stretched across the brick like it always did—soft and gold and almost too pretty for a place that had seen every version of her life play out on it.

It was the fact that nothing had shifted.

The bakery still had its door propped open, the smell of sugar and warm bread drifting out onto the sidewalk like an invitation no one questioned. Mrs. Daley stood halfway into the street talking to someone about something that probably didn’t matter. A kid dragged a scooter behind him instead of riding it. Someone laughed too loudly outside the hardware store.

Everything was exactly where it had been yesterday.

And Lucy—

Lucy was not.

She walked slower than usual, camera resting against her chest, fingers curled loosely around the strap like it was the only thing keeping her anchored to something familiar.

Her body felt off.

Not wrong.

Just… aware.

Too aware.

Of her own movement. Of the way her shoes hit the brick. Of the breeze lifting the ends of her hair. Of the fact that her heart hadn’t quite settled into a normal rhythm since last night.

Since the swings.

Since—

She exhaled sharply through her nose and kept walking.

Don’t.

Don’t replay it.

It didn’t listen.

It came back anyway.

The exact moment.

The way she hadn’t thought about it.

The way she had.

The way it had felt—

Lucy’s jaw tightened slightly, her grip shifting on the camera strap as she forced her eyes forward instead of letting them drift into memory.

“Not helpful,” she muttered under her breath.

A woman passing her gave a polite smile. Lucy returned it automatically, a small, practiced thing that required no thought.

That part of her still worked.

The rest?

Debatable.

She slowed near the window of Honey Bee Vintage without meaning to.

The display was the same one she’d put together two days ago—vintage band tees layered under a worn leather jacket, a floral dress tucked just slightly off-center like it had been caught mid-motion, a pair of boots angled like someone had stepped out of them and forgotten to come back.

Intentional.

Effortless.

Carefully undone.

Lucy stared at it for a second longer than necessary.

It made sense.

The way she arranged things.

The way she controlled the way something looked without making it feel controlled.

It was easier with objects.

They didn’t… react.

Her reflection caught faintly in the glass.

And for a second, she really looked at herself.

Not the version people saw when she moved through town like she belonged to it.

The other one.

The one that had leaned forward without thinking.

The one that had kissed him.

Her stomach dropped slightly.

Not regret.

Not exactly.

Recognition.

That was the part she didn’t like.

Because it hadn’t felt like a mistake in the moment.

It had felt—

Lucy’s breath caught just slightly, and she looked away from her reflection like that would interrupt the thought before it finished forming.

“Yeah,” she murmured quietly. “No, we’re not doing that.”

She pushed off the pause, continuing down the sidewalk, her pace picking up just enough to feel like movement again instead of drifting.

Main Street stretched ahead of her, familiar in a way that usually settled her.

Today it didn’t.

Today it felt like everything was just a little too sharp.

Too present.

Too capable of turning into something else if she wasn’t careful.

Her eyes flicked briefly—unintentionally—toward the direction of the small park.

Not long enough to linger.

Just enough to register it.

Then forward again.

Lucy adjusted the camera at her chest, lifting it without really thinking, letting muscle memory take over.

A shot of the bakery door.

Click.

A man crossing the street with a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other.

Click.

A dog tied to a bench, watching everyone like it was personally offended.

Click.

Normal.

She could do normal.

She was good at normal.

Her foot slowed again near the café.

Of course it was the café.

Of course.

Lucy stopped just outside it, the bell above the door faintly audible every time someone stepped in or out.

Her fingers tightened slightly on the camera.

This was stupid.

It was a building.

It was coffee.

It was not—

Her heart skipped.

Just once.

Annoying.

Uninvited.

Completely unnecessary.

Lucy let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh but not quite.

“Get it together,” she said under her breath.

Because that was the problem.

She was together.

She was walking. Functioning. Existing exactly the way she always did.

And still—

There was something sitting just under all of it now.

Something she hadn’t invited.

Something she hadn’t decided on.

Something that had felt very real for one second and now refused to go back into whatever place it had come from.

Her fingers brushed the camera again, grounding.

She glanced at the door.

Then away.

Then back again.

A small, almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“I’m not avoiding a coffee shop,” she muttered.

That wasn’t who she was.

That wasn’t what this was.

Lucy reached for the door.

Paused.

Just for a second.

Not long enough for anyone else to notice.

