No theories. No reassurances. No bullshit.
He glanced at me over his shoulder then. His eyes were tired but steady.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said.
I didn’t know if that was true. I didn’t know if there was anything left to figure out, or if the world outside those shuttered doors had already moved past the point of figuring.
But I nodded anyway.
Because for now, standing in this empty cafeteria with crappy coffee brewing and lights overhead, he was the only solid thing I had left. And I was going to hold on to that for as long as I could.
* * *
I lifted my head from where it had been resting on the table when Callan set the cup down in front of me.
The ceramic clicked against the surface. Steam curled up from the rim. Beside it, he placed a wrapped muffin, still sealed in plastic from the rack.
I looked at it for a second.
He’d made me coffee. He’d brought me food.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
My voice was fragile in a way I didn’t like.
I wrapped my hands around the cup, and the heat seepedinto my fingers. I held on tighter than I needed to. Lifted it. Took a sip.
Warm. Bitter, but right now, the best thing I’d ever tasted.
Heat spread through my chest and loosened something that had been wound tight since yesterday.
“God,” I breathed, closing my eyes briefly. “That’s good.”
When I opened them, he was watching me.
Not casually, like the way you glance at someone across a room.
His eyes moved over my face, and they stayed there longer than they should have. The way he was looking at me made my stomach tighten unexpectedly, low and warm.
“Yeah,” he said.
His voice was quieter, softer around the edges.
“Good.”
But he didn’t sound like he was talking about the coffee.
The moment stretched. Neither of us moved.
I suddenly noticed everything. The way my hair was tangled and flattened on one side. The dried tear tracks I could still feel tight on my skin. That I was sitting here in yesterday’s clothes, drinking coffee at four or five in the morning with the one person who had spent the last six years making me feel like I didn’t belong anywhere near him.
I looked away first. My fingers tightened around the cup.
I had to be mistaken.
This was Callan.
Callan, who corrected everything I did. Who found fault in work I’d spent hours on and handed it back without a word of acknowledgment. Callan, who sighed audibly when I walked into a room, as if my presence alone was an inconvenience he hadn’t time for.