Version 1.13.0

  Thursday, November 10th

  The interview was a disaster from the moment I walked in. Damien Designs occupied a sleek glass building downtown, all sharp angles and exposed concrete. The kind of place that screamed "we're creative" while being about as warm as a refrigerator. I'd worn my nicest blazer, the one I'd bought during my shopping spree, and I'd even put on real pants instead of the yoga pants that had become my uniform.

  The receptionist, a young man with carefully sculpted eyebrows and a smile that didn't reach his eyes, led me to a conference room where three people were already waiting. Two women and a man, all in black, all looking at me like I was a specimen under glass.

  "Samantha," the older woman said, not offering her hand. "I'm Kathy. This is Frederick and Stacy." She gestured to each in turn. "Thank you for coming in."

  "Thank you for having me." I settled into the chair across from them, portfolio on the table. "I'm excited to learn more about Damien Designs."

  "Yes, well." Kathy exchanged a glance with her colleagues. "We were very interested when we saw your resume. Seven years at Holloway is impressive."

  "Thank you. I learned a lot there."

  "I'm sure you did." Frederick leaned forward, pen tapping against his notepad. "We've been following the Holloway situation with great interest. Terrible what happened there."

  "It's been... challenging," I said carefully.

  "That CEO, Harrison." Stacy shook her head. "We couldn't believe it when the news broke. Did you work closely with him?"

  "I reported to creative directors, mostly. Greg was more of a presence at quarterly company meetings, holiday gatherings."

  "But surely you must have noticed something." Kathy’s eyes were bright with poorly concealed curiosity. "Working there all those years. The culture must have been toxic."

  And there it was. They didn't want to hire me. They wanted gossip. I was a walking tabloid, a source of insider information about their flaming competitor. The portfolio I'd spent three days curating might as well have been a prop.

  "The culture was actually quite supportive on my team," I said, keeping my voice level. "I had excellent mentors and colleagues. As I became a senior designer, I worked hard to foster open and honest feedback and lead by example."

  "But the harassment," Frederick pressed. "The cover-ups. You must have seen something."

  "I saw people working hard to produce good design work." I met his eyes. "That's what I focused on. I was always at work early and stayed until my work was done. Over my tenure there I secured eighteen high-profile clients on my own, some repeat clients that kept us on retainer."

  The three of them exchanged disappointed glances. For the next twenty minutes, they peppered me with increasingly invasive questions about Holloway, about Greg, about Daniel, about the "real story" behind the scandals. My actual design work was mentioned exactly once, and only as a segue into asking whether I'd ever felt "uncomfortable" with male colleagues.

  By the time Kathy thanked me for my time with a smile that said I would never hear from them again, I wanted to scream. Instead, I shook their hands, collected my portfolio, and walked out of Damien Designs with my head held high. Then I went to the coffee shop and ordered the largest, most expensive latte they made.

  * * *

  I was halfway through my drink, staring at nothing and contemplating whether it was too early to start drinking wine, when my phone buzzed.

  Mom.

  I silenced it. Then, because I was apparently a glutton for punishment, I listened to the voicemail she left thirty seconds later.

  "Samantha, it's your mother. I've been thinking about Thanksgiving, and I've discussed it with your Aunt Catrina, and we both agree that perhaps it would be best if you didn't come this year." A pause, carefully theatrical. "I wouldn't want you to be embarrassed, showing up without a job. You know how the family talks. And Brittany will be there with Chad, and they're doing so well, and I just think the comparison might be... difficult for you."

  I gripped my coffee cup so hard the cardboard sleeve crumpled.

  "Use the extra time to get yourself sorted out," Mom continued. "Polish up your resume. Maybe do some networking. That way you'll be ready to make a proper impression at Christmas. You know how important Christmas is to me, Samantha. I expect you to be there, and to be presentable. With a job. And preferably with a nice young man, but I know that's asking a lot given your... situation."

  The voicemail ended. I sat there, stunned, replaying her words in my head.

  She'd uninvited me to Thanksgiving. My own mother had uninvited me to Thanksgiving because I was unemployed and single and apparently too pathetic to be seen in public. I typed out a text to Kate before I could stop myself.

  Me: You will not believe what my mother just did...