Long enough for her to feel it.

The hesitation.

The awareness.

The possibility.

Then she pushed it open anyway.

The bell rang softly overhead.

And she stepped inside.

Cameron had already been inside the café for nearly fifteen minutes when the bell over the door rang.

Long enough for the first cup of coffee to be halfway gone. Long enough for Marla to ask whether he was planning on ordering breakfast or just haunting the place until lunchtime. Long enough for him to decide that Main Street somehow looked exactly the same after last night, which felt rude on principle.

He’d taken the booth by the front window without really thinking about it.

Partly because it gave him a clear view of the street. Partly because it let him pretend he was just sitting there, drinking coffee, minding his own business, instead of doing what he’d actually been doing, which was replaying every second of the swing set in maddening, perfect detail.

The kiss.

Her stepping back.

The hat returned warm from her head.

I have to go.

The way she’d looked at him when she said it—not cold, not shut down, just too aware all at once.

He’d meant what he said after. Every word of it. He wasn’t chasing. Wasn’t disappearing either.

Still, that hadn’t stopped him from waking up too early, throwing on jeans and a T-shirt, and finding himself here with a second cup on the horizon and enough nervous energy under his skin to count as weather.

Then he saw her through the window.

And everything in him stilled.

Lucy.

Camera at her chest. Hair catching the morning light in those soft, uneven pieces it always did when she was walking faster than the breeze could fully keep up with. The same steady movement she wore like armor when she didn’t want anyone looking too closely.

Except Cameron was looking closely.

He saw the pause by the door. The way her hand went for it, stopped, then went again. Saw the fraction of hesitation nobody else on Main Street would have clocked unless they knew her well enough to understand that hesitation, on Lucy, was practically its own language.

His fingers tightened once around the coffee cup.

For half a second, he thought about looking away before she came in. Giving her the cleanest version of an out if she wanted one. Pretending not to notice. Pretending not to see the way her whole body seemed just a little too aware of the threshold before she stepped over it.

He didn’t.

Not because he wanted to make it harder. Because he’d learned enough now to know that pretending could feel like its own kind of pressure too.

So when the bell rang and she came inside, Cameron stayed exactly where he was.

No sudden movement. No getting up too fast. No crossing the room like he’d been waiting for her.

He just looked at her.

And God.

She looked good.

Not in the easy, automatic way that made complimenting a woman feel lazy. In the sharper way that got under his ribs before he could stop it. Like she’d put herself together out of the same familiar pieces—camera, boots, steady face, all those practiced little motions that told the world she was fine—and something under all of it was still just slightly off-balance.

Not worse. Just… changed.

Same as him.

Cameron set the coffee down carefully and leaned back in the booth, one arm draped over the seat beside him so he didn’t look like he was bracing for impact.

The sunlight through the window warmed one side of his face; the café’s softer indoor light caught the rest. He probably looked more relaxed than he felt.

That was okay. He was good at carrying a little extra current under his skin without letting it turn into a scene.

He gave her a small, easy look when her eyes found him.

Not too much. Not too bright. Just enough to say yeah, okay, I see you too.

“Morning,” he said.

Low. Even. No claim tucked inside it.

Then, because he could feel the awareness in the room between them and because some quieter part of him knew that a little normalcy might help more than any grand emotional check-in right now, he lifted the spare mug sitting across from him.

Marla had dropped it off two minutes earlier with the kind of smirk that suggested she was either psychic or the nosiest woman in Tennessee.

He nudged it half an inch across the table with two fingers.

“Before you ask,” he said, mouth tipping faintly at one corner, “I’m not being weird. She brought it over and told me I looked like I’d order for two out of loneliness.”

That was not exactly what Marla had said. It was close enough in spirit.

His eyes stayed on Lucy, warm and careful and just playful enough around the edges to keep the moment from hardening.

“You can ignore it on principle if you want.” A beat. “But it’s there.”

He didn’t say for you like that needed emphasizing. Didn’t say I thought you might come in because that would sound too close to what had actually happened. Didn’t say I noticed you almost didn’t.

Instead he let the café fill in around them.

The hiss of the espresso machine. The scrape of a chair near the counter. A fork clinking against a plate two booths over. Marla arguing mildly with a regular about whether blueberry muffins still counted as breakfast after ten-thirty.

Normal.

She’d said she could do normal.

Cameron could too.

