Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
RACHEL
Ten minutes turned into twenty.
Not because we decided or because the rain came back. It was more because the café was warm, and she didn’t fill the silence with demands the way my calendar did.
She had ordered something for me while I was still outside, still crossing the street with Dominic in my ear and my life in my chest like a live wire. A second coffee—milk, one sugar, like she’d been paying attention without making it feel like surveillance.
“You guessed,” I said, wrapping my hands around the cup.
“I brought you coffee at the shoot,” she corrected, the faintest smugness on her mouth. “You look like you need to dilute the spreadsheets in your bloodstream.”
I snorted, then immediately regretted it because my laugh sounded too loud in the quiet room.
She just watched me like she’d made a hobby out of noticing the ways I tried not to be noticed.
Outside, Paris moved at its usual pace—pedestrians weaving, scooters slipping through gaps, the drying pavement flashed under the shifting light. Inside, everything smelled like espresso and toasted sugar and that citrus-clean perfume she wore that made my brain do stupid things.
“You didn’t have to come,” I said, because apparently I needed to ruin anything that felt like rest.
Her brows lifted. “That’s an odd thing to say when you’re sitting here.”
“It’s not—” I started, then stopped. Justifying. René’s voice, sharp and bored in my head.
I exhaled and tried again. “I mean… I’m not good at this.”
“At coffee?” she asked, deadpan. It should be illegal how sexy she made those two words with her Australian accent.
“At—” I gestured vaguely between us, then immediately hated myself for it.
Her smile softened into something less amused. “Sitting?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah,” she said, like she’d already clocked that. Like she’d been watching me sprint past my own life and waiting to see if I’d trip.
For a few beats, we did the thing she’d asked for.
We sat.
We existed.
It was horrifying. I fought the urge to fidget.
It was also… nice.
I sipped my coffee and tried not to think about the fact that I’d just declined Dominic’s call and then answered the next anyway and somehow managed to be both a good girlfriend and a bad one in the same five minutes.
“You talked to him,” she said quietly.
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an accusation either. Just an observation, like she was noting the weather.
I didn’t bother with denial. “Yeah.”
“Why do you look like you’re still on the call?” The question punctured the bubble around me.
I stared down at my cup. Steam curled up and vanished. “It’s complicated.”
She hummed. Not disbelieving. Not prying. “Most things worth wanting are.”
I almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it sounded like something you’d needle someone for being too smooth about — and I didn’t have the energy to do either. I just let it land.
I was halfway through deciding whether to defend Dominic, myself, or the general concept of commitment when she leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, and asked,
“Do you ever let people take care of you?”
The question was so direct it knocked the air out of me. My mouth opened, closed. Nothing useful came out.
“I take care of myself,” I said automatically. It was a reflex, not a thought. A slogan I’d been repeating for years without checking if it still meant anything.
Her eyes narrowed, just slightly. Not judgment — precision. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
Heat crept up my neck, my body betraying me before my brain could assemble a better answer.
“I don’t have time,” I said finally.
Which was the safest way I knew how to say I don’t know how to be held without feeling like I’m failing at something.
She nodded like she’d expected that one too. “You know, I used to say that.”
“Did you?” I couldn’t help the skepticism. It came out sharper than intended.
She laughed softly. “Yes, me. Believe it or not, I’m not just a floating accent with a wardrobe budget.”
I smiled despite myself. It was the smallest thing, but it made her eyes brighten like she’d just won something.
“What did you say instead?” I asked, hating how curious I sounded.
She turned her cup slowly between her hands. “I said I was busy. I said I was fine. I said I was independent. I said I was putting in my time in the trenches.” She looked up. “Mostly, I said whatever would keep people from looking too closely.”
My pulse did something odd at that—an uncomfortable recognition. “That doesn’t sound like you,” I said before I could stop myself.
Her lips curved. “You don’t actually know what I sound like.”
I should have retreated. I should have made a joke and shoved the moment back into the safe category of banter. I could feel my brain reaching for the exit.
But something in me—some reckless little part that had already kissed her on a street corner—didn’t want to run.
So I let the silence sit and, wildly, she let it sit with me, like it didn’t scare her.
Outside, a bus hissed to a stop. Someone laughed too loudly on the sidewalk. A dog barked once, sharp and impatient.
Inside, my phone buzzed.
A calendar reminder.
Of course it was.
