Lucy let the corner of her mouth twitch at that.

Not a full smile.

Just enough to admit he’d earned something for the tragic Tennessee romance novel before ten in the morning line, even if she wasn’t about to reward him with more than that.

The café stayed comfortably noisy around them—plates shifting, low voices carrying, the espresso machine hissing in the background like it had a personal grievance against peace and quiet. Outside the front window, Main Street kept doing what it always did, stubbornly ordinary in the face of personal crisis.

Which, honestly, felt rude.

Her fingers curled around the warm paper sleeve of her coffee for a second before she let go of it and picked up the bagel instead.

Everything bagel. Vegetable garden cream cheese. Still slightly too warm from the toaster.

Lucy took a bite mostly because it gave her something to do besides answer him too quickly.

The crunch gave way first, then the soft middle, the cool cream cheese catching against the roof of her mouth while she chewed and looked out the window like maybe Bedford Falls itself had said something she needed to consider.

It hadn’t.

Obviously.

But it bought her a few more seconds.

Then she took a sip of coffee after it, smaller and smarter this time than the first one had been, and set the cup back down carefully on the table.

Only then did she look at him.

Really look at him.

Sun coming through the window. Coffee in his hand. That infuriatingly calm, easy way he could sit in a booth and somehow still look like he belonged in motion. Like if she blinked too long he’d be out on a baseball field somewhere, grinning into the sun and making half the town forgive him for things he probably shouldn’t be forgiven for so quickly.

That thought should’ve irritated her more than it did.

Instead, it just made her exhale softly through her nose.

“I disagree,” she said.

Her voice came quiet and even, but not cold. Just honest in the way she was getting worse at avoiding around him lately.

Her thumb brushed once against the edge of the napkin in front of her before she folded it in half for no reason other than her hands needed a job.

“I kind of have to act like everything’s normal.”

She held his gaze for a second after that, then looked down briefly at the table, at the little scatter of crumbs from her bagel, the ring of condensation under her coffee lid, the camera sitting beside it like silent evidence of all the ways she’d been trying to organize herself back into something manageable.

“Otherwise…” she started, then stopped.

Her mouth pressed slightly to one side.

Then she gave him the truth anyway.

“Otherwise I’ll give in, I think.”

The words landed softer than she meant them to.

Not dramatic.

If anything, they were too quiet for how true they were.

Lucy hated that a little.

Not because she’d said it.

Because the second it was out, she could feel exactly how much she meant it.

Her fingers tightened lightly around the edge of the table.

“If I let myself act like last night was…” She stopped again, searching for a word and finding too many of them at once. Good. Stupid. Real. Complicated. A problem. “A thing,” she said finally, which was inadequate and annoyingly accurate at the same time, “then I’m probably not gonna do a very good job pretending I’m in control of any of this.”

That earned the faintest shake of her head from herself, like she was mildly annoyed by the whole situation and especially by the part where she had become one of the people in it.

Outside, someone laughed too loudly halfway down the block. A dog barked once. The bakery door opened and shut.

The whole town kept moving like she hadn’t kissed Cameron Tate on a swing set last night and then immediately fled like a woman with no long-term planning skills.

Unbelievable.

Lucy reached for her coffee again, more for the grounding point of it than the caffeine this time.

She didn’t drink right away.

Just held it.

“I’m not saying I’m gonna throw a bagel at you,” she added after a beat, dry enough to soften the edge of what she’d just admitted without pretending it hadn’t happened. “But I do think you should know you’re operating under very unstable breakfast conditions.”

That got the faintest hint of life back into her face.

Not much.

Just enough.

Her eyes lifted to his again over the rim of the cup.

“And for the record,” she said, quieter now, “you being normal about it is not helping.”

There was no accusation in it.

If anything, that was the problem.

Because if he’d been weird, or smug, or too intense, or even just slightly more like the version of himself she used to know how to be angry at, this would’ve all been so much easier to file away into the right box.

Instead he was sitting across from her in a diner booth, warm and steady and trying not to make her carry his side of this too.

Which was, frankly, inconvenient.

Lucy took another small sip, then set the cup back down.

Her gaze dropped briefly to the table before she let herself say the rest of it.

“It would honestly be a lot more useful if you were being at least a little bit awful.”

The corner of her mouth twitched again—small, reluctant, but real.

“Just enough for me to get some traction.”

Cameron felt that one land right in the center of him.

Otherwise I’ll give in, I think.

He didn’t move for a second.

Didn’t reach for his coffee. Didn’t lean back. Didn’t do the easy thing and toss out some line to soften it before it had a chance to settle.

He just looked at her.

At the way she held the cup like it was less about caffeine and more about having something warm and solid in her hands. At the little folded napkin she’d given herself to manage. At the careful, infuriating honesty of a woman who kept handing him the truth in the plainest language possible and somehow still made it feel like he was hearing something private.

And then—

you being normal about it is not helping.

That almost got a laugh out of him, except the rest of it was too real to let him fully hide in humor.

He dragged a thumb once along the side of his mug and let out a quiet breath through his nose.

“Well,” he said at last, voice low and warm and a little roughened around the edges, “that’s devastating news for my personal growth.”

The corner of his mouth tipped.

Not enough to make it light. Just enough to keep it breathing.

“Here I was, finally becoming a halfway decent adult, and apparently it’s a tactical mistake.”

He let that sit for a beat, then looked back at her properly.

The joke faded on its own.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I know exactly what you mean.”

And he did.

Not the part where her body was doing what it was doing—he could guess at that, maybe, feel his own version of it answering from across the table—but the part where normal was a structure. A frame. A way to keep something from spilling too far, too fast, before you were ready to deal with the shape of it.

He understood why she needed it. Maybe because he needed it too, just in a different direction.

His shoulders eased back against the booth, one arm draped loosely along the seat. He looked steadier than he felt. That was not entirely fake. It was just effort. Chosen effort.

“If I were being awful,” he went on, quieter now, “I think you’d know what to do with me.”

That was the truth at the center of it.

“You’d get to be mad. Or done. Or clear.” A small shrug. “That’s easier to hold than…” His eyes flicked once between them, the coffee cups, the camera, the sunlight warming the edge of the table. “Whatever this is.”

He didn’t say it like he resented her for that. If anything, there was something almost rueful in it. Like he understood the logic too well to be offended by it.

Then his mouth pulled slightly to one side.

“I’m still a little insulted you’d benefit from me being awful, though.”

That one came with more warmth. More of that easy, boyish brightness she had been slowly pulling out of him without asking.

“I could be medium difficult, maybe. Moderately irritating. But awful feels harsh.”

The line landed where he wanted it to—not as a dodge, but as a handhold. Something for both of them to grab for a second so the conversation didn’t become one long held breath.

He reached for his coffee then, finally, and took a sip that had gone just warm enough to be tolerable. Not good, but workable.

Like most things in Bedford Falls, probably.

