Page 26 of In the Crease

“That’s very you.”

“I know. I’m consistent.”

Ryan’s door opened at six fifty. He came out dressed, saw us at the table, said, “Morning” to both of us, and went to the coffee. He poured a cup and leaned against the counter. There wasn’t too much to say, not with all three of us there.

“Morning,” I replied.

“Are you all packed?” he asked.

“All packed.”

He held my gaze for a beat, something unfinished in it, but I got up and headed back to Griffin’s room to grab my bag. It was time to go. Griffin appeared in the doorway of his room while I was zipping my duffel.

“I’ll take that.” He grabbed the bag before I could argue. “Going to go warm up the truck. Take your time.”

He said it casually. Like it was nothing. But he didn’t look at me when he said it, and he’d grabbed my bag without being asked, and Griffin Callahan did not do things without a reason.

I stood in the quiet apartment for a moment.

Then I walked out to the kitchen.

Ryan was still at the counter, his coffee in his hands, a navy sweatshirt on—different one, almost identical to the one I’d packed. He looked at me when I came in. The full look. Not the redirected one he’d been using all weekend when he caught himself looking too long. His full attention.

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

Then he set down his mug and crossed the kitchen and pulled me in without asking. Just his arms around me, solid and warm, my face against his chest.

I let myself have it—his arms, the warmth of him, all of it. Just for a second.

He pressed his lips to the top of my head, slow and deliberate, and held them there for one long breath.

Then he let go.

“Have a good flight,” he said.

“Thank you.” I meant the airport and the hat and the tea and the pond and the tailgate and the dark drive home and the fact that he’d held the line when I hadn’t been entirely sure I wanted him to. “For all of it.”

He nodded once. The single nod that said everything and committed to nothing and somehow still felt like a complete sentence.

“It was good to meet you,” he said. “Officially.”

There was a weight to the word. Officially. Like he was acknowledging that something had happened here that the first meeting two years ago hadn’t been, and we both knew it, and neither of us was going to say that out loud.

“Yeah,” I said. I held his gaze for a beat longer than was strictly necessary. “It was.”

I went down the stairs.

I did not look back.

I wanted to.

Griffin was in the truck with the heat running. He didn’t say anything when I got in, just put it in reverse and pulled out of the lot. I looked up at the apartment window as we passed.

Ryan was there.

Holding his mug of coffee in one hand, he raised the other. Just once. Just that.

I faced forward and watched Minnesota go.