Chapter 1

 

Chapter One:  Dinner Reunion

Dinner

I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early. I always do. There’s a comfort in being early, in feeling like I’m walking into a moment on purpose instead of stumbling into it. The place wasn’t fancy, just warm light, the soft clink of glassware, and the hush of the ocean slipping in through the open terrace doors. Neutral ground. A place for catching up, not rewriting history. We’d been messaging ever since she mentioned her conference in South Florida. “If you have time, it would be nice to see you,” she’d written. Nothing loaded. Nothing suggested. Just a familiar name after too many years, tugging at something in me I’d assumed had gone quiet. When the host led her toward the table, I stood. Kimmy paused for half a heartbeat before she reached me, eyes searching my face for the man she remembered. Then she smiled—not with surprise, but with recognition. A choice, not an accident. “Mark,” she said. Hearing my name in her voice again folded the years between us into something smaller. “I’m really glad you came,” I said. “I am too,” she replied. “I told myself not to overthink it. So I just said yes before I talked myself out of it.” We sat. Menus were opened and mostly ignored. Candlelight caught in the curve of her glass, in the waves of her hair. We compared the broad strokes of the years we’d missed: her move to North Carolina, my quiet drift into semi retirement.

The students who still emailed me. The clients who still called her. The conversation stretched easily, like a familiar road we were walking at a new pace. Every so often the words slowed, but the silence between us never felt empty. It felt full—of the history we shared, of the questions we hadn’t yet asked. At one point I caught myself just looking at her. Not at the memory of the young woman she’d been, but at the woman in front of me now. When she noticed, she didn’t look away. “You’re quieter than I remember,” she said gently. “Age,” I answered. “And maybe a little awe.” Her lips curved. “Awe?” “You turned out remarkable,” I said. “I always knew you’d do well. I just didn’t know you’d shine quite like this.” Color rose in her cheeks, but there was no embarrassment in it, only warmth. “You always did know how to make me feel seen,” she said. “Even when I wasn’t sure who I was yet.”

Terrace Bar

The check arrived quietly, slipped onto the table between our nearly empty glasses. Neither of us reached for it right away. It sat there like a reminder that the evening could end here if we let it. Kimmy traced the edge of the leather with her fingertip, eyes lowered as if she were rehearsing something before saying it out loud. “Can I ask you something?” she said, voice softer than the murmur around us. “Of course.” She looked up, and I saw it in her expression—a careful blend of hope and caution, like a tide about to turn. “I know this was supposed to be just dinner,” she said. “Just a reunion so we could finally say we’d seen each other again. But…” She exhaled, a small, nervous breath that trembled on the way out. “I’m not ready for tonight to be over yet. Would you—” a tiny laugh caught in her throat—“come to the terrace bar with me? Just for one more drink?” It wasn’t flirty. It wasn’t casual. It was brave. “Yes,” I said, after a breath that felt like a choice. “I’d like that very much.” Relief loosened her shoulders. “Good,” she said, almost to herself. “Before I overthink it.” We walked out through the open doors toward the terrace, following the string lights to the rooftop bar. The city stretched below us in soft shapes and scattered points of light; the ocean hovered beyond, dark and steady. She ordered red wine. I ordered white. When our glasses arrived, she lifted hers toward mine. “To what?” I asked. She thought for a moment, gaze drifting toward the horizon. “To the fact that this is real,” she said quietly. “Not just a story I tell myself about what might have been.” Our glasses met with a soft chime that felt like the sound of a page turning. We talked more slowly up there. Vulnerabilities slipped out between jokes and memories. She told me about cold North Carolina winters, about power outages and neighbors who arrived with candles and casseroles. I told her about quiet Florida nights, about a house that sometimes felt too big for one person and too small for all the memories it held. At some point our knees touched under the small table, and neither of us moved away. “I always was fond of you,” she said suddenly, eyes on the rim of her glass. I huffed out a surprised breath. I said lightly. “You had a lot of options.” She smiled, then shook her head. “You made me feel like I mattered,” she said. “As a person. You still do.” I let that settle between us. “Even when we hadn’t seen each other and if we had not messaged, I often thought of you,” I answered. “In more ways than you probably know.” She met my eyes then, her expression open and searching. “I’m here now, Mark,” she said softly. “I know,” I said. “I think I’m only just now letting myself see that.”

