I stand. I don't know why. Instinct, or something my mother taught me about standing when someone enters a room, or just the need to be on my feet when the bravest person I've ever met walks toward me.
He crosses the restaurant. Twelve tables. An eternity. His hands are in his jacket pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched, every line of his body saying I'm here but I'm ready to leave.
He stops at the table. Looks at me. His jaw is tight. His eyes are guarded. Not the full mask, not the customer service blank. A door that's closed but not locked.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi." My voice comes out rough. "You came."
"You said you'd be here."
"I said I'd be here whether you came or not."
"I know." He pulls his hands from his pockets. They're shaking slightly. "I almost didn't."
"I'm glad you did."
He looks at the table, the bread, the water, the candle, the two place settings. Then back at me. His expression shifts. Not softening, not yet. Assessment. The careful evaluation of someone deciding whether to stay.
"Sit down?" I ask. Not a command. A question.
He sits.
I sit across from him. The candle between us throws warm light on his face, catches the dark of his eyes. He looksexhausted and beautiful and so young that my chest aches, and I need to say this right or I'm going to lose him.
"I owe you an explanation," I say.
"You don't owe me anything."
"I do. Because what happened on the sidewalk, I did that badly."
"Silas —"
"Please. Let me say this." I wait until he nods, barely. "I didn't stop because of your age. I stopped because of mine."
His eyebrows, the argumentative ones, draw together.
"I'm thirty-two. I have a home, a family, a pride that would do anything for me. You're twenty-one and you have hardly anyone and almost nothing. And when I had you against that wall and you said don't stop, I panicked. Not because you're too young. Because I have so much more than you, and I was afraid that what you wanted wasn't me. It was what I represent."
Devin's face goes very still.
"Safety," I continue. "Stability. Someone who stays. And you deserve all of those things, but I need them to not be the reason you're with me. I need it to be the books and the notes and the smiley faces and the way you argue about Eragon. I need it to be real."
The stillness holds for a long moment. The restaurant murmurs around us, silverware, conversation, the kitchen working. The candle flickers.
"Are you done?" Devin asks quietly.
"Yeah."
"Okay." He picks up the bread basket. Tears off a piece. Eats it. Takes his time. Then: "You're an idiot."
I blink.
"You think I'm with you because you're stable? Silas, I didn't even know you had a home for the first few days. I thought you were some quiet guy who read books in a library. You could have been homeless yourself and I still would have put that note in your pastry box."
"Dev —"
"I'm not done." He tears off another piece of bread. His hands have stopped shaking. "I've been in six foster homes. I've had people offer me safety my entire life, caseworkers, foster parents, shelter staff. You know what I've never had? Someone who cared what I thought about Eragon."