When he set the mug back down, his expression had softened again.

“You saying you’d give in…” He stopped there for a second, not because he didn’t know how to finish it, but because he wanted to say it right. “I’m not gonna use that against you.”

His eyes held on hers.

“Not now. Not later.”

That part mattered enough that he let it stand cleanly.

“I’m not gonna sit here and hear you tell me the truth, and then start treating every normal thing like it’s proof you owe me the next step.”

There was no edge in it. No performative righteousness. Just a man who had finally learned, the hard way, what not to do with somebody else’s vulnerability.

He glanced down briefly at the crumbs from her bagel, the coffee rings, the ordinary little debris of a diner table. Strange, how grounding that looked right now. Two people with too much history between them and a table that still just held breakfast like it always would.

Then he looked back up.

“But I’m also not gonna pretend I don’t hear what you’re saying,” he said. “About not being in control of it. About last night being… a thing.”

That word pulled a faint, almost helpless smile out of him.

“It was definitely a thing.”

Not smug. Not triumphant. Just honest.

A waitress passed with a plate of eggs and bacon for the booth behind him, and for a second the smell of butter and toast cut through the coffee and espresso steam. Somebody near the counter laughed. Marla called for someone to run a muffin to the front case. The whole café kept going, and Cameron found himself grateful for the ordinariness of it.

Because if the room had gone still around them, he wasn’t sure either of them would’ve tolerated it.

He leaned forward a little then, forearms resting on the table, not crowding her but not pretending distance made him less present either.

“I’m not being normal to make this harder on you,” he said.

That one came more gently.

“I’m being normal because if I let myself react exactly how I want to react, you’d be out that door before I finished the sentence.”

There.

That was probably as close as he could come to admitting the other side of this without dropping too much of it in her lap.

He held her gaze for a second after saying it.

Not trying to win anything. Just letting her know there was a whole current of restraint under the ease she kept calling normal.

Then the corner of his mouth moved again, faint and crooked.

“So trust me,” he said, “this is me on my best behavior.”

That got a little more life back into his face, just enough.

He tipped his head once, studying her over the coffee cups and the camera and the too-ordinary morning light.

“And you’re not the only one operating under unstable breakfast conditions.”

That one he gave her warm.

Not because he needed her to comfort him. Just because it was true, and truth was apparently the game now.

He looked away for a second, out the window, toward Main Street still carrying on like it had no idea that one of its own was sitting in a diner booth trying very hard not to let his life split open in public before noon.

Then his gaze returned to hers.

“You don’t need traction from me,” he said quietly.

A beat.

“You’ve already got it.”

He meant the honesty. The boundaries. The fact that she had come in anyway. The fact that she was sitting here telling him exactly what was hard instead of pretending she’d already organized it into something neat and easier to carry.

That was traction. Messy, maybe. But real.

His fingers tapped once against the side of his mug.

“You know what I think?” he asked.

He didn’t wait long enough to put pressure on the question.

“I think this is probably the first time we’ve actually sat in the middle of something hard without either of us trying to outrun it.”

His mouth tipped faintly.

“Which is not romantic. Or smooth. Or fun before breakfast.”

A beat.

“But I do think it matters.”

There was that again—his steadier kind of certainty. Not arrogance. Not the old teenage belief that because he felt something strongly, everyone else had to orbit around it. This was quieter than that. Chosen. Measured. Earned.

He let the silence stretch after that, because she was still eating and still thinking and he wasn’t about to bulldoze over either just because he had another thought in the chamber.

Then he added, a little lighter now, “Also, for the record, if you throw the bagel, I’m absolutely catching it.”

A breath of a smile.

“Very athletic move. Great hand-eye coordination. Strong follow-through.”

He sat back again, letting the line settle without trying to milk it.

And under all of it—under the coffee, the breakfast, the careful honesty, the absurdity of Main Street continuing like nobody had ever kissed anybody on a swing set—Cameron stayed exactly where he’d been trying to stay with her for days now:

present, real, and not pushing past what she was actually offering.

Even if some part of him still wanted to.

Especially then.

Lucy looked at him for a second after he finished like she was still deciding which part of that she wanted to answer first.

Not because she didn’t have one.

Because, annoyingly, he had given her more than one thing worth answering.

Her fingers stayed wrapped around the coffee mug for a beat longer, letting the warmth settle into her palms while the rest of her caught up. The café hummed around them in all its stubborn little normalcies—silverware clinking, the low murmur of conversation, the hiss from the espresso machine—and for once she was grateful for every bit of it.

It gave her somewhere to put her eyes that wasn’t just him.

Unfortunately, she looked at him anyway.

And there he was.

Steady. Warm. Too perceptive before nine in the morning.

Frankly obnoxious.

Lucy let out the smallest breath through her nose, almost a laugh but not quite, then reached down for her bagel and took another bite first—because if she was going to say something honest, she at least deserved cream cheese as emotional support.

She chewed slowly, thoughtfully, one elbow resting near the edge of the table, then washed it down with a sip of coffee that was finally closer to drinkable than weaponized.

When she set the mug back down, her thumb traced once along the rim before she spoke.

“That’s the deeply irritating part,” she said quietly.

Her voice was soft, but not vague. Measured. Real.

Her gaze dropped briefly to the crumbs on the napkin in front of her before lifting back to him.

“I didn’t think you’d get it.”

No dramatic pause. No performance around it.

Just the truth, placed gently between them.

Lucy’s mouth tipped faintly at one corner, but there wasn’t much humor in it yet. More self-awareness than anything else.

“Which is probably unfair now,” she admitted. “But…”

She trailed off for half a second, not because she didn’t know the rest, but because saying it out loud made it feel more specific than she usually let herself be.

Her fingers folded the edge of the napkin once. Unfolded it.

“I think some part of me is still expecting the seventeen-year-old version of you to show up,” she said.

Her eyes held his then.

Not accusing. Not sharp. Just honest in that stripped-down way that left no room to hide inside tone.

“The one who cheated and then left town on a baseball scholarship.”

There it was.

She didn’t say it to wound him. If she had wanted to wound him, it would’ve sounded different. Colder. Cleaner. This came out quieter than that. More like something old she was finally willing to stop pretending wasn’t still in the room with them.

Lucy looked down again, almost reflexively, and picked up one half of the bagel to buy herself another second. She tore off a smaller piece this time instead of taking a full bite, more focused on keeping her hands occupied than eating with any real strategy.

“And I know that’s not…” she started, then shook her head slightly. “I know that’s not all you are.”

She popped the piece of bagel into her mouth, chewed, swallowed, then reached for her coffee again.

Another sip.

Slower this time.

When she lowered the mug, some of the tension around her mouth had softened—not gone, but less braced.

“I just don’t think I realized how much of that version I was still arguing with in my head,” she said.

A beat.

“Which, in fairness, is probably not your favorite person either.”

That finally brought a little more life back into her expression.