The Hotel Room

They left the terrace bar slower than they had arrived. The elevator ride back down to her floor was quiet, our shoulders just close enough to feel the presence of the other without quite touching. The hallway outside her room was hushed, the carpet swallowing our footsteps. She stopped at her door and slid the keycard from her bag, then paused with it resting against the lock. She opened the door, stepped in, paused and turned……

Beach Walk

We had a few hours before check out and her flight. Neither of us wanted to spend them staring at separate screens in separate rooms. So we walked. The beach was calmer in the late morning, the sand cool and firm where the waves had washed over it. We kicked off our shoes and let the water curl around our ankles. She walked close enough that our arms brushed now and then. Sometimes she took my hand; sometimes she didn’t. Neither felt wrong. “I didn’t expect this,” she admitted, watching a line of pelicans skim the surface of the water. “Me either,” I said. “I don’t want it to just be a perfect little weekend that we file away under ‘almost,’” she said. “I don’t want it to turn into something we only talk about when we’re feeling nostalgic.” “What do you want it to be?” I asked. She stopped walking then and turned to face me. The wind tugged at her hair; the sun sat higher, turning the water bright. “I want to find out what this looks like when we’re not in a hotel,” she said. “When the coffee isn’t made for us and the beds aren’t turned down. When it’s just…life. Your life there. My life in North Carolina.” I nodded slowly. “It won’t be simple,” I said. “No,” she agreed. “But I’d rather deal with complicated truth than stay safe with pretending.” “I can live with that,” I said. “Or at least, I’d like to try.”

Goodbye

Back at the hotel entrance, the quiet reality of departure settled around us. Her bag was slung over her shoulder now, boarding pass on her phone, ride to the airport already on its way. My keys felt heavy in my pocket. “Thank you,” she said. “For what?” “For not making this harder than it has to be,” she answered. “For not pretending this was nothing. And for not trying to force it into something it isn’t ready to be yet.” I nodded, the lump in my throat making words feel cumbersome. “I hope your flight’s smooth,” I managed. “I hope you get home safe,” she said. We stood there for another moment, the kind that stretches longer on the inside than the outside. Then she stepped forward and rested her forehead briefly against mine, our breaths mingling in the small space between us. “No promises?” she asked quietly. “Just one,” I said. “I won’t pretend this didn’t mean anything.” Her smile wobbled, but it stayed. “I can live with that,” she said. Then her ride pulled up to the curb, and she was gone, the glass doors closing behind her with a soft sigh.

North Carolina

Two weeks later, I was the one watching unfamiliar scenery roll past my windshield. I told myself the drive to North Carolina was just an excuse to get out of town for a few days. To clear my head. To see someplace greener than the flat sprawl of my usual route between home and the grocery store. But when I turned onto her street and saw her house—a modest place with a wide front porch and paint that had seen a few summers—I knew better. I wasn’t there

for the scenery. I had barely put the car into park when the front door swung open. Kimmy burst out onto the porch in running shoes and a soft yellow sundress, hair pulled back, cheeks flushed like she’d been watching the window and couldn’t wait any longer. She took the steps two at a time and crossed the yard at a jog. I got as far as opening the car door before she was there, folding herself against me in a hug that felt less like hello and more like finally. “You came,” she said into my shoulder. “You asked me to,” I answered. She leaned back just enough to look at me, her hands resting lightly against my chest. Whatever uncertainty I’d carried with me across state lines loosened under the way she was looking at me. I dipped my head; she rose onto her toes. The kiss that met in the middle felt different from all the ones before it. Not careful. Not hesitant. Just right. Later, we sat side by side on her porch, glasses sweating on the little table between us as evening settled in around the trees. “I don’t know exactly how we’re going to make this work,” she said. “The distance. The calendars. All of it.” “Me either,” I admitted. “But I know I don’t want to not try just because it’s complicated.” She nodded slowly. “Good,” she said. “Because I was going to say the same thing.” When the sky deepened and the first few stars appeared, I stretched and glanced toward the hallway visible through the screen door. “So,” I said, aiming for lightness, “which way to the guest room?” She turned her head, studying me with an expression I was still learning but already loved—the one she wore when she was about to say something that mattered. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t need it,” she said. “I’d rather you stayed with me.” There was no coyness in it. No game. Just an open door. Something in my chest went soft and bright all at once. “I’d like that,” I said quietly. Later, in her room instead of the guest room I never saw, we went through the small, ordinary rituals of getting ready for bed—brushing teeth, turning off lights, checking that the front door was locked. The kind of tasks that feel like routine until you’re doing them beside someone new. When we finally settled under the covers, she curled into the curve of my body as if she’d always fit there. Her hand came to rest, as it always seemed to, over my heart. For a long moment I just lay there, eyes open in the dark, listening to the chorus of crickets outside and the steady rhythm of her breathing