He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Have you validated your ticket?”
His lips twitched. “Yes, Da—” He swallowed. “Yes.”
My heart might have cracked a little.
The announcement of the train’s imminent arrival shattered the moment.
Our time together had been reduced to seconds.
Do something.Saysomething.
Kieran got there first.
He took a deep breath, then closed the gap between us. I met him without hesitation, my hand at the back of his neck. For a few seconds he stared into my eyes, and then I kissed him, not giving a damn who saw us, not bothering to keep it restrained.
This was not a moment for ambiguity.
He responded immediately, and for a brief, contained space in time, there was nothing else, no platform, no passengers, no train pulling in, just the two of us.
I pulled back first, because if I didn’t, I’d never let him go. My hand remained at his neck for a moment longer, and then I let it fall.
“You’ll be all right,” I said, willing it to be true because I couldn’t accept anything else.
He met my gaze. “I know.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Thank you. For everything.”
There was so much I wanted to say, but couldn’t.
The train came to a stop and the doors opened, its passengers spilling out onto the platform in a wave of bodies and noise. Kieran picked up his bag and turned to get on board. Then he stopped and glanced back at me.
It was the moment that could have shifted everything, the point at which action would have changed the outcome.
And I didn’t take it.
I held his gaze but I didn’t call him back.
He boarded, the doors closed, and the train moved gradually out of sight.
And just like that, the space he’d occupied was empty.
I remained where I was for a moment, and then I turned and headed for the elevators.
I’d known exactly what that moment required, what it would have meant to act, and I’d chosen not to. Not because I didn’tunderstand it, and certainly not because I didn’t feel it, but because I did, and I hadn’t decided what I was prepared to do about it.
Kieran
The doors closed, the train jolted into action, and I didn’t move, not even when the platform began to slide past the window in slow, disjointed fragments. I simply stood there, clutching the handle of my suitcase.
I hadn’t watched Stefan, because all I could feel was the pull to turn back, to push through the doors before they fully sealed, to step back onto the platform and close the distance I’d just created.
It was too late to do anything. The moment had already passed.
Except Stefan doesn’t miss moments—he chooses them.
And he hadn’t chosen this one.
The train picked up speed, and I stared at my reflection in the glass panel of the door.