Small. Dry. Familiar.

Her eyes flicked over his face again, studying him in that quiet way she did when she wasn’t entirely aware she was doing it.

Then, because if she stayed in the heavier part too long she was going to start hating how exposed she felt, Lucy tilted her head just slightly and let a tiny thread of teasing work its way back in.

“I’ll also admit,” she said, “I did not have this level of critical thinking on my Cameron Tate bingo card.”

That one came warmer.

Still soft. But warmer.

Her mouth curved faintly around the edges.

“So… I guess college was good for you.”

The line landed exactly where she wanted it to: somewhere between affection and deflection, light enough to keep the air from tightening too hard, honest enough not to undo what she’d just handed him.

She took another bite of the bagel after that—this one more automatic, less tactical—and leaned back just slightly in the booth while she chewed, one knee shifting under the table as she settled.

The everything seasoning had started falling onto the napkin in a slow, chaotic scatter, and she brushed a few crumbs together with her fingertip absentmindedly once she swallowed.

Then her eyes found him again.

And stayed.

“You saying you’re not gonna use it against me helps,” she said after a second.

That part came quieter.

More direct.

“More than I probably want it to.”

She let that sit for a beat.

Then added, because apparently honesty had become contagious in this booth, “And yes, last night was…” Her mouth pulled slightly to one side. “A thing.”

There was no point pretending otherwise. Not after the swing set. Not after the way it still lived too close to the surface of her body every time he looked at her for longer than a second.

Lucy reached for her coffee again and took another sip, slower now, eyes lowering briefly to the mug as if the motion itself helped keep her from saying too much too fast.

When she set it down, her fingers stayed curled around the handle.

“I think maybe that’s part of why I need this to feel normal,” she said.

Her voice had gone quieter again, but not fragile. Just stripped down.

“Because if it doesn’t…”

She exhaled softly through her nose, eyes flicking toward the window for a second before returning to him.

“I don’t really trust myself to keep pretending I’m not already halfway there.”

There.

That was probably more than she’d meant to say.

Probably more than breakfast required.

And definitely more than she would’ve planned on giving him when she’d almost turned around outside.

Lucy looked at him for half a second like she knew that too.

Then, because she refused to let herself become unbearably earnest before ten a.m., she picked up the bagel again and gave him the faintest, driest little look over the top of it.

“So if you could stop being emotionally literate in public,” she said, “that would actually be really helpful for me.”

A beat.

Her mouth twitched.

“Just dumb it down a little. For the town.”

Cameron felt the halfway there before he let himself react to anything else.

Not in a way that made him grin like he’d won something.

Just enough to send a low, warm pull through his chest that he had to actively keep off his face, because the last thing he wanted to do was make her sorry she’d said it out loud.

So he didn’t lunge for it.

Didn’t brighten too fast. Didn’t lean in. Didn’t do the old version of himself that would’ve treated one honest admission like proof the whole game had tipped in his favor.

He just looked at her.

At the bagel in her hand. At the coffee she kept using like a grounding point. At the way she sat there giving him truths in careful pieces and somehow still making it feel like more than he deserved before breakfast.

Then the corner of his mouth pulled anyway when she told him to stop being emotionally literate in public.

He couldn’t help that part.

“Right,” he said, voice low and warm and carrying just enough amusement to keep the air from tightening too hard. “My bad.”

He leaned back a fraction in the booth, one hand curling loosely around his mug.

“I’ll tone it down for Bedford Falls.” A beat. “Keep it real simple. Coffee hot. Bagel good. Feelings inconvenient.”

That got him the faintest breath of laughter under his own words, but he didn’t let himself hide in it.

Because she’d said more than that. Because halfway there was still sitting in the middle of the table between the sugar packets and the camera and the napkin crumbs, alive enough that he could feel it every time he looked at her.

So after a second, his expression softened again.

“But I can do normal,” he said.

Plain. Easy. Meant.

“Not fake normal.” His thumb moved once along the handle of the mug. “Just… breakfast normal.”

There was something steadier in that than the words themselves. A promise, maybe, but not a dramatic one. Just the kind you made by how you held yourself.

“We don’t have to solve anything in a coffee shop before ten,” he added. “That feels like bad town policy.”

The line landed where he wanted it to—light enough not to pin her down, honest enough not to dodge what she’d just admitted.

He took another sip of coffee, then set the mug back down and let his eyes drift briefly to the window.

Main Street still looked offensively ordinary. Mrs. Daley had shifted maybe twelve feet and was clearly still in the same conversation. A guy in a faded Titans cap was trying to parallel park badly enough to become public entertainment. Somebody’s kid was pressing both hands to the bakery glass and leaving perfect little palm prints like they were paying rent there.

The town kept moving.

That helped.

When Cameron looked back at Lucy, the warmth was still there, but quieter now. More settled.

“You not trusting yourself around this…” he said, then paused, careful with it. “I get why you need it to feel manageable.”

He didn’t say because of me again. Didn’t need to. It was already in the room.

“So if breakfast normal is what we’re doing, I can work with that.”

His mouth tipped faintly.

“I’ve got range.”

That was brighter again. Boyish around the edges in the way he still was when he let himself be. Not careless. Just alive.

Then, because the truth of what she’d said still deserved somewhere to land and he wasn’t going to act like he hadn’t heard every word of it, he let his gaze hold hers for one second longer than the joke required.

“And for what it’s worth,” he said, quieter now, “I know that wasn’t easy to say.”

No pressure after it. No speech. Just acknowledgment.

He reached for one of the little sugar packets on the table, turned it over between his fingers once, then set it back down unopened. Something to do with his hands. Something that kept him from looking like he was holding too still.

“Also,” he added, some of the brighter ease returning, “I’d like the record to show I’m being extremely respectful with the information that you think I look good.”

That got a little more life into his face.

“Like, professionally respectful.”

The grin that followed was small, warm, and not nearly cocky enough to qualify as trouble.

“I’m handling it great.”

He absolutely was not handling it great, internally.

Internally, he was one sentence away from becoming a problem.

Externally, though? He was doing pretty solid.

He let that sit there just long enough, then shifted the conversation himself before it could start pulling too hard in one direction.

“How many pictures before you came in?” he asked, nodding toward the camera beside her coffee. “Because from the window it looked like you were out there trying to document the emotional complexity of Bedford Falls before caffeine.”

That one came easier, and he meant it as an offering more than a redirect. A gentler place for the two of them to stand for a minute.

He leaned an elbow on the table, posture loose, relaxed enough to look like he belonged there but not so relaxed it read as careless. That was the thing about him now. He still had the easy confidence. The old sun-warmed charm. The athletic way he took up space like motion and conversation should come naturally to him. But it wasn’t sharp the way it used to be. It didn’t push at the edges of a room just to prove he could fill it.

It waited. It listened. It stayed.

And sitting across from Lucy with the morning spread between them, Cameron realized he was a little proud of that.