  The message sat there for a moment. Then:

  Kate: MESSAGE UNDELIVERED

  Right. Kate still had me blocked. I'd almost forgotten, in the moment of needing someone to vent to. I was alone. Truly, completely alone.

  "Hey, I know you."

  Startled, I looked up. Brown hair, slightly too long. Plastic-rimmed glasses. A smile that crinkled the corners of warm amber eyes. Scott. The coffee spiller. The Dread Pirate Roberts. The guy I'd blown off after giving him my number.

  "You're the one who baptized me in medium roast," I said, my voice coming out flatter than I intended.

  He winced. "Yeah, I was hoping you might have forgotten that. Or at least remembered me as 'that charming guy' instead of 'that clumsy disaster.'" He paused, studying my face. "Are you okay? You look like someone just told you your dog died."

  "I don't have a dog."

  “Hopefully not because it just died?”

  I sighed. "I just got uninvited to Thanksgiving by my own mother. Via voicemail."

  "Ouch." Scott's expression shifted from playful to genuinely sympathetic. "That's brutal."

  "She doesn't want me to be 'embarrassed' by showing up unemployed." I made air quotes with my fingers. "Apparently my failure to have a job and a boyfriend makes me unfit for family gatherings."

  "That's... wow. That's really terrible."

  "It's fine. I'm fine." I was not fine. My eyes were burning and I was definitely not going to cry in front of the cute IT guy I'd ghosted. "Sorry, I'm terrible company right now. I should just..."

  "Mind if I sit?" Scott gestured to the empty chair across from me. "I promise to keep all beverages at a safe distance.” I hesitated. I wasn't exactly in a social mood. And I'd literally cancelled our date and then never texted him again. He had every right to be annoyed with me.

  But he wasn't. He was just standing there, looking at me with genuine concern, and the only thing waiting for me at home was an empty apartment and my mother's voice echoing in my head.

  "Sure," I said. "Live dangerously."

  Scott sat down, setting his coffee carefully in the center of the table, far from the edges. "So. Bad interview, terrible mother, and I'm guessing the job search isn't going great either?"

  "How did you know about the interview?"

  He gestured at my blazer. "You're dressed up. And you have that specific look of someone who just spent an hour being asked invasive questions by people who have no intention of hiring you."

  "They wanted gossip about Holloway. Not my design skills."

  "Ah. The 'tell us everything scandalous' interview." He nodded. "I've had a few of those."

  "You have?"

  "I did some contract work for a company that got caught up in a data breach a few years back. For about six months afterward, every client interview felt like being interrogated by TMZ." He shrugged. "It passes, eventually. The news cycle moves on."

  "I hope so."

  We sat in comfortable silence for a moment. Then Scott said, "I should probably address the elephant in the room."

  "What elephant?"

  "You ghosted me." He said it without accusation, just stating a fact. "We had a lunch date scheduled, you cancelled, and then... radio silence."

  My cheeks heated. "I'm sorry. I was going through some stuff. It wasn't about you."

  "I figured." He tilted his head. "The friend you were with that day. Kate? You two seemed close. And you said she was 'busy' in a way that sounded like the opposite of busy."

  I looked down at my coffee. "We had a falling out. She's not speaking to me anymore."

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's my fault." The words came out before I could stop them. "I did something she couldn't forgive. I thought I was doing the right thing, but..." I shook my head. "It doesn't matter. She's gone."

  Scott was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "My dad died five years ago. Heart attack, totally out of nowhere. And for about six months afterward, I pushed everyone away. Friends, family, everyone. I was convinced I needed to handle it alone, that asking for help was weakness."

  "What changed?"

  "I realized that being alone wasn't strength. It was just... loneliness dressed up in pride." He met my eyes. "I'm not saying your situation is the same. I'm just saying that sometimes, when everything falls apart, the worst thing you can do is try to hold all the pieces by yourself."

  I didn't know what to say to that. It was too close to the truth, too close to the hollow feeling that had been living in my chest since Kate hung up on me.

  "Anyway." Scott straightened, his tone lightening. "I have a radical proposal."

  "I'm listening."

  "You've had a terrible day. I've had an incredibly boring one. What if we got lunch? Somewhere with absolutely no connection to the design industry or corporate America or anything resembling real life?"