My body tensed like I’d been slapped. She watched it happen.
“You don’t even have to look,” she said, almost gently. “I can see it.”
I didn’t argue. I glanced down anyway.
NOOR – PORTFOLIO REVIEW NOTES
FRANKIE – ALBUM COVER IDEAS
MISCHA – TERM PROJECT: FIRST SET
RENé – 10 IMAGES DUE FRIDAY
My chest tightened as if the words were hands.
I locked my phone and set it face down. The gesture felt more symbolic. It also felt like a lie. But it was something.
“I have to go,” I said, too quickly.
Her expression didn’t shift. “Okay.”
I stood, slinging my camera bag back over my shoulder like armor. My chair scraped too loud against the floor. It sounded like urgency.
She stayed seated, watching me with maddening calm.
“Thank you,” I added, because I didn’t know what else to do with the fact that she’d asked for me and gotten me.
“For what?” she asked.
“For… making me sit,” I said, and a bitter laugh tugged at my mouth. “You’re terrifying.”
She smiled. “I’ve been called worse.”
I hesitated, fingers tightening on the strap. “I’m not trying to—”
She held up a hand, the same gesture René used, the same clean interruption.
“No justifying,” she said, and the echo of René made my stomach flip. Then her tone softened. “I’m not mad, Rachel.”
The use of my name hit like a jolt.
I froze.
She didn’t look smug about it. Didn’t look like she’d been waiting to deploy it. She just looked… tired of pretending the thing we both knew wasn’t real.
My mouth went dry. “You—”
She tilted her head. “It’s on the call sheet.”
Right.
Of course it was.
It had been there, printed in black ink, available every single time I’d looked away. I felt oddly exposed, like she’d caught me doing something childish in public.
“I—” My voice snagged. “I didn’t—”
“I know,” she said, and her smile gentled. “You don’t want to name me.”
The way she said it made it sound like she understood exactly why. Like she’d done the same thing in reverse—kept me as a concept instead of a person so she didn’t have to carry consequences.
A pulse of guilt rose in my throat, sharp and unpleasant.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was. Because suddenly it felt cruel.
She stood then—slowly, deliberately—closing the distance between us without touching. Her height made me aware of myself in a way I didn’t like, small, wound tight, always ready to bolt.
“It’s okay,” she said. “But if you’re going to keep offering rain checks, at least let me be real while I collect them.”
My breath caught.
I nodded once, because words felt dangerous.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth. Then lifted back to my eyes like she was choosing restraint.
“Go do your impossible day,” she said quietly. “But don’t forget you’re a person. Not a machine.”
I managed a faint smile. “No promises.”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I rather guessed.”
I left before I could do something stupid, which meant, naturally, I did something stupid anyway.
Half a block away, I turned back.
Not all the way. Just enough to look.
She was still standing by the café window, watching me leave like she’d expected me to run. Like she was letting me.
When our eyes met, she lifted two fingers in a small, casual salute.
Not a goodbye.
Not a claim.
Just: I see you.
My chest tightened.
I turned away before the feeling could root.
The Daily swallowed me whole over the next few days.
The minute I stepped through the doors, the air shifted—harsher, faster, layered with urgency and ink and the click of keyboards. A place where nobody asked how you were unless it affected the output.
I dumped my bag at my desk and immediately started moving.
Noor first. A call that turned into twenty minutes of me talking her off a ledge about her portfolio sequencing while my eyes flicked between her PDF and the clock like I could split myself in half.
“Rachel,” Noor said at one point, very softly. “Are you okay?”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
“No,” she pressed, which was new for her. “Are you okay?”
The question hit too close to where she had just been standing, warm and quiet and insisting I exist.
“I’m busy,” I said, and heard how pathetic it sounded.
Noor sighed. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
I didn’t answer. She didn’t make me.
We finished the review anyway. She thanked me like I’d saved her life. I hated that she might be right.
Frankie next. A voice note from her came in as I was exporting files.
“Okay, hear me out—what if the cover is like, a funeral but make it disco? Like grief but with glitter. You know?”
I stared at the waveform and felt something almost like affection tug at the corner of my exhaustion. Frankie was crazy in the best way.
I sent her three reference images and a note that said: Yes. Funeral disco. I’m on it.
Then René’s email popped up.
Bring those ten images. Not “pretty.” Not “correct.” Ten that cost you.