Not in a smug way.

Just enough to notice the difference.

“Actually,” he said, glancing toward the window again before his eyes came back to her, “don’t answer that yet. Lemme guess.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“You got the bakery door. Something with the dog by the bench.” A beat. “And at least one shot you’re pretending was about the light when it was really about avoiding thinking too hard.”

The corner of his mouth pulled.

“That last one might be projection.”

He let the line stay playful, but his voice had softened again by the end of it, not because he was dragging them back into anything heavier, but because he knew the shape of what she was doing now.

Trying to hold normal without lying. Trying to let this be real without letting it outrun her. Trying, in her own Lucy way, to keep one hand on the wheel even while admitting she wasn’t fully in control of the road.

He could respect that.

More than that, he could meet her there.

So he sat back, took another sip of coffee, and let the booth settle around them into something easier.

Still charged. Still unfinished. Still very much alive under the surface.

But easier.

And when he looked at her again, there was that same steadier version of him in it—older, humbler, still carrying enough boyish charm to make the moment lighter without making it less real.

“For the town,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting again, “I can absolutely dumb it down.”

A beat.

Then, softer—

“For you, though, I’d rather just keep it honest.”

Lucy didn’t answer him right away.

Not because she didn’t have one.

Because the way he said it—for you, though, I’d rather just keep it honest—did something quiet and inconvenient in her chest that she didn’t want showing up on her face before she had a chance to get it under control.

So instead, she reached for her coffee again.

Took a slower sip this time, like she actually meant to drink it instead of just using it as something to do with her hands. The warmth settled, familiar, grounding in a way that felt necessary with him sitting across from her like that—easy and steady and just aware enough to be a problem.

When she set the mug back down, her fingers stayed hooked around the handle for a second longer than they needed to.

Then she looked at him.

There was a flicker of something in her expression—something softer than the careful neutrality she’d been holding—but it didn’t stay long enough to name. Lucy shifted slightly in the booth, one shoulder easing back against the seat, grounding herself back into something closer to normal before she spoke.

“You say that like those two things don’t fight each other,” she said.

Her voice was quiet. Not sharp. Not defensive.

Just… real.

Her thumb brushed once along the side of the mug before she let go of it completely, folding her hand back around the edge of the table instead.

“Honest and manageable aren’t always the same thing.”

That wasn’t a correction.

More like… a warning. Or maybe just an observation she’d learned the hard way.

She let that sit for a second, then glanced down at her bagel, brushing a few stray everything-seasoning crumbs together with her fingertip before taking another bite.

Chewed.

Swallowed.

Then reached for her coffee again like she hadn’t just said something that mattered.

When she looked back at him, the edge had softened again—just slightly.

“But I get why you don’t want to fake it,” she added.

A beat.

“And I’m not asking you to.”

That part mattered enough that she didn’t wrap it in anything else.

Lucy shifted her gaze briefly toward the window, watching the same small-town rhythm he’d been tracking—the car that still hadn’t parked right, the same people still mid-conversation, the world carrying on like nothing had tilted just slightly off-axis for her in the last twenty-four hours.

It helped.

A little.

Her eyes dropped to the camera beside her mug when he asked about the photos, and this time the corner of her mouth did pull, faint but real.

“You’re annoyingly close,” she said.

She reached over and tapped the edge of the camera lightly with her finger, like acknowledging it.

“Bakery door, yeah.” A small nod. “Dog by the bench. He yawned right when I got it, so I’ll pretend that was intentional.”

Another small pause.

Her fingers lingered there, resting against the camera strap.

“And the light one…” she trailed off, then let out the smallest breath through her nose.

“Also yes.”

There wasn’t much point denying it. Not with him. Not now.

Lucy leaned back slightly after that, settling more fully into the booth, her posture easing just a fraction like she was letting herself be here instead of bracing to leave.

“I needed something to point at,” she said.

Quieter now.

“Otherwise I would’ve just stood out there overthinking the door for another five minutes.”

Her eyes flicked back to his.

That honesty again. Less guarded than she probably meant it to be.

Then, because she refused to let the moment tilt too far in that direction, she tipped her head slightly and let a thread of dry humor slip back in.

“Which, for the record, would’ve been humiliating.”

A beat.

“For me. Not the town. The town loves a spectacle.”

That got a faint lift of her brow, a hint of something more familiar returning to her expression.

She picked up her bagel again, tearing off another piece instead of taking a full bite this time, buying herself another second before she spoke again.

“You’re doing fine, by the way,” she added, almost offhand.

Her gaze moved over him briefly—not lingering too long, but not avoiding him either.

“Very… professional. Respectful. Emotionally contained.”

A small pause.

Her mouth curved just slightly.

“It’s unsettling.”

There it was again—that soft, dry tone she slipped into when something felt too real and she needed to tilt it just enough to keep her footing.

Lucy took another sip of her coffee, slower this time, then set it down and leaned her forearms lightly against the table.

When she looked at him again, the softness hadn’t fully left.

“And yeah,” she said, quieter now, circling back without making a whole thing out of it, “I know it wasn’t easy to say either.”

A beat.

“I can tell you’re trying not to… do too much with it.”

She didn’t say what it was.

They both knew.

Her fingers tapped lightly against the table once, then stilled.

“And I appreciate that.”

That was as close as she got to saying thank you.

Lucy held his gaze for just a second longer than necessary, then broke it first, reaching for her coffee again—not because she needed another sip, but because it gave her somewhere to put the rest of whatever was still moving under her skin.

Cameron felt the I appreciate that more than the rest of it.

Not because it was bigger.

Because it wasn’t.

Because Lucy didn’t hand out appreciation just to smooth over a moment or make another person feel better about themselves. If she said it, she meant it. Cleanly. Deliberately. No extra wrapping.

And sitting across from her with bad diner coffee and too much history between them, that landed somewhere warm enough to matter.

He let her break the eye contact first.

Let her reach for the coffee. Let the moment settle instead of lunging to fill it.

That was part of it now too—learning when to leave a thing where she set it.

Still, the corner of his mouth pulled a little at the emotionally contained part.

Unsettling.

That one was going to stay with him for a while.

He dragged a thumb once along the side of his mug, then huffed the softest laugh through his nose.

“Unsettling,” he repeated, low and faintly amused. “That’s brutal.”

His voice stayed warm, easy enough to take the edge off without pretending he hadn’t heard the compliment underneath it.

“I’m out here doing the most mature thing I’ve ever done in a breakfast booth, and my reward is being called unsettling.”

He shook his head once like he was deeply wronged by this turn of events, though the look on his face made it clear he wasn’t exactly suffering.

“Honestly,” he added, “I was hoping for surprisingly well-adjusted. Maybe quietly impressive.”

A beat.

“Unsettling feels personal.”

That got a little more light back into the air, enough to let both of them breathe without losing what had already been said.