  "You still want to have lunch with me? After I ghosted you?"

  "I still want to have lunch with you." He smiled, and it was such a warm, uncomplicated smile that I felt something loosen in my chest. "Consider it a fresh start."

  I should have said no. I was a mess. I'd just been disowned by my own mother via voicemail. I definitely wasn't in the right headspace for a date.

  But Scott was looking at me with those amber eyes, and he'd made me feel slightly less terrible for the first time in days, and the alternative was going home to sit alone in my beautiful apartment with no one to talk to.

  "Okay," I said. "But I'm warning you, I'm terrible company right now."

  "Impossible." He stood, offering his hand. "I have excellent taste in company. Come on, I know a place."

  * * *

  The place Scott knew was a Vietnamese restaurant called Pho King Good, which should have been my first warning sign.

  "It's a pun," he explained as we stood outside, staring at the faded sign. "Pho King Good. Like 'fucking good.' Get it?"

  "I'm genuinely concerned you didn't think I got it."

  He looked at me with a smile so wide and crooked that his eyes crinkled at the corners and a dimple showed on his left cheek. Then he grabbed my hand. "Come on. The food is actually incredible. My buddy Christopher swears by their spring rolls."

  We went inside. The restaurant was nearly empty, which should have been my second warning sign given that this was the lunch rush literally anywhere else. A bored-looking hostess led us to a table by the window, where we were immediately assaulted by the smell of something burning.

  "That's... probably the kitchen," Scott said, with the confidence of someone who was not at all confident.

  The menu was sticky. The water glasses had lipstick stains. When our spring rolls arrived, they were somehow both cold and burnt, a culinary achievement I hadn't known was possible outside of microwaved hot pockets.

  Scott took one bite, made a face, and set down his chopsticks.

  "Okay," he said. "I owe you an apology and also probably some antibiotics."

  I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. The whole situation was so absurd, so perfectly terrible after my perfectly terrible morning, that something inside me just cracked.

  "This is the worst restaurant I've ever been to," I said, still laughing.

  “Christopher is dead to me." But Scott was grinning now, too. "I promised you a nice lunch and I've delivered a health code violation. Let me make it up to you."

  "How?"

  "Trust me?"

  I shouldn't have. I barely knew him. But his smile was infectious, and I hadn't laughed like this since Halloween, and sometimes you just have to say yes to the absurdity of the universe.

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  "Okay, Aladdin. But if the next place has rats, I'm feeding you to my tiger."

  * * *

  The next place was an arcade. Not a sad, dingy arcade with broken machines and sticky floors. A proper arcade, the old-school kind, with rows of vintage games and flashing lights and the constant cheerful chaos of digital explosions.

  "Retrograde," Scott announced, gesturing at the neon sign above the door. "Best arcade in the city. Guaranteed rat-free."

  "You're setting a very low bar."

  "After Pho King Good, I feel like I need to." He held the door open for me. "Come on. I'm going to destroy you at air hockey."

  "Bold words from a man who can't walk past a coffee table without causing an international incident."

  "My clumsiness is limited to stationary objects. Moving objects, I'm great at."

  Inside, the arcade was everything the restaurant wasn't: clean, bright, and genuinely fun. The walls were covered in vintage game posters and neon signs. A group of teenagers clustered around a fighting game, shouting encouragement at each other. The sound of electronic music and arcade beeps created a cheerful cacophony.

  Scott led me to the air hockey table with the confidence of a man who had done this before.

  "Best two out of three," he said, dropping tokens into the slot. "Loser buys dinner."

  "You're on."

  I hadn't played air hockey since college, but it turned out some things you don't forget. The puck shot back and forth between us, clattering against the sides, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn't thinking about Holloway or Kate or my powers or any of the chaos my life had become.

  I was just... playing. Having fun.

  Scott was good. Better than I expected. He scored the first goal with a trick shot that bounced off the corner, and his victory dance was so ridiculous that I almost let him score again while I was laughing.

  "One-nothing," he announced. "Prepare to be humiliated."

  "In your dreams."

  I focused. The puck came toward me and I returned it with a sharp snap of my wrist, sending it straight into his goal.