Or at least he could try.

He stayed where he was, not making her close the space if she didn’t want to, not shrinking from her either. Just Cameron in a diner booth on a Bedford Falls morning with too much history in his chest and enough sense, finally, not to dump it all on the table before she’d even sat down.

His gaze dropped once to the camera at her chest, then back up to her face.

The memory of the swing set flashed through him again— the way she’d kissed him like her body had outrun her caution for one impossible second, the way she’d stepped back, the way she’d left.

He didn’t touch any of that.

Not yet.

Instead the corner of his mouth pulled a little more, easy and sun-warmed and just confident enough to make the air feel less fragile.

“You look like you’re trying very hard to win an argument with your own brain,” he said.

A beat.

“Which, for the record, I don’t recommend. Mine cheats.”

Still no pressure. Still no demand that she explain anything.

Just the truth, offered in the shape of something lighter.

Then he finally picked his own coffee back up and took a sip, settling into the booth like he had all the time in the world and no intention of making this moment any harder than it already was.

Because last night had already been enough proof of one thing: if Lucy Corbett was here, she had chosen to be.

And if she’d chosen to walk through that door despite whatever had made her pause outside—

well.

That meant something too.

Lucy saw him immediately.

Of course she did.

Not because he was impossible to miss—though, objectively, he wasn’t exactly blending into the café booth by the window with sunlight catching one side of his face and that maddeningly relaxed posture he only ever seemed to wear when he was trying not to look like he was paying attention to something.

But because her body registered him before the rest of her had fully stepped through the door.

A quick, involuntary pull low in her chest.

That same annoying little skip.

Then awareness.

Sharp. Familiar. Immediate.

She hated that it happened so fast.

She hated more that she was getting used to it.

The bell had barely stopped ringing behind her when her eyes met his.

And there he was.

Coffee in hand. Looking exactly steady enough to make her feel a little less so.

Not smug.

Not intense.

Just there.

Watching her in that way that had gotten quieter lately—less like he was trying to charm his way into the room and more like he was simply… in it. Fully. Deliberately. Letting her decide what to do with the fact of him.

Which, at the moment, was deeply inconvenient.

Lucy’s fingers tightened once around the strap of her camera before easing again.

Then she gave him the smallest acknowledgment.

Not cold.

Not overly warm either.

Just a soft, brief lift of her brows and the faintest tilt of her mouth—something that said yes, I see you too without letting it become a whole thing before she’d even gotten caffeine into her system.

“Morning,” she said.

Her voice came out even enough to pass for normal.

That was good.

She could work with even.

Then he nudged the spare mug.

And of course he had a line ready for it.

Not a bad one, either.

Lucy glanced at the cup, then back at him, and despite herself, something at the corner of her mouth shifted.

Barely.

But enough.

“Mm,” she said, dry but not unkind, stepping farther inside. “Very convincing case for this not being weird.”

There was no bite in it.

Only the faintest thread of familiarity.

The kind that used to come easier.

The kind that, annoyingly, still did when she wasn’t paying close enough attention.

She let that sit exactly where it was and turned toward the counter before the moment could get any more defined than she was ready for.

Normal.

She was doing normal.

She could absolutely order breakfast in a coffee shop without turning it into an emotional event.

Marla looked up the second Lucy stepped into line, and there was a flicker in the older woman’s face—quick, unreadable, suspiciously knowing—that Lucy chose to ignore on principle.

“Morning, honey,” Marla said, already reaching for a cup. “The usual?”

Lucy nodded once, grateful for routine.

“Yeah,” she said, sliding one hand into the pocket of her jacket while the other stayed curled around the camera strap. “Medium coffee.”

A small pause.

“And an everything bagel with vegetable garden cream cheese.”

“Good choice,” Marla said, punching it in.

Lucy almost said I know.

Didn’t.

Because she could already feel Cameron in her peripheral vision, not in a looming way, not in a performative way—just there enough to be impossible not to register, and she wasn’t about to let herself start acting self-conscious over bagel preferences like she was seventeen.

That would’ve been humiliating.

She paid, thanked Marla, and waited while the coffee was poured and the bagel got sent back.

The whole thing took less than a minute.

Long enough for her to become irritatingly aware of herself standing there.

Long enough to notice the low hum of the café pressing in around the edges—the steam wand hissing, the scrape of a chair, someone laughing too loud near the back.