Cameron leaned back a fraction, shoulder settling more comfortably into the booth, and glanced toward the window for half a second.

The guy outside still had not parked right. Mrs. Daley appeared to have gained a second conversation partner somehow. Bedford Falls, in all its unbothered stupidity, just kept rolling.

He looked back at Lucy.

“But I appreciate the review,” he said. “Constructive feedback matters.”

There was a brightness in him now that sat easier on his face than it would have years ago. Less polished. Less performed. Still confident, still boyish at the edges, but not trying so hard to win the room every second he was in it.

That part of him had grown up.

Mostly.

His gaze dropped briefly to the camera beside her coffee, then back up.

“And for the record,” he said, quieter now, “I know what you mean about honest and manageable not always getting along.”

He let the words sit a second, not too heavy, just real.

“I think I spent a lot of my life assuming if I was feeling something hard enough, I should say it right then. Like that made it more true.” He tipped his head slightly. “Turns out sometimes that just makes it louder.”

A small shrug.

“I’m trying to get better at the difference.”

Not a speech. Just an offering.

Something plain.

He reached for one of the little jelly packets sitting in the chrome caddy at the edge of the table, turned it over once in his fingers, then set it back down untouched. Same thing he did with sugar packets when his hands needed a job.

“You standing outside overthinking the door for five minutes would’ve been a little humiliating,” he admitted.

The line came easy, softer than teasing but still teasing enough.

“Not because anyone would’ve noticed. Because I definitely would’ve noticed.”

His mouth tipped.

“And then I would’ve had to sit in here pretending not to.”

That part felt normal enough to say now. Like the truth of it didn’t need softening beyond the tone he gave it.

He watched her take another sip of coffee, the small, controlled motion of it, and something in his chest settled more.

She was still here.

Still sitting across from him. Still talking. Still not pulling the whole thing shut just because they’d wandered closer to honesty than either of them probably meant to before breakfast.

That mattered.

He let his gaze drift to the bagel in her hand and then back up to her face.

“You know what I think this really is?” he asked.

He didn’t wait long enough to make it a loaded question.

“I think you came in here ready to act very normal and then made the mistake of sitting down with somebody who notices things.” The corner of his mouth pulled again. “Terrible tactical error.”

He nodded once toward the camera.

“You should’ve just kept taking pictures. Way safer.”

That one he gave her with enough warmth to make it clear he wasn’t pushing, just standing close to the shape of the truth without shoving her into it.

Then, because he could feel the conversation starting to want one more inch of seriousness and because she’d earned a break from that before she’d even finished her bagel, Cameron shifted the weight of it himself.

He looked out the window again, squinting slightly toward the street.

“Okay,” he said. “More important question.”

His tone had brightened deliberately now.

“What’s the over-under on that guy finally parking before noon?”

He tipped his chin toward the truck outside that was still somehow neither committed to the curb nor fully in the street.

“I’ve got ten bucks and most of my remaining dignity on him clipping the planter.”

That got him grinning for real.

“And if that happens, I need you to know I will absolutely not laugh until he’s out of the vehicle.”

A beat.

“Then I’m gonna laugh a lot.”

The ease of it fit him. Athletic, sun-warm, a little bright around the edges in a way that made the whole booth feel less like a pressure chamber and more like two people trying, against all odds, to have coffee in a small town without combusting.

He let himself enjoy that for a second.

Then his eyes moved back to her, softer again without dimming.

“I’m glad you came in,” he said.

Not because he hadn’t already said it. Because sometimes the same truth was worth saying twice if you meant it both times.

“And I’m glad you told me what you did out there.”

He didn’t name it. Didn’t make her carry it twice.

A small pause.

“And I’m really glad you’re eating something, because you were one sentence away from trying to process all of this on straight caffeine and photography, which feels unsafe.”

That got just enough dry humor back into it to keep things from tipping.

He glanced at the bagel, then at her coffee.

“Professionally speaking, I think the bagel’s doing important work.”

Then he leaned one elbow on the table, posture easy, and gave her a look that was just mischievous enough to qualify as a threat.

“Also, if we’re doing a normal breakfast moment now, I feel like I should warn you I’m very good at diner trivia.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Marla’s been feeding me local lore against my will for years. I can tell you exactly which booth had the mayor cry in it in 2014.”

He let that sit there, playful and ridiculous on purpose.

“Or,” he added, “we can do your version of normal and sit here pretending we’re not both listening for whether that truck outside is about to hit something.”

A breath of laughter slipped out of him then, low and easy.

He wasn’t performing calm anymore. He actually was calmer.

Not because the hard part was gone. Because she was still here after it.

And sitting across from her now, sunlight at the window, coffee between them, the camera beside her mug, he realized this was maybe the first truly ordinary moment they’d had since everything started changing.

Not fake ordinary.

Earned ordinary.

The kind you had to be careful with because it looked small from the outside and mattered more than it should.

So he let it be small.

Let it be breakfast. Let it be bagels and bad coffee and Bedford Falls refusing to stop being itself. Let it be the lightness she was clearly trying to pull them toward without saying so outright.

And when he looked at her again, there was that same open steadiness in him—but warmer now, less about surviving the conversation and more about being glad to still be in it.

“Anyway,” he said, quieter, easier, “I can be normal for a little while.”

A beat.

Then, with the faintest crooked smile:

“Probably.”

Lucy looked at him for a second after that.

Really looked at him.

At the easy warmth in his face. The way he’d somehow managed to thread humor through honesty without turning either one into a performance. The way he kept doing that now—kept handing her space instead of trying to take it from her.

Which, frankly, was still irritating.

Because it would have been so much easier if he’d just stayed exactly who she remembered.

Instead, he kept showing up like… this.

Annoying.

Her fingers stayed wrapped around the coffee cup for another beat before she finally exhaled softly through her nose and gave him a look that was half flat, half tiredly amused.

“You’re making a very aggressive case for being tolerated before 10 a.m.,” she said.

Her voice was dry, but not cold. Softer than she probably meant it to come out.

She let her eyes drop to the table then—the crumbs, the chrome caddy, the camera beside her mug—anything easier to focus on than the fact that he’d just said enough right things in a row to make her feel unsteady in a way she absolutely did not enjoy.

Lucy reached for her bagel, tore off another small bite, and ate it before saying anything else.

Then she took a sip of coffee.

Bought herself exactly three more seconds.

When she looked back up, the corner of her mouth moved faintly.

“The worst part,” she said, “is that none of this is actually the problem.”

A beat.

“This—” she gestured loosely between them with the hand still holding the bagel, small and understated, but clear enough “—could be normal.”

That landed quieter than the rest of it.

Not dramatic.

Just true.

Her gaze held his for a second longer this time before slipping away again, out toward the window where Bedford Falls was still doing what Bedford Falls always did—moving forward with absolutely no respect for the emotional inconvenience of the people inside it.

Lucy leaned back into the booth a little, one shoulder settling against the vinyl.

