TWO THANE
TWO
THANE
Ah, hell. Why did I use my real first name?
But Thane wasn't exactly common. If the kid sitting across from me followed hockey even a little, there was a decent chance the name would ring a bell.
I waited for surprise recognition. For that familiar shift people got when they connected the face to the headlines.
The guy just smiled. "Kieran."
And then nothing happened. His eyes didn’t go wide. He didn’t do a double-take or fumble for his phone. He just said his name.
Keiran.
The realization settled over me slowly, followed by something dangerously close to relief.
He really didn't know who I was.
For reasons I couldn't quite explain, that mattered.
Maybe it shouldn't have. Maybe I should have finished my beer, paid the tab, and gone back to the hotel to obsess over tomorrow's press conference like a normal person. Instead, I'd crossed the room and sat down with a stranger whose name I hadn't known ten minutes earlier.
The logical part of my brain still wasn't entirely sure why.
He had expressive blue eyes, sun-streaked hair that looked a little too long to be intentional, and a face that somehow managed to look both open and guarded at the same time.
Under different circumstances, I probably would have noticed all of that and kept walking.
What had caught my attention wasn't his appearance.
It was the fact that he was sitting alone on his birthday and trying very hard to convince himself he didn't mind.
I'd watched him laugh at something on his phone, stare into space for a while, and study the cocktail menu like it contained the answers to life's greatest mysteries.
There was no performance to it. No attempt to draw sympathy.
Just a quiet loneliness that felt painfully familiar.
"Nice to meet you, Kieran."
"You too."
His smile deepened slightly before he glanced down at the cake sitting between us. "Although I should probably warn you that you're interrupting a very serious relationship."
I looked at the cake. "Am I competing with the whiskey sour too?"
"The whiskey sour and I are still getting to know each other."
That pulled a laugh out of me before I could stop it.
The sound seemed to surprise him as much as it did me.
For a few moments, conversation came easily. Easier than I expected.
I told him that his first legal drink looked considerably more respectable than mine had.
"Should I be worried?"
"Depends."
"On?"
"Whether you think blue is a natural color for alcohol."
His laugh came quickly and without reservation, warming something inside me that had felt tight for weeks. Maybe months.
Kieran shook his head. "Christmas gets weirder every year."
"You sound like someone who's already done with the holidays."
"I'm an education major. Do you know how many glitter-covered Christmas projects I graded during my field placement?"
I smiled. "No."
"A lot."
The way he said it made me laugh.
"Elementary?"
Kieran shook his head again. "Early Childhood Education."
"What made you choose that?"
For the first time since I'd sat down, something softened in his expression.
"I like kids."
A few seconds later, he added, "They deserve people who show up for them. Good teachers can make a bigger difference than most people realize."
The conviction in his voice caught me off guard.
Most twenty-one-year-olds talked about careers in terms of money, opportunities, or stability. Kieran talked about children.
"What about you?" he asked.
There it was. The question I usually dreaded. Once people learned what I did for a living, it usually became the only thing they wanted to talk about.
"I play hockey."
His head tilted slightly. "Hockey?" I nodded. "Like professionally?"
The question was so casual that I almost laughed. Almost.
"Something like that."
"Oh. Cool."
Then he took another sip of his drink.
I found myself waiting for the follow-up.
It never came.
Kieran didn't reach for his phone. He didn't start firing questions across the table. He didn't suddenly seem more interested in me than he had thirty seconds earlier.
And for reasons I didn't fully understand, I found myself wanting to stay right where I was.
We continued to talk after that. With Kieran, topics seemed to appear naturally.
One minute, he was explaining why kindergarteners should never be trusted with paint, and the next, he was telling me about a disastrous art project involving glitter and a group of students during a recent classroom placement.
"Glitter is forever," he said with complete conviction. "I don't care what anyone says. Twenty years from now, somebody is going to open that classroom closet and find glitter."
I laughed.
Across the room, a group of office workers in Santa hats erupted into cheers as someone fed another song into the jukebox. Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You filled the bar, drawing a mixture of groans and enthusiastic singing from different corners of the room.
Kieran shook his head. "It should be illegal to play Christmas music this much."
"It's December eighteenth."
"It's been playing since Halloween."
"I think that's a separate crime."
His smile flashed again.
The sight of him smiling made it difficult to remember what we'd been talking about. I'd known him for less than twenty minutes. That probably wasn't a great sign. I dragged my attention away from his smile and looked down at the table instead.
He hadn't touched more than two bites.
"Is the cake terrible?" His gaze dropped to the plate. "You've had, what, two bites?"
A faint flush crept into his cheeks. "I was talking."
"That's not an answer."
A laugh escaped him. "Maybe I'm saving it."
"For what?"
He pointed his fork at me. "See? This is exactly the kind of pressure I don't need on my birthday."
I smiled despite myself and nudged the plate slightly closer to him. "Pretty sure birthday rules require at least three more bites."
"According to who?"
"Me."
"That's convenient."
"It is."