  "Lucky shot," he said.

  "Skill."

  We traded goals until we were tied at six each. The deciding point came down to a standoff, both of us hunched over the table, paddles ready. Scott feinted left. I didn't fall for it. He shot right and I blocked it, sending the puck back toward his goal in a perfect arc.

  He dove for it. Missed. The puck clattered into the goal slot, and I threw my hands up in victory.

  “Yes! Ha!" I pointed at him. "Who's humiliated now?"

  “Okay, okay." He held up his hands in surrender. "I bow to the master. But I demand a rematch. Different game."

  "Name it."

  We played Space Invaders, where Scott proved annoyingly competent and beat me by a mere two hundred points. We played Pac-Man, where I got eaten by ghosts so many times that Scott started providing color commentary like a nature documentary. "And here we see the yellow circle in its natural habitat, about to make a catastrophically bad decision."

  Then we found the carnival games.

  "Ring toss," Scott said, eyeing the rows of bottles. "Five dollars, three chances. I'm feeling lucky."

  "Go for it."

  He paid for a round and proceeded to miss all three throws spectacularly. One ring bounced off the bottles entirely. One landed on the floor. The third somehow ended up behind him.

  "The physics of this game are broken," he declared.

  "Uh-huh."

  "You try, then. If you're so good."

  I picked up the rings, felt their weight in my hand. Such simple objects. Just plastic circles. The code shimmered at the edges of my vision. I could see the trajectories, the angles, the way the rings would fall if I just nudged them a little...

  I tossed the first ring. It landed perfectly on a bottle neck.

  "Okay, that was impressive," Scott admitted.

  The second ring. Another perfect landing.

  "Are you a secret ring toss champion? Is that your hidden talent?"

  The third ring sailed through the air in a graceful arc and settled onto its bottle with a satisfying clink.

  "What the hell." Scott stared at me. "How did you do that?”

  "Natural talent," I said, accepting my prize: an oversized stuffed narwhal that was somehow both hideous and adorable. "And superior hand-eye coordination."

  "You hustled me. You're a professional ring tosser."

  "That's not a real thing."

  "It is now."

  I hugged the narwhal to my chest, grinning. I'd cheated, technically. Used my abilities to guide the rings just slightly, to ensure they landed where I wanted. But it was such a small thing, such a harmless thing, and the look on Scott's face was worth it.

  We played more games. I won a few more prizes using very subtle adjustments that Scott couldn't possibly have noticed. By the time we left, I had the narwhal, a rubber duck, and a small stuffed alien that Scott insisted on naming "Gerald."

  "Wait," I said. "The narwhal should be Gerald."

  "You're right. The narwhal is definitely a Gerald." He tucked the alien under his arm. "This one can be... Eduardo."

  "Eduardo the alien."

  "He has a sophisticated vibe."

  I laughed. Actually laughed, the kind that came from somewhere deep and surprised me with its existence.

  "This is the best first date I've ever been on," Scott said as we walked out into the evening air. "And I'm including the food poisoning portion."

  I stopped. "This was a date?"

  "Was it not?" He looked suddenly uncertain. "I mean, it could not be. It could be two new friends hanging out. I'm flexible."

  "No, I..." I clutched Gerald the narwhal, feeling my cheeks warm. "I'd like it to be a date. If that's what it was."

  Scott's smile was like sunrise, his dimple showing up on his left cheek again. "Then it was definitely a date. The best worst date in history."

  "The pho was pretty bad."

  "Pho king bad. But the company was excellent." He held out his hand. "Can I walk you to your car? Or your bus stop? Or whatever form of transportation you used to get here?"

  I took his hand. His fingers were warm, slightly calloused. Normal. Human.

  "I drove," I said. "But I wouldn't mind walking for a bit first."

  We walked. We talked about nothing important: favorite movies, worst childhood haircuts, whether hot dogs were sandwiches (Scott said yes, I said absolutely not, we agreed to disagree). By the time we reached my car, the sun had set and the streetlights had come on, and I realized I hadn't thought about my mom or Kate or any of my problems for hours.

  "I'd like to do this again," Scott said. "Maybe somewhere with actual edible food next time."

  "I'd like that too."

