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“Actually, we were both just leaving,” Dan said. He reached for Tempest’s jacket and held it out for her. Tempest hesitated for only a half second, then slid an arm in.

“See you down the road, Vance,” she called over her shoulder.

“Then you’d better say your prayers,” Vance spoke through a mouthful of potatoes.

“Yuck!” Tempest said, as soon as they were out of the bar. “That guy gives me the eeps.”

“Is that worse than the creeps?” Dan asked.

“Way worse,” Tempest confirmed. “The eeps is like the creeps with a little gag reflex thrown in.”

The cold hit cleanly after the warmth of the room. The gravel lot crunched beneath their feet. They were walking slowly; not toward any car in particular, just out into the night.

“You know, the earlier versions of Orpheus are way more interesting,” Tempest suddenly said. She had her hands in her pockets, still. “Eurydice isn’t as much of a victim. She has free will and she made a choice. She stayed because she wanted to.”

“That’s a lonely read.”

“It’s an autonomous one.”

Dan considered this. The lamplight was catching the fiery red streaks in her hair and he was trying not to notice. “You don’t think she wanted to go back?”

“I think she’d already done the hard work of accepting where she was. And then someone shows up and asks her to trust him and walk into the dark.” She paused. “I think we all know how that usually ends.”

They had drifted toward the bus shelter at the edge of the lot without either of them suggesting it. The plastic roof cut the wind. It was quieter here, set back from the bar entrance, the lamplight softer. They stepped inside and paused, still chatting.

“Sounds like Eurydice had trust issues,” Dan said.

“She trusted her gut. Orpheus was the one with trust issues. He looked back because he was afraid she wouldn’t come with him. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s what makes it tragic.”

“Orpheus didn’t look back because he didn’t trust her.” Dan sighed “He looked back because he didn’t trust himself.”

“He didn’t trust himself to do what?”

“To be worthy of her love.” Dan picked at a flyer tacked up on the wall of the shelter. “He felt certain she’d see through him eventually and be on her way.”

Tempest was quiet for a moment. “Is that what you think, or is that what you know?”

He felt that question land. “Both, maybe.”

“That’s a such an Orpheus answer.”

“You’re drawing a comparison between me and the son of Morpheus?” Dan stopped and folded his arms across his chest. He tilted his head back to study her.

“Oh, come on. We both know you were already thinking about it.” She bit her lip and tilted her chin up, a challenge. “Tell me, what would you have done? If you were him.”

“I totally would have looked,” Dan admitted. “If I loved someone as much as Orpheus loved Eurydice, I would not have been able to resist.”

“That’s the trap that Hades laid,” she said. “Everyone knows we’re all fools when it comes to love.”

The cold had put color in her cheeks again. Her curls were moving in the draft that cut through the shelter, and he had the distracting thought that they were far springier than they looked, that there was more length to them than their shape suggested. There was more of everything to her than first appeared.

“You know, some say that fortune favors the bold,” he said. It came out quieter than he intended. “But some say she favors the prepared. I keep going back and forth on that one.”

Something shifted in Tempest’s expression. She turned to face him fully.

“I only came here tonight because I wanted to see you again,” he confessed. “I couldn’t get you off my mind.”

She didn’t answer immediately. When she did, it was with her feet, not her words. She took a tiny half step towards him. Her eyes were midnight blue, and very close, and the steam from her breath was almost reaching him.