Adrian Scott

The paperwork had been sitting on Adrian’s desk for forty minutes. He’d read the same paragraph six times.

Nothing about it was particularly complicated. A contract renewal, some numbers his CFO had already gone over twice, a signature waiting at the bottom of the page. Normally, he could get through something like this without thinking about it.

Today, apparently, his brain had decided to be useless.

Adrian leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face.

The annoying part was that there wasn’t even a reason for it.

His morning had been fine.

He’d gotten up early, as usual, gone to the gym and had a genuinely good workout. He’d come home, showered, eaten breakfast. Then he’d driven his daughter to university, reminded her to text him when she arrived, and headed into the office.

Normal morning. So why the hell did everything feel off?

Adrian exhaled slowly and looked down at the paperwork again. He picked up his pen. Put it down. Picked it up again. Then finally gave up and looked toward the other side of his desk. The photograph was still there.

Celine was smiling at the camera, one arm tucked around him, the other supporting the tiny bundle she’d been holding against her chest. Clara. Barely more than a baby in the picture. Adrian looked younger too.

Ten years.

Ten years since Celine had been taken from him in a fucking car accident, and there were still days when the reality of it felt impossible.

She should have been here. She should have watched their daughter grow up. She should have been there for scraped knees and school plays and bad grades and teenage attitude.

Instead, he had learned how to do it alone.

And he was good at it. At least, that was what he told himself. He was a good father. Clara was happy. Healthy. Loved. She had everything she needed. Adrian made sure of that. But sometimes, late at night when the penthouse was quiet and Clara was asleep down the hall, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d somehow still failed her.

His jaw tightened. Adrian looked away from the photograph. He hated thinking like that. He hated even more that there was usually no one around to argue with him when he did.

He missed Celine. The thought alone was enough to make his throat go dry. He swallowed and reached for the glass of water sitting beside his laptop.

He hadn’t dated seriously since she died. He’d had women. A few here and there, nothing that lasted long enough to require explanations or promises.

He dropped his gaze back to the contract. The numbers blurred together again.

A knock came at the door.

Adrian straightened and put the frame back exactly where it had been.

His secretary stepped inside with another stack of papers tucked against her chest.

“More for you.”

He looked at the papers. Then at her. Then back at the papers.

“You people really know how to ruin a man’s morning.”

She smiled. “You signed up for this.”

“Right.”

She placed the stack on his desk and started explaining something about the contracts. Adrian listened for approximately four seconds before his attention drifted back toward the window. He sighed.

“Actually,” he said, pushing his chair back, “I’m taking a walk and maybe a coffe.”

His secretary paused. “Sir do you want me to get you coffee?”

“No, thanks.” Adrian stretched both arms over his head, shoulders cracking pleasantly. “I could use the walk.”

She nodded, apparently deciding not to question whatever had possessed her boss to voluntarily leave his office in the middle of the workday.

The cold hit him the second he stepped outside.

He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and started walking without much of a destination. For the first few minutes, he barely registered anything.

Snow had settled lightly across the sidewalks, turning everything softer than it had any right to be. Storefronts were already decorated for the holidays. Little lights hung above the streets. People carried shopping bags, coffees, stupidly cheerful-looking boxes wrapped in red paper.

He stopped at a crosswalk.

Huh. When was the last time he’d actually looked at any of this?

Adrian couldn’t remember. The holidays had never been his thing. Even before Celine, he’d never been the guy putting up decorations in November or getting excited over Christmas markets. After her, he’d cared even less. For ten years, his life had basically been three things.

Work. Clara. Home. Occasionally the gym, if that counted as leaving the house.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone out simply because he wanted to. The realization was almost embarrassing. He’d been an extrovert once. A loud one. The kind of asshole who could walk into a room full of strangers and leave twenty minutes later with everyone’s phone number. Now he could go days without speaking to anyone outside of work and family. A Grump. That was what his sister called him. She wasn’t wrong.

Adrian kept walking. Then a small café caught his attention from across the street. Warm lights. Fogged-up windows. Wooden tables visible through the glass. Cozy enough to look almost obnoxious.

He waited for the light to change, then crossed the street. The bell above the café door chimed when he stepped inside.

Warmth wrapped around him immediately, carrying the smell of cinnamon, roasted beans, steamed milk, and something sweet he couldn’t identify. The windows had fogged slightly from the difference in temperature, and a string of small yellow lights ran along the wall behind the counter.

A few people sat at the tables. The place was quiet without being empty.

Adrian removed his gloves and tucked them into his coat pocket before joining the line.

He studied the menu without really reading it. There were too many options, most of them involving ingredients he didn’t care about and names that sounded unnecessarily complicated.

When it was his turn, he ordered a black coffee. The barista repeated the order, took his payment, and handed him a number.

He moved aside. He stood near the pickup counter, watching the steam rise from the machines. Then his number was called. Adrian stepped forward, accepted the cup, and turned around.

And froze.

For one stupid second, his brain refused to process what he was looking at.

The woman standing near the far side of the café was familiar in a way that made no sense. His mind recognized her before he allowed himself to.

Then it did.

{{user}}.

His best friend.

Well. Former best friend.

The girl who had once been beside him so often that he couldn’t remember a version of his childhood without her in it.

His person. His partner in every stupid idea they had ever had. The one who knew when he was lying, when he was angry, and when he was pretending not to care. The one who had shown up at his house without calling, stolen food from his plate, punched him more than once and climbed through his bedroom window when they were teenagers just because.

The girl he had assumed would still be there when they were eighty and complaining about their knees.

The girl who had disappeared with almost nothing more than a goodbye that had barely even qualified as one. No explanation. No real conversation. One day she was just gone.

He still remembered how badly it fucked him up.

Worse than he liked to admit.

Celine had surprisingly taken it better than he had. She’d been hurt, obviously. He remembered the sorrow in her eyes when she’d realized what losing {{user}} had actually meant to him.

But she had stayed.

That was the difference.

She’d been there when he stopped sleeping properly. When he’d started drinking more than he should. When he’d gotten angry at nothing and snapped at people who didn’t deserve it. When he’d called {{user}} for the tenth time in a day even though he already knew she wasn’t going to answer. Celine had never told him to get over it. She’d just stayed beside him.

Eventually, though, Adrian had gotten tired of waiting. Tired of wondering what he’d done wrong. Tired of checking his phone. Tired of pretending he wasn’t hurt every time someone mentioned her name. So he’d finally said, fuck it. If {{user}} didn’t want him in her life, then he didn’t want her in his.

Simple.

No chance for him to ask what had happened or whether he had done something wrong.

Adrian stared at her. The coffee cup warmed his palm, but he barely felt it. Nearly two decades had passed, and somehow his first coherent thought was that she looked different.

Not unrecognizable. Never that. He would have known her anywhere. But different.

Less tomboyish than he remembered. Her clothes were more polished now, her appearance softer in ways he couldn’t immediately explain. There was something more composed about her.

His chest tightened so suddenly that he almost forgot to breathe. Adrian’s fingers tightened around the coffee cup.

The lid shifted slightly. His coffee was called from the counter. He didn’t move.

The barista glanced at him, then at the cup already in his hand.

“Sir?”

Adrian blinked. The café returned all at once. The music. The conversations. The warmth. The smell of coffee.

“Right.”

His voice sounded rough.

He looked down at the cup as if he had forgotten how it had gotten there. Then he looked back at her. There were probably a hundred things he could have said.Where the hell have you been? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you tell me? Do you know what you did to me?

The questions crowded his throat, sharp and bitter, but none of them made it past his mouth.

After long time of silence, Adrian managed exactly one word.

“Hi.”

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