“If I let it,” she said.

And there it was.

The real center of it.

Not the diner. Not breakfast. Not even the swing set or the door outside or the fact that he’d apparently developed emotional range when she wasn’t looking.

Her.

Her grip on it.

Her walls.

Her mouth pressed faintly to one side, and when she looked back at him again there was something more honest in her expression now. Less guarded in the polished way. More guarded in the real way.

“Because the truth is…” she said, quieter now, “I know this could be easy if I just stopped fighting it so hard.”

She gave a small, humorless huff through her nose.

“That’s sort of what’s deeply unhelpful about it.”

Her fingers tapped once lightly against the ceramic of the mug.

“I’m not oblivious, Cameron.”

That came out cleaner. Firmer.

Not sharp, exactly. Just something she needed him to understand without dressing it up.

“I know there’s still…” She stopped there, visibly hating the sentence before she even finished it.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, already irritated with herself.

Then she rolled them—slow, deliberate, full Lucy.

“That,” she said flatly, gesturing between them again like the entire concept offended her on principle. “Whatever this deeply annoying connection still is.”

There.

Said.

Against her will, basically.

She took another bite of the bagel immediately afterward like she could punish herself for the admission by making it less romantic.

It did not work.

After a second, she swallowed and looked back at him, brows lifting slightly in that dry, resigned way of hers.

“And that’s exactly why I can’t just… drop all of it and pretend I’m fine,” she said.

Her tone had softened again by then. Not because she was retreating from it. Because she was finally saying it plainly.

“I would like to.”

That one was smaller.

Quieter.

More dangerous for how honest it was.

“I would like to let my guard down and let this just be whatever it wants to be for five minutes.” A beat. “I would like to not have to think this hard about breakfast.”

That got the faintest breath of amusement back into her voice, but it didn’t erase the truth under it.

Her thumb traced once around the paper sleeve on her coffee cup.

“But I can’t,” she said.

Not harsh.

Not dramatic.

Just final in the way some truths are when they’re still tender.

“Not yet.”

That sat between them for a second, and Lucy let it.

Didn’t soften it immediately. Didn’t apologize for it. Didn’t try to rush in and make it prettier than it was.

Because if there was one thing she was done doing, it was pretending timing didn’t matter just because the feeling did.

Her eyes drifted to the window again, then back to him.

“And honestly?” she said, quieter now, one side of her mouth pulling just slightly, “the fact that I’m even sitting here saying any of this to you is already more than I ever thought you were getting out of me when you first came back.”

That one was real enough to make her want to disappear into the booth cushion.

So naturally, she covered it the only way Lucy Corbett knew how.

She took another sip of coffee, then looked at him over the rim of the cup with a look that was very clearly trying to recover some dignity.

“You’re welcome,” she said dryly.

A beat.

“For the emotional access. Don’t get used to it.”

Then she lowered the cup, glanced once toward the truck outside, and added, almost absently:

“And if that guy clips the planter, I’m still laughing first.”

Cameron let her finish.

All of it.

The could be normal. The if I let it. The deeply annoying connection still there between them, named with that dry, exasperated honesty only Lucy could get away with. And the part that sat deepest of all—

I would like to. But I can’t. Not yet.

That one moved through him slowly, steady and clean.

Not because it gave him something to hang onto.

Because she was trusting him with the exact shape of the line instead of just holding it where he couldn’t see it.

And that mattered more than whatever easier version of this he might’ve wanted once.

He sat with it for a beat, coffee warm in his hand, the window light catching the edge of the table and the camera beside her cup and every small thing that made this feel so absurdly ordinary for a conversation that wasn’t.

Then the corner of his mouth pulled.

Not smug. Not triumphant.

Just warm and a little helpless in the face of her saying you’re welcome like she hadn’t just handed him more truth than he ever would’ve expected to get from her in a diner booth before ten in the morning.

“Thank you,” he said.

Simple. No joke over it yet.

“For the emotional access.”

A beat.

His brows lifted slightly.

“I’ll try not to abuse the privilege.”

That got the lightness back in the room just enough.

Then he looked at her properly again, steady and open and very clearly not trying to wring more out of what she’d already said.

“And I hear you,” he added, quieter now. “All of it.”

His thumb moved once along the handle of his mug.

“The not yet part too.”

That mattered enough to say plainly.

“I’m not gonna sit here and act like not yet means something else just because it’d be more convenient for me.” His mouth tipped faintly to one side. “I’ve made enough of a mess already by deciding what things meant before I’d earned the right to.”

No self-punishment in it. Just truth.

He leaned back a little, one arm settling along the booth, the easier posture fitting him again without looking careless.

“And for the record,” he said, “I don’t think you’re oblivious.”

That almost made him smile.

“I think you’re painfully, aggressively aware of everything, actually.”

There was warmth in that. Affection too, though he didn’t push it harder than that.

“It’s one of your more intimidating qualities.”

That sat there lightly enough to breathe.

Then he glanced toward the window, following her eyes to the truck outside that was still somehow not parked and still somehow attempting to exist in relation to the planter without fully committing to either side of the curb.

Cameron let out a low sound through his nose.

“That guy is absolutely gonna clip it,” he said.

And almost on cue, the truck jerked backward half a foot too fast and caught the edge of the concrete planter with a muted, unmistakable thunk.

Cameron’s head tipped slightly as he watched the driver freeze behind the wheel for a beat, then open the door and climb out with the exact body language of a man hoping the plant had somehow hit him first.

That was when the laugh broke out of him—real this time, warm enough to shake some of the weight loose from the booth.

“There it is,” he said, dragging a hand once over his mouth like that was gonna help. “Unbelievable.”

Outside, the driver looked around like maybe nobody had heard it and then bent slightly toward the planter with all the solemn focus of someone checking for casualties.

That only made it worse.

Cameron shook his head, still laughing under his breath, and looked back at Lucy.

“Told ya,” he said.

The lightness stayed in his face now, easier and younger around the edges in the best way—not immature, just a little more alive.

He took another sip of coffee, then glanced once more toward the window.

“Poor guy’s about to spend ten minutes checking a fern for structural damage.”

The line landed softer, sillier, exactly where it needed to.

And when his gaze came back to her, some of that warmth stayed but the steadier part of him was still there too—the part that had heard her, understood her, and wasn’t going to use the laugh as an exit ramp from the truth.

“I meant what I said,” he told her.

No flourish. No big emotional swing back into seriousness.

Just a quiet sentence laid down carefully between the coffee cups.

“I can work with honest.” A small pause. “Even when it’s inconvenient.”

His mouth pulled again, faintly.

“Maybe especially then.”

He let that rest where it wanted to and didn’t crowd it.

Then, because normal was what she was trying to do and because he was trying, honestly trying, to meet her there when she offered it, he nodded toward the camera beside her mug.

