Chapter 6: What He Carried Home
The rush thinned out after eleven. Two tables left with coffee going cold and a guy in a county road crew vest scrolling on his phone by the window. The door was still open. Cold overcast air kept sliding in every time someone moved past on the sidewalk.
Ethan hadn't come inside.
He'd moved to the bench we kept against the brick, the one where people waited for takeout. He sat with his knees a little apart, hands on his thighs, looking straight ahead at the street. He wasn't on his phone. He wasn't trying to get my attention. He just sat there in his uniform like he was waiting to be told it was okay to be there.
I wiped the same clean spot on the counter and watched him through the glass. That's when I really looked at his boots.
They were scuffed at the toes, gray dust worked into the leather. The laces had that frayed look from being pulled tight too many times. His hands were red across the knuckles, chapped and dry, the skin cracked at the edges. He kept flexing his right hand open and closed like it hurt in the cold.
I told Luanne I was taking a minute and pushed through the door with a glass of water. The bell over the door dinged and he looked up fast.
"You don't have to serve me," he said.
I held the glass out anyway. "It's just water."
He took it with both hands. His fingers were cold. I could feel it when they brushed mine. He didn't drink right away. He just held the glass to warm his hands.
"I left my duffel at the apartment," he said, quiet. "Didn't want to drag it down here."
That stopped me. "You went home first?"
He nodded. "Bus got in at six this morning. Fourteen hours from Cavazos. I didn't get a flight. I put in for the early return and they gave me a seat on the charter to Central Texas, then it was the bus the rest of the way."
Fourteen hours. I tried to picture him folded into a Greyhound seat in his uniform, his bag at his feet, the highway dark outside. He must not have slept. There was a tightness under his eyes I hadn't seen before.
"You should've called," I said.
"I did," he said. He said it without any edge, just a fact. "Three video calls last week. You didn't answer. You texted you were closing. Then you stopped answering at all."
The guilt hit me hard and fast. I had stopped answering. Not because I was mad. Because I didn't know what to say anymore and it was easier to let the phone ring. I'd told myself he was busy anyway, that he'd be in training or on shift and wouldn't notice. He'd noticed.
"I was working," I said, and it sounded thin even to me.
"I know," he said. He finally took a sip of water. "So I came straight here. I figured if I went to the apartment and you weren't there, I'd just sit there wondering. I wanted to see you where I knew you'd be."
We stood like that for a second with the wind moving between us. Inside, Luanne called out an order and I didn't turn around.
"Your hands," I said. "Did you have gloves?"
He looked down at them like he was surprised I noticed. "Lost them on the bus. Or left them. I don't know. Heat wasn't working right for half the ride."
I wanted to reach out. I didn't.
"You want coffee? Something hot?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Water's good. I don't want you to have to serve me like I'm a customer, Maya. That's not why I'm here."
The way he said it — careful, like he was trying not to put any weight on me — made it worse. He'd ridden a bus all night, walked from the apartment to the cafe in cold he wasn't dressed for, and he was worried about making me do my job.
He set the glass down on the bench beside him and rubbed his palms together. The skin on his knuckles was rough and white at the cracks.
"You didn't have to do that," I said.
He looked at me then, really looked. "I know what it feels like when you go quiet," he said. "Last time you went quiet for a week, I thought something had happened. I kept thinking if you weren't going to answer, I should come home and ask in person."
I didn't have an answer. The sidewalk was empty and the light was flat and gray on the brick, and I could hear the soft hum of the heater inside mixing with the street noise.
May you like
I realized then he hadn't come because he thought I'd be happy to see him. He'd come because I'd gone silent and it scared him. That was why he was on the bench instead of at the counter waiting for food. He wasn't expecting a reunion. He was checking that I was okay.
And I was standing there with his water in my hands knowing I was the reason he'd spent fourteen hours getting here to worry in person.