  “Friday? There's this bookstore I know. They have a café that's actually good. We could browse, get coffee, argue about literature."

  "That sounds perfect."

  He squeezed my hand, then let go. "It's a date. A real one this time. No food poisoning, I promise."

  I drove home with Gerald the narwhal in the passenger seat and something that felt dangerously like hope blooming in my chest.

  * * *

  That night, I wrote in my journal for the first time in days:

  November 10th

  His name is Scott. He's an IT consultant. He took me to the worst restaurant in the city and then to an arcade where I definitely didn't cheat at carnival games.

  I laughed today. Like, really laughed. I'd forgotten what that felt like.

  Mom uninvited me to Thanksgiving. Said she didn't want me to be "embarrassed" showing up without a job. Kate still hasn't returned my calls.

  But today, for a few hours, none of that mattered.

  Maybe that's enough for now.

  * * *

  Friday, November 11th

  The bookstore was called The Dusty Page, and it was exactly the kind of place I would have walked past a dozen times without noticing. In fact, up until I’d been fired I had walked past it without entering.

  Tucked between a dry cleaner and a nail salon, it had a hand-painted sign and windows crowded with tottering stacks of books. Inside, it smelled like old paper and coffee and something vaguely cinnamon-y. Scott was waiting for me near the entrance, two cups of coffee already in hand.

  "I got you an Americano," he said. "Based on your order at the coffee shop. If that's weird, I can get you something else."

  "It's not weird. It's thoughtful." I took the cup, wrapping my hands around its warmth. "You remembered my order?"

  "I have an excellent memory for the coffee preferences of women I accidentally spill drinks on." He said it lightly, but there was something earnest underneath. "Come on, let me show you around."

  The store was a labyrinth. Shelves at odd angles, creating little nooks and dead ends. A cat lounged on top of the mystery section, eyeing us with disdain. Hand-written signs pointed to various genres: "Dragons & Destiny This Way," "Heartbreak & Healing," "Books We Haven't Read But The Covers Are Pretty."

  "This place is amazing," I said.

  "Well, well. She returns."

  Art appeared from behind the poetry section, French press in one hand, two mismatched mugs in the other. He looked exactly the same as the first time I'd been in. Cardigan, crooked glasses, pen behind the ear. Like the store had preserved him in amber.

  "Art, this is Scott. Scott, this is Art. He owns this place."

  "Own is a strong word," Art said, shaking Scott's hand. "More like I'm the building's longest-running squatter." He looked between us with the practiced assessment of a man who'd been reading people as long as he'd been reading books. "Coffee? I just pressed a fresh pot. And by pot I mean this contraption that Margaret brought back from a flea market in 1994 that still somehow works."

  "We actually just grabbed some," Scott said, lifting the cups he'd brought.

  "From where?" Art peered at the cups with suspicion.

  "The place on Third."

  "That's not coffee. That's hot brown water with ideas above its station." He poured two mugs from his French press anyway and set them on the counter next to Hemingway, who didn't move. "In case you change your minds."

  Art studied Scott for a moment, then turned to me. "He a reader?"

  "Jury's still out," I said. "He reads nonfiction. Spy things. Technology things."

  "Spy things." Art repeated it the way you'd say "fast food." Not hostile, just disappointed. He turned to Scott. "We'll fix that. Give me time."

  Scott looked at me with an expression that said what have you gotten me into?

  I smiled. I couldn't help it.

  "Found it last year. I come here whenever I need to remember that the world isn't entirely terrible." Scott led me down a narrow aisle. "So. What's your guilty pleasure genre? Don't lie, everyone has one."

  "I don't have guilty pleasures. I have pleasures."

  "Diplomatic. But evasive." He stopped in front of a section labeled "Fantastical Romance: Enter At Your Own Risk." "What about this?"

  My cheeks flushed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Uh-huh." He pulled a book off the shelf at random. "Let's see. 'The Fae Lord's Forbidden Bride.' That sounds completely normal and not at all ridiculous."

  "Those books are very popular."

  "I'm sure they are." He was grinning now. "Come on, Sam. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

  I looked at the shelf. Looked at Scott. Looked back at the shelf.