“So,” he said, easier now, “are you gonna show me the dog picture or do I have to keep trusting your artistic judgment blindly?”

A beat.

His expression turned just mischievous enough to qualify as a challenge.

“Because after the fountain shot, expectations are high.”

He sat back and let the booth hold the rest of the moment.

The coffee. The bagel. The clipped planter. The impossible ordinariness of Bedford Falls carrying on outside.

Not fixed. Not figured out. Not simple.

But not broken either.

And for now, for this one morning, that was enough.

Lucy held his gaze for a beat after he said thank you.

Not long enough to make it a thing.

Just long enough for something small and unwillingly warm to move at the corner of her mouth.

A smirk, first.

Then—before she could overthink it or talk herself out of the fact that he’d somehow managed to receive what she said like an adult instead of turning it into something unbearable—she reached toward the little chrome caddy in the center of the table.

Her fingers closed around one of the sugar packets he’d been absentmindedly toying with earlier.

She looked at it once.

Then flicked it at him.

It bounced lightly off his chest and dropped into his lap.

“There,” she said, dry but softer now, a real smile catching on the edge of the words before she could fully suppress it. “That should offset the emotional maturity.”

The smile stayed for half a second longer than she meant it to.

Long enough to be genuine.

Long enough to feel it happen.

Then she reached for her coffee again, because she was not going to sit there openly pleased that Cameron Tate had become a person she could say difficult things to without immediately regretting it.

That would be humiliating.

Still, she let him have the rest of what he said.

The not yet part.

The I’m not gonna make it mean something else part.

The painfully, aggressively aware part—which, honestly, was rude but not inaccurate.

That got a quiet exhale through her nose that was almost a laugh, her eyes lowering briefly to the table as if she could somehow avoid the fact that he kept saying the right thing in exactly the wrong voice for her continued emotional stability.

“Painfully, aggressively aware,” she repeated, tone flat with the faintest trace of amusement. “That’s a really hostile character assessment for someone I just gave emotional access to.”

But there wasn’t any real bite in it.

Not with the way her mouth tilted afterward.

Not with the way she stayed.

And when he said he could work with honest—even when it was inconvenient, maybe especially then—Lucy didn’t answer right away.

She just looked at him.

Because that was, unfortunately, the problem.

He kept making space for the difficult version instead of trying to drag her toward the easier one.

Which meant she had less and less to hide behind every time he did it.

Annoying.

Her fingers tightened lightly around the coffee cup, then loosened again.

“I know,” she said quietly after a beat.

And that was all she gave him on that part.

Not because she didn’t have more.

Because she did.

Too much, probably.

So instead she let the truck outside save them both.

The second it clipped the planter, the sound of it landing with that dull, pathetic little thunk, Lucy’s head turned toward the window almost on instinct—and the laugh that left her this time was real.

Not the dry exhale she usually passed off as one.

A real one.

Low and quick and completely involuntary.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, watching the man climb out of the truck with the exact expression of someone hoping public humiliation had somehow become a private matter in the last five seconds.

When Cameron said the part about the fern’s structural damage, that actually got her.

She laughed again—quieter this time, shoulders loosening, mouth pressing briefly together like she was trying and failing not to be amused.

“He’s absolutely gonna crouch down and inspect dirt like he’s with insurance,” she said.

Her eyes stayed on the window another second before drifting back to him, the leftover warmth of the laugh still sitting in her face.

“You were right,” she admitted, which was already generous enough. Then, drier: “Don’t make it your whole personality.”

That landed easier now. More natural.

More them.

And when he finally nodded toward the camera and asked if she was going to show him the dog picture, Lucy gave him a look over the rim of her coffee cup first—one brow lifting slightly, like she was deciding whether or not he’d earned the privilege of opinions before 10 a.m.

Then she swallowed, set the cup down, and reached for the camera.

“You’re being very bold for somebody who just got pelted with Splenda,” she said.

But she slid it across the table toward him anyway.

Not tossed.

Not precious.

Just pushed gently over the woodgrain until it came to rest near his hand.

“Go ahead,” she said. “But if you say anything stupid about composition, I’m taking it back.”

The warning was automatic.

The trust underneath it was not.

Lucy leaned back into the booth as he picked it up, one knee shifting slightly under the table, bagel half-forgotten for the moment while she watched him scroll.

And because apparently this morning had decided to become a full-scale character study against her will, she found herself talking before she fully meant to.

“I don’t even really like shooting on that thing,” she said, glancing toward the camera in his hands with mild disdain.

“It’s fine if I need something quick. Or if I’m being lazy. Or if I’m out and I don’t feel like carrying something heavier.” Her mouth pressed faintly to one side. “But I don’t know. It just…”

She tipped her head, searching for the right word.

“Feels fake, almost.”

That came out quieter.

More honest.

Lucy wrapped both hands loosely around her coffee cup again, not lifting it yet, just letting the warmth settle into her fingers while she looked at the camera.

“Too immediate,” she said after a second. “Too aware of itself.”

Her gaze shifted back to him.

“With digital, I’m always thinking about it while I’m doing it. I’m checking the screen, second-guessing myself, wondering if I should’ve framed it differently or waited two more seconds or deleted it immediately because I hate the angle or the light or…” She shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever.”

Her mouth moved faintly.

“It makes me self-conscious in a way I don’t like.”

That was probably more revealing than she intended, but she didn’t pull it back.

Instead she just kept going, quieter now, but easier too.

“I like film better.”

That part came without hesitation.

Always would.

Her fingers traced once around the paper sleeve of the coffee cup as she spoke, absent and automatic.

“With film, I don’t really think about it.” A beat. “I just shoot.”

That sat more naturally in her mouth.

More true.

“I see something and I take it. I don’t stop and overanalyze it while it’s happening. I don’t get to.” Her eyes dropped briefly to the table, then lifted again. “And I like that.”

A small pause.

“I like not being able to interrupt myself.”

That one landed with more weight than she meant it to.

Lucy realized it immediately.

Naturally, she rolled her eyes at herself and reached for her bagel like maybe chewing would keep her from accidentally becoming a person with depth in public.

But she kept talking anyway.

Because she was already here now.

“And then later,” she said, after tearing off a small bite, “I get to go into the darkroom and figure out what I actually caught.”

Her voice softened a little there—not dramatically, just enough that the fondness in it became impossible to miss.

“The whole thing feels slower. Better.” She swallowed. “Nostalgic, I guess. But not in a fake curated way.”

Her gaze drifted past him for a second, somewhere inward.

“There’s something more honest about it.”

That came out clean.

No performance.

No artsy pretension.

Just true.

“It’s imperfect in a way I actually trust.” Her thumb moved once along the edge of the cup. “You can see the grain. The blur. The parts that didn’t come out exactly how you thought they would.”

Then her eyes lifted back to his.

“And somehow that usually makes it feel more real, not less.”

That sat between them for a second, carrying just enough accidental meaning to be dangerous.