For a second, he just looked at me. A faint smile tugged at his mouth before he shook his head and took another bite. Kieran swallowed and pointed at me with his fork again. "You're weirdly invested in whether I finish this cake."
"You're weirdly resistant to eating it."
Kieran's laughter blended with the music drifting through the bar, and something warm settled beneath my ribs.
Tomorrow morning, I'd be standing in front of cameras.
Tomorrow morning, my life would change. Tonight, though, I was sitting across from a twenty-one-year-old education major who didn't know who I was, arguing about birthday cake.
For the first time in weeks, I wasn't thinking about tomorrow at all.
Mara appeared beside our table before either of us could continue the debate.
She glanced at Kieran's barely touched dessert and shook her head. "I've never seen someone work so hard to avoid free cake."
"I've had at least four bites."
"Three," I said.
Kieran looked at me. "You're counting?"
"You made me invested."
Mara laughed. "I don't know what happened while I was gone, but I'm glad somebody's making progress." She turned toward me. "Can I get you anything?"
I realized then that I'd been sitting there for nearly half an hour without ordering so much as a drink. "A beer would be great."
She nodded before looking at Kieran. "What about you? Ready for another whiskey sour?"
Kieran hesitated.
I recognized the look immediately. It was the same expression I'd seen from rookies pretending they knew exactly what they were doing.
"I was thinking about it," he admitted.
"Have you eaten anything besides cake?"
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Mara."
"What? It's a fair question."
Kieran glanced down at the plate. "I had lunch."
"That wasn't the question."
I watched the exchange for a second before opening the menu she'd left behind.
"Are they still serving food?"
"Kitchen's open another hour."
I slid the menu toward Kieran. "Pick something."
His eyebrows lifted. "You buying?"
"You can pay me back by finishing the cake."
The smile that spread across his face arrived slowly, as though he couldn't quite decide whether to be amused or suspicious. "That sounds like a scam."
"It probably is."
A few minutes later, Mara walked away with an order for fries to share, a burger for Kieran, and a sandwich and a beer for me. The simple act of ordering food made the evening feel different somehow. Less like two strangers making conversation and more like two people settling in.
A man wearing a sweater covered in blinking Christmas lights wandered past our table carrying a tray of drinks.
Kieran watched him go. "That seems like a safety hazard."
I glanced over my shoulder. "The sweater?"
"The batteries. One spilled drink, and that guy becomes a seasonal cautionary tale."
The laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Kieran smiled, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
For someone who claimed to be tired of Christmas, he seemed to be having a pretty good time. The realization settled over me quietly. I liked seeing him like this.
Kieran turned back toward me, and for a moment neither of us spoke. The lights hanging above the bar caught in his eyes when he smiled.
My gaze dropped.
A faint smear of chocolate frosting lingered near his thumb. I nodded toward his hand. "You missed a spot."
His gaze followed mine. "Oh."
The tip of his tongue swept across his thumb before he looked back up. The movement lasted less than a second. For some reason, it felt a lot longer. The air between us seemed to shift.
Before either of us could say anything, Mara appeared carrying a tray with our food. “Here you go, guys.”
Kieran looked genuinely pleased. "You're my favorite person tonight."
Mara laughed. "That's what everybody says until I bring the bill."
The interruption broke some of the tension that had been building between us, but not all of it. Even after Mara walked away, I remained hyperaware of Kieran. Aware of his smile. Aware of his eyes. Aware of how easily conversation seemed to flow whenever he spoke.
The next hour passed more quickly than it should have.
We talked about everything and nothing. Seattle. Christmas. Terrible holiday movies. The strange things children said in classrooms. By the time Kieran finished his burger and finally admitted defeat against the last few fries, the bar had begun to change around us.
The loudest groups had already left. Several tables sat empty now. The office workers in Santa hats had disappeared sometime during our conversation, and the energy that had filled the room earlier had softened into something quieter. Even the music seemed less intrusive.
Mara stopped by one final time to collect empty plates. "You boys need anything else?" she asked.
Kieran glanced at me. I glanced at him. Neither of us answered.
Mara's mouth twitched. "That's what I thought."
She gathered the last of the dishes and moved on to another table..
I had spent the entire evening trying not to think about tomorrow. Trying not to think about the cameras. The questions. The headlines. For a few hours, Kieran had made that possible.
Across the table, Kieran’s gaze lifted to mine. Something shifted just enough for me to realize I wasn't ready to walk away from this yet. Maybe he felt it too. Maybe that was why he didn't look away.
"You want to get out of here?" I asked quietly.
For a second, I thought he might say no. He knew exactly what I meant. I could see the understanding in his eyes. I could also see the hesitation. The brief moment where common sense reminded him that I was a stranger. That saying yes might be reckless.
Then he smiled. It wasn't the polite smile he'd given me when I first sat down. It wasn't the amused smile he'd worn while arguing about Christmas music.
This one felt quieter, more real.
"Yeah," he said.
Relief moved through me so quickly I almost laughed.
Neither of us was ready for the night to end.