  "Fine." I reached past him and pulled out a book with a dramatic cover featuring a dark-haired woman and a winged man shrouded in shadow. "Throne of the Underdark. It's the fourth book in a series I've been listening to on audiobook."

  "Throne of the Underdark," Scott repeated, examining the cover. "Is this the one with the fae? You mentioned fae politics at the arcade."

  "I mentioned fae politics?"

  "When you were explaining why the carnival game was rigged. You said it was 'more corrupt than the Unseelie Court,' and then you got embarrassed and changed the subject."

  I had said that. I'd forgotten. "Okay, so how did you put two and two together?"

  "Told you. Excellent memory. Also I Googled it when you went to the restroom." He flipped the book over to read the back. "'Aurora never expected to find herself at the mercy of the Underdark's most dangerous lord. But Allister has plans for her. Plans that will force her to choose between the human world she's always known and the dark power awakening inside her.' This sounds incredibly dramatic."

  "It is. The whole series is dramatic. There's a prophecy and secret bloodlines and this whole thing about the courts of light and dark being at war. Aurora starts out as this ordinary human but then it turns out she's betrothed to the King of the Light Court, but he's not the kind person everyone thinks he is, and then Allister, the dark fae, kidnaps her but he's actually not evil like everyone assumes..." I stopped, my cheeks flushing and my ears burning. "I'm rambling."

  "No, keep going." Scott lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the floor, back against the shelf. "I want to hear about this. Sit. Tell me everything."

  "You can't possibly be interested in faerie politics."

  "I'm interested in things that make you light up like that." He patted the floor next to him. "Come on. From the beginning."

  So I sat on the dusty floor of The Dusty Page, coffee in hand, and told Scott about Aurora and Allister and the Underdark Court. About how Aurora was supposedly "plain and unremarkable" but obviously was going to turn out to be special. About Allister's brooding and his wings and his tragic backstory. About the enemies-to-lovers arc that was so predictable and so satisfying.

  Scott listened. Really listened. He asked questions ("Wait, so the Seelie and Unseelie courts are different how?") and made comments ("This Allister guy sounds like he needs therapy") and laughed at all the right places.

  "The fifth book comes out next month," I said. "I've been counting down. It's supposed to be the big climax of the series."

  "And you listen to them on audiobook?"

  "The narrator does all the voices. She's incredible. Very dramatic for the romantic scenes."

  "The romantic scenes." Scott raised an eyebrow. "How romantic are we talking?"

  "Very." My face was definitely red. "There's a lot of... tension. And eventual resolution of that tension."

  "Faerie porn!"

  "It's called romantasy."

  "Fae smut with world-building.”

  "I hate you."

  "You love it." He grinned. "Okay, I have a proposal. I'm going to buy this book" (he held up the first book in the series) "and read it, and then we're going to have an extremely serious discussion about Underdark politics and Allister's commitment issues."

  "You're not going to read it."

  "I absolutely am. I need to understand what I'm dealing with here." He stood, offering me his hand. "Come on. Let's see what else this place has."

  We wandered the store for another hour. Scott bought Throne of Light plus a spy thriller he'd been meaning to read. I bought the hardcover pre-order of the fifth book (I could pick it up from this store when it released), a couple of sci-fi novels about a modern take on Frankenstein's monster, and a collection of essays about modern design practices that I'd been eyeing.

  Art rang us up at the counter, Hemingway supervising from his spot by the register. He wrapped each book in brown paper, which seemed unnecessary and completely perfect.

  When he got to Scott's copy of Throne of Light, he paused.

  "Well." He looked at Scott over the top of his crooked glasses. "She got you."

  "She made a compelling case," Scott said.

  "She didn't have to. The book does the work." Art wrapped it carefully, smoothing the paper with those ink-stained fingers. "Margaret read it first. Came home and said, 'Arthur, sit down, you need to read this immediately.' I told her I don't read fantasy. She said, 'You don't read fantasy yet.'" He handed Scott the wrapped book. "She was right. Come back and tell me what you think. I have opinions."

  "He has opinions about everything," I said.

  "I'm seventy-four years old. Opinions are all I have left." He slid a business card across the counter. It was hand-cut from cardstock, slightly uneven, with "The Dusty Page" in careful print and a phone number below it. "Book club meets the first Saturday of every month. Only three regulars and two of them are over seventy, so we could use some fresh blood."

