Page 53 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

“Not the way we used to be.” He reaches for his coffee after a moment, and when he looks back at me, the old softness has folded into something quieter. “Life got complicated, and then we let it stay that way.”

I nod and take another bite of soup. I want to ask his brother’s name, where he is, whether they call each other on birthdays or only when something breaks badly enough to require family, but Dash has given me a door and stopped with his hand on the frame.

I don’t push it open for him.

My phone lights beside my elbow before the silence can change shape. Mara’s name appears across the screen, and I tilt it enough to read the message without picking it up.

Alive?

I take a picture of my bowl, the sandwich, and the fries, catching the edge of Dash’s plate because his hand is still near it. Then I send it before I can overthink the proof of company.

Her response comes almost immediately. That is food. I’m choosing to be moved.

A second message follows. Tell whoever owns the other plate that I approve of the fries.

I press my lips together and turn the screen toward Dash.

He reads it, then looks at the plate between us. “Mara has standards.”

“She has opinions.”

“They appear compatible.”

I answer Mara with one word. Noted.

Then I turn the phone facedown and slide it closer to the wall.

Dash sees the movement. He doesn’t comment on it, and after a few seconds, he asks whether I had any siblings, letting the conversation continue from a safer direction because he seems to understand that safer doesn’t always mean less honest.

I tell him I didn’t. I tell him my mother used to say I was enough work for three children, which was probably true during the year I decided every library book needed to be catalogued by emotional severity. Dash asks what category had the most entries, and I tell him betrayal, obviously, because I was twelve and dramatic.

His smile returns slowly.

We stay until the soup cools and the waitress drops the check near the edge of the table. I reach for it first, and Dash lets me have it.

That matters more than it should.

He doesn’t argue when I pay. He only leaves the tip in cash after I sign the receipt, adding it quietly beneath the edge of his empty coffee cup. Outside, the cold has sharpened enough that my breath clouds in front of me, and the diner windows glow behind us as we cross the lot.

Dash walks me to my car again.

This time, I know exactly how far he will have to walk afterward.

He stands beside the driver’s door while I unlock it, the wind moving through the open space between us. His hair has come loose near his forehead, and there is a faint coffee stain at the edge of his sleeve that I don’t remember seeing before dinner.

“Thank you,” I say, my hand resting on the door handle.

“For dinner?”

“For walking me out every night.” I look toward the road that leads back to campus, then back at him. “And for telling me why.”

Dash’s gaze stays on me. “You’re welcome.”

I reach for his sleeve before I can fold the impulse away. My fingers close lightly around the wool near his wrist, just long enough to feel the warmth of his arm beneath the fabric.

He doesn’t move.

The touch lasts only a few seconds, but my body pays attention to every one of them. When I let go, Dash opens my door and steps back so I can get in.