Lucy felt it happen.

Of course she did.

So naturally, she tried to flatten it immediately.

“It’s also prettier,” she said, dry again. “And I get to hide in red light for hours and not answer texts.”

A beat.

“Which, frankly, is a flawless system.”

That brought a little warmth back into the edges of her mouth.

She reached for her coffee again, took another sip, and looked at him over the rim of the cup with a softer kind of warning this time.

“And no,” she said, already seeing the shape of where his brain might try to go if he got too pleased with himself, “that was not secretly about my emotional state.”

A beat.

“It was literally just photography.”

The look she gave him said very clearly: do not make me regret both the camera and the emotional access in the same hour.

Then she lowered the cup, glanced once at the camera in his hands again, and softened despite herself.

“But the dog one’s good,” she admitted.

Her mouth tipped faintly.

“He had range.”

A beat.

Then, because apparently she was feeling reckless enough to be just slightly kinder than usual, she added:

“And if you’re nice, I’ll show you the one I got of the bakery window too.”

The sugar packet bounced off his chest, dropped into his lap, and for half a second Cameron just looked down at it like he’d been personally ambushed by a very small, very polite act of violence.

Then he laughed.

Not a low huff this time. A real one. Warm and startled and impossible to hide.

“There it is,” he said, looking back up at her with the grin still on him. “I was starting to worry you were taking all this a little too well.”

He picked the packet up between two fingers and set it on the table beside his mug like evidence.

The smile she almost didn’t let herself have stayed with him longer than the sugar packet did.

That was the thing.

He noticed the serious parts, sure. The not yet, the half-confessions, the way she kept handing him the truth in careful pieces and then sitting back like she hadn’t just changed the temperature of the whole booth.

But he noticed that too.

The real smile. The laugh at the truck. The dry tone softening by degrees she probably thought no one would catch.

He caught it.

Of course he did.

And when she called painfully, aggressively aware a hostile character assessment, the corner of his mouth tipped again.

“Fair,” he said. “I probably should’ve eased you into that one.”

But the warmth in his voice made it clear he wasn’t exactly apologizing.

Then she handed him the camera.

That part changed something in his face.

Not dramatically. Just enough.

Because the trust in it was quiet and specific and more meaningful than she probably intended it to be. Not the camera itself. The way she pushed it toward him without clutching it back or hovering over it like she expected him to mishandle it.

He took it carefully anyway.

Not performatively careful. Just respectful in the way you were with something somebody loved.

The screen lit under his thumb as he scrolled back through the shots.

The dog by the bench came first.

And she was right.

It was good.

Better than good, really. The dog had one front paw angled out like it was deeply offended by civic life, mouth open mid-yawn, leash pulling just enough to suggest insult without panic. It looked absurdly dignified in its annoyance. Like if somebody had asked the dog to summarize Bedford Falls in spring, this would’ve been the answer.

Cameron let out a quiet breath through his nose.

“Okay,” he said, still looking at the screen. “Yeah. No. He does have range.”

His thumb moved again.

The bakery door.

The light hit it the way only morning light in a small town ever seemed to—like it had nowhere urgent to be and all the time in the world to make old glass and chipped paint look holy. There was something soft around the edges of it, warm and lived-in and more honest than pretty.

Then the next shot.

The one that had been “about the light.”

He knew it immediately.

Not because it wasn’t about the light. It was. The whole frame leaned into it—how it caught on the window, how it stretched across the sidewalk, how it turned a totally ordinary piece of Main Street into something paused and held.

But he also knew it was about standing still for one second and needing to point the camera somewhere before her brain got too loud.

Her explanation about digital came while he looked.

Too immediate. Too aware of itself. I like not being able to interrupt myself.

Cameron didn’t say anything right away.

Didn’t jump in with some too-clever observation about how that sounded like half the things they’d been circling for days now. Didn’t tell her that the words landed with more meaning than she probably meant to hand him over breakfast.

He just listened.

Let her keep talking.

About film. About the darkroom. About grain and blur and the parts that didn’t come out how you thought they would. About imperfection feeling more real, not less.

And Jesus.

If he’d been a younger, dumber version of himself, he would’ve absolutely said something reckless right there. Something like that sounds familiar with a grin he hadn’t earned, and then the whole moment would’ve turned sharp and closed and she’d have every right to regret putting the camera in his hands.

He wasn’t that version anymore.

So instead, he stayed with the thing she had actually said.

He looked up from the screen to her face, the coffee cup in her hand, the warning already there before she even finished telling him it was literally just photography.

That pulled a smile out of him.

Small. Real. Behaved.

“Understood,” he said. “No emotional state. Just photography. Totally separate crisis.”

There was enough dry humor in it to let her know he’d heard the warning and was choosing, very intentionally, not to be a menace about it.

Then he glanced back down at the screen and scrolled once more, slower now, taking them in with a little more time.

The bakery window shot was beautiful.

Not because it was polished. Because it wasn’t.

The reflection in the glass held two layers at once—the inside, soft and warm and stacked with bread; the outside, moving by in blurred pieces. The whole thing looked like the kind of image most people would walk past without noticing and Lucy would stop for because she understood there was more than one thing happening in it.

He let that sit for a second.

Then he looked up at her, the camera still in his hands.

“I get it,” he said.

Simple. No speech on top of it.

“The film thing.”

His thumb brushed once along the edge of the camera body before he added, quieter—

“Not all the technical parts. You lose me pretty fast once we get into anything involving actual expertise.” That got a little breath of amusement into his voice. “But the rest of it.”

He nodded toward the screen.

“The not interrupting yourself part.”

That one he gave back to her gently.

Not claiming it. Not pinning it to the table like some grand revelation.

Just acknowledging that he’d heard it.

Then some of the warmth returned around the edges of his mouth.

“And yeah,” he added, glancing at the dog photo again, “this one’s good.”

A beat.

“He’s got a whole internal life.”

He tipped the camera slightly toward her, then paused before handing it back.

Because now that he had it, and now that she was sitting there across from him with coffee in one hand, bagel half-forgotten, morning light catching at the edge of her hair and that softer-than-usual expression she clearly did not enjoy being caught in—

well.

The opportunity was sitting right there.

And he was only so noble.

His eyes lifted to hers first.

Not sneaky. Not smug.

Just brightened slightly by the idea before he could stop it.

Then the corner of his mouth pulled.

“Don’t move,” he said.

Low. Easy. Already too late to stop him if she wanted to.

He lifted the camera before she could decide whether to object.

Not high. Not formally. Just enough.

And for one perfect, ordinary second, Lucy Corbett was exactly where she was—coffee in hand, bagel on the table, real light on her face, some mix of annoyance and warmth and warning still trying to settle back into control.

Cameron caught it.

Click.

He lowered the camera slowly, looking at the screen for half a beat.

And then a grin broke over his face before he could help it.

“Alright,” he said softly. “That’s a really good one.”