  "I'll think about it," I said.

  "That's what everyone says. Then they come once and they're stuck." He smiled. The lines on his face folded into something so genuinely kind that I felt a pang in my chest I couldn't quite name. "You two have a good night. And come back soon. Hemingway gets lonely."

  Hemingway yawned, displaying an impressive array of teeth, and went back to sleep.

  At the café, we got a table by the window. The chair wobbled beneath me, one leg slightly shorter than the others. Without thinking, I reached down and pressed my finger against the wood, letting a tiny bit of code flow through. The wobble stopped.

  "Much better," I murmured.

  "Hm?" Scott looked up from his coffee.

  "Nothing. Just getting comfortable."

  We talked until the café started closing. About our families (his mom was a retired teacher in Ohio, his dad had passed away five years ago, he had a sister who was "weirdly into CrossFit"). About college (he'd studied computer science at a state school, worked his way up as a software engineer in IT, then started his own consulting business). About what we wanted from life (vague things, future things, the kind of conversation you have when you're not ready to stop talking but you've run out of present topics).

  "This has been really nice," Scott said as we walked out into the night. "I know I keep saying that, but it keeps being true."

  "It has been nice." I hugged my bag of books to my chest. "Thank you. For the coffee and the bookstore and for not making fun of my fae smut."

  "Excuse me, I believe the politically correct term is 'romantasy'."

  "Shut up."

  He laughed. "Same time next week? I'll have read at least half the book by then, I promise."

  "Deal."

  This time, when we reached my car, he hugged me. A real hug, warm and slightly lingering. I breathed in the smell of him (coffee and something woodsy) and tried not to think about how long it had been since someone had held me like this.

  "Get home safe," he said.

  "You too."

  I watched him walk away, and felt the unfamiliar warmth of having something to look forward to.

  November 11th

  Second date. He bought the book. He's actually going to read it.

  I don't remember the last time someone wanted to understand something just because it mattered to me.

  Practiced code-switching today. Can now toggle between seeing the code and not seeing it almost instantly. Still not sure what practical application this has, but it feels like progress.

  Still no word from Kate. I've stopped trying to call. It feels like giving up, but also like respecting her wishes. I don't know which is right.

  * * *

  November 14-20

  Scott texted me every day. Not in an overwhelming way, just... checking in. Sharing things. A photo of Eduardo the alien "reading" Throne of Light. A complaint about a client who didn't understand basic password security. A meme about faeries that made me snort coffee out my nose.

  Me: You're reading it? Actually reading it?

  Scott: Page 47. Aurora just got kidnapped. This Allister guy seems like a red flag factory.

  Me: Keep reading.

  Scott: Oh no. Is he going to become less of a red flag? That's worse somehow.

  We went to dinner on Wednesday. A little Italian place with checkered tablecloths and candles in wine bottles. Scott had opinions about the bread (excellent) and the wine (acceptable) and Allister's approach to communication (deeply problematic).

  "He just kidnapped her," Scott said, gesturing with a breadstick. "And now he's being all mysterious and brooding about it. Use your words, man."

  "That's the whole point. He can't express his feelings directly because of his trauma."

  "His trauma does not excuse his behavior. He needs therapy, not a love interest."

  "You sound like me when I first read it."

  "And now you're defending him?"

  "He grows." I smiled. "Keep reading."

  We went to a movie on Friday. Some action thing that Scott had been excited about. Halfway through, I realized I was watching him more than the screen, the way the flickering light played across his face, the way he laughed at the jokes, the way his hand kept drifting toward mine on the armrest.

  I moved my hand closer. Our fingers brushed. Neither of us moved away.

  After the movie, we got ice cream and walked along the river, debating whether the protagonist's decisions made any sense (they didn't) and whether the sequel would be better (unlikely).

  "I'm on chapter twelve," Scott announced. "Allister just saved Aurora from the Light Court soldiers. I'm starting to understand the appeal."

  "You are?"

  "He's still a disaster. But he's a disaster who's trying." Scott glanced at me. "There's something compelling about someone who's broken but keeps trying anyway."

  I didn't know what to say to that. It felt too close to something real.

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