Long enough to feel the quiet shape of the booth by the window waiting behind her.

Lucy accepted the coffee when Marla handed it over, wrapping both hands around the warmth for half a second before turning.

She didn’t hesitate long enough for it to count.

Just long enough to choose it.

Then she crossed the café and slid into the booth across from Cameron.

Not too close.

Not far either.

Just the seat.

Just the booth.

Just coffee.

Her camera rested against her chest for a second before she lifted the strap over her head and set it carefully beside her, along with her cup.

A deliberate little ritual.

Something to do with her hands.

When she looked back at him, her expression had settled into something easier now that the first thirty seconds were behind them.

Still careful.

But not closed.

“I’m not arguing with my brain,” she said, reaching for the mug he’d nudged toward her and pulling it a little closer, more because leaving it untouched felt weirder now than because she was making a point. “I’m just trying not to let it run customer service.”

That earned the faintest exhale through her nose.

Not quite a laugh.

Close enough.

She lifted the mug, took a small sip, and immediately regretted it because it was hotter than expected.

Her face gave almost nothing away, but she set it down a little more carefully than necessary.

Then she looked at him again.

Really looked at him this time.

Not the quick doorway glance.

Not the accidental park version of him with woodchips under his boots and her pulse in her throat.

Just Cameron.

Morning-light Cameron.

Tired around the edges in a way she doubted anyone else would notice. Hair slightly off from whatever half-effort he’d put into being presentable. T-shirt, jeans, coffee, sunlight.

He looked… good.

Still.

Which remained extremely unhelpful.

Lucy tucked that thought directly into the part of herself labeled not useful before breakfast and kept her expression level.

“You look like you’ve been here long enough to become part of the furniture,” she said.

A beat.

“Which feels concerning.”

Soft.

Subtle.

Normal enough to pass.

That was the goal.

Not pretending nothing had happened.

Just not walking in and setting it on the table between the sugar packets before either of them had a chance to breathe.

Her fingers curled lightly around the ceramic mug again, grounding against the heat.

Outside the window, Main Street kept moving like always—someone crossing with a paper bag, a dog pausing near the planter out front, the world continuing with absolutely no regard for whatever strange, unfinished thing had shifted between them last night.

That helped.

The ordinariness of it.

The fact that this was still a café. Still morning. Still Bedford Falls.

Lucy let her gaze drift briefly toward the street, then back to him.

Her voice came quieter when she spoke again.

Not heavy.

Just honest enough to be felt.

“I almost kept walking.”

There was no drama in the admission.

No invitation either.

Just a fact.

Then, before he could say anything too meaningful about that and make her regret saying it out loud before she’d even gotten her bagel, the corner of her mouth tilted faintly.

“But I figured if I started avoiding coffee shops over poor decision-making, I’d lose most of this town.”

That was about as much as she was willing to give the subject right now.

And she knew he’d know it.

Which, somehow, made it easier.

Cameron felt the I almost kept walking land harder than anything else she’d said since sitting down.

Not because it surprised him.

Because it didn’t.

He had seen it outside through the window—that half-second pause at the door, the way her hand had gone for it and stopped, then gone again. He’d clocked it immediately and then tried very hard not to make a whole internal event out of it.

Failed, obviously.

But hearing her say it out loud anyway, in that quiet, level way of hers, did something different.

It made the choice real.

She had almost left.

And then she hadn’t.

The warmth of that sat low in his chest, steady and inconvenient in the best possible way.

Cameron didn’t jump on it.

Didn’t smile too fast or lean in or turn it into something loaded before she’d even gotten through the first half of her coffee. He just watched her over the rim of his mug for a beat, catching the faint tilt at the corner of her mouth, the careful way she’d wrapped the admission in something lighter before handing it to him.

Of course she had.

“Yeah,” he said finally, voice easy, morning-rough in a way it only got before he’d fully settled into the day. “That’d be a brutal way to lose Bedford Falls.”

His mouth pulled faintly to one side.

“First the park. Then the coffee shops. Before you know it, you’re ordering groceries online and pretending you prefer it.”

The line landed where he wanted it to—light enough not to pin the moment to the table, honest enough not to dodge it entirely.

He took another sip of coffee and let his eyes rest on her for a second longer than the joke required.

“Glad you didn’t,” he added.

Simple. No extra weight on it. Just true.

That seemed to matter more now than it would have once: saying the thing plainly and then leaving it alone.

Lucy had settled across from him with that careful, deliberate ease of hers, and Cameron could still feel the faint hum under his own skin from the second she’d walked through the door. Not panic. Not nerves exactly. Just awareness. The kind that had become impossible not to notice around her lately.

Or maybe it had always been there and he’d only just gotten smart enough to stop trampling over it.

His gaze dropped briefly to the way she’d set her camera beside her mug, the small ritual of it, the way she’d handled it like she needed the world to make practical sense before conversation could.

Then back up.

“You’re not fooling anybody, by the way,” he said, a touch more warmth slipping into his voice now. “That coffee was way too hot and you absolutely regretted that first sip.”

There it was. A little easier again. A little more himself in the room.

The corner of his mouth lifted when he said it—not smug, just quietly amused in that way he got when he noticed something small and knew she’d know he noticed it.

Which, apparently, was something he did now.

A waitress slid past with a plate of pancakes for the table behind him, maple syrup sweetening the air for a second before coffee and toasted bagel smell took over again. Outside the window, a truck crawled by slow enough to suggest the driver was looking for parking or gossip, maybe both.

The town kept moving.

That helped.

Cameron leaned back a little deeper into the booth, one arm settling along the top of the seat, posture loose enough to look casual but not careless. He was trying, consciously, not to let the memory of last night sit too visibly on his face. Not because he wanted to deny it. Because he didn’t want to make her manage it before breakfast.

Still, some of it was probably there.

She’d said he looked like he’d been here long enough to become part of the furniture.

That got a low huff of laughter out of him.

“I’ve been informed I have that quality,” he said.

He tapped two fingers lightly against the side of his mug.

“Marla’s on cup two with me, which I think means either she’s worried about me or she’s conducting an experiment.”

A beat.

“Could go either way.”

He glanced toward the counter as if checking whether the woman in question was still watching them from behind the pastry case.

She probably was.

When his eyes came back to Lucy, some of the brightness in him eased into something quieter.

“I didn’t know if you’d come in,” he admitted.

Not dramatic. Not too naked. Just the truth.

His thumb traced once over the handle of his mug.

“I wasn’t waiting in some tragic way,” he added, because he could hear how that might sound and he wasn’t interested in making himself look like a Tennessee romance novel before ten in the morning. “I was just… here.”

That felt right enough.

Because he had been. He had come for coffee. He had also, if he was being honest, chosen the booth by the window where he could see the street.

Both things could be true.

He let that sit a second, then the easiest version of a smile came back.

“And if Marla asks, I was definitely not occupying prime real estate hoping you’d walk by,” he said. “That would be humiliating for both of us.”

The warmth in the line softened the honesty without erasing it.

Then, because he knew better than to hover at the edge of last night too long without either stepping into it or stepping away from it, he shifted cleanly.

“How’s the camera?” he asked, nodding toward it. “You looked like you were in a fight with it out there.”

A beat.

“Or maybe with the town. Hard to tell from the window.”

He watched her as he said it, careful, not prying exactly, but interested. There was something about Lucy with the camera that changed the air around her—made her seem both more present and slightly harder to reach, like some part of her had already stepped half a frame away from whatever she was standing in.

Cameron had started to understand that, or at least recognize it.

And maybe that was why he’d noticed the hesitation at the door so sharply. Because she’d walked like a person trying to anchor herself back into normal and not entirely succeeding.

His own eyes drifted briefly to the street again.

The bakery door still propped open. Mrs. Daley now in a slightly different spot but presumably still mid-conversation. Everything ordinary and unchanged in the way that could either help a person or drive them a little crazy.

When he looked back at Lucy, his expression softened just enough to show that he understood a little more than he was saying out loud.

“You know,” he said, voice lower now, gentler without being heavy, “for what it’s worth…”

He stopped there for half a beat, recalibrating, making sure the sentence came out the right size.

“You don’t have to act normal with me just because the town is.”

That was it.

No speech. No further explanation.

Just an opening, set down lightly. Something she could use or ignore.

And because he wasn’t about to leave it sitting there unguarded in the middle of a diner booth without giving her something easier to hold, he let the corner of his mouth pull again.

“Within reason,” he added. “If you start throwing bagels, I’m probably gonna take that personally.”