NOAH

Lila was standing in the middle of the pasta aisle, looking like she had just stepped out of a fashion magazine.

She had a small basket in her hand with only two items in it. She looked exactly the way I remembered her: perfectly put together, every hair in place, every detail of her outfit chosen with a purpose.

When I looked up and saw her, I didn’t feel what I thought I would. I expected to feel nothing, or maybe a sharp pang of the old sadness.

Instead, it was more complicated. It wasn’t longing, and it definitely wasn’t love. It was the strange, heavy feeling of seeing the person who once handed you back to yourself in pieces.

My body seemed to remember the hurt before my brain could even process that she was standing there.

The memories came rushing back In a blur. The birthday dinner that was ruined. The sound of her voice on Nicholas’s phone. The way be had boasted about sleeping with her behind my back multiple times.

It all hit me in the space of two seconds while I stood there holding a bag of chips I’d already forgotten the name of.

Lila smiled. It was that cocky, knowing smile she used when she felt she was in control of a room.

She had already looked at Mason, looked at our cart, and decided she liked what she saw.

"Noah," she said, her voice light and airy, as if we had just seen each other last week. "You look good."

She stepped closer, her eyes scanning my face with a practiced intensity. "There’s something different about you. More color in your face. You look, honestly? You look better."

I just stood there. A strange kind of disgust was sitting in my chest, not the loud, angry kind, but the quiet kind that comes when someone who once treated you like nothing starts giving you compliments.

Mason was like a wall beside me. I could feel his energy shift. He had spotted the threat and was currently deciding whether to rip her head off or just ignore her. For the moment, he said nothing.

Lila turned her gaze to him. "Mason," she said, her voice warm and familiar, acting like none of this was awkward.

"Lila," Mason replied. It was just two syllables, but they were packed with every bad opinion he’d ever had of her.

Lila looked back at me, her smile staying perfectly in place. "Come on, Noah. Don’t tell me you’re still not over me." She said it playfully, but it was that specific kind of Lila-cruelty that she always tried to frame as affection.

I finally found my voice. "I’m completely over you," I said. I kept my voice even, flat. Then I added, "You look great too. We have to go."

I started to turn the cart, but her laugh stopped me. It was low and soft.

"There it is," she said. "Still so easy to rattle. But I always loved that about you, the way you can never quite hide what you’re feeling."

I stopped, but I didn’t turn back to face her. "Was there something you needed, Lila?"

There was a pause. When she spoke again, the performance had dropped a little. Her voice was softer, less staged. "I’ve missed you. Actually."

"Mason," I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Let’s go."

Lila tried to say something else, something about keeping in touch, about how things ended badly, about how she’d been thinking, but Mason didn’t let her finish.

"He said we have to go," Mason said. He used a pleasant tone, but it was the kind of pleasant that told you to back off before things got ugly. "It was good to see you, Lila."

Mason didn’t wait for her to respond. He steered the cart around her and started walking toward the checkouts.

Once we were two aisles away, I felt my lungs expand again. I pushed the feelings down. It was a motion I was well-practiced in.

Mason waited until we were almost at the registers before he spoke. "She looks exactly the same," he said, like he was commenting on the price of milk. "Same energy. Same everything. Don’t let her get in your head, Noah. She only said all that because you didn’t give her the reaction she wanted. She wanted you to be a mess, and you weren’t."

"I know," I said.

"You do look better, by the way," Mason added. "She was right about that. Not that she deserves to be right, but objectively? You look like a different person than you did three months ago."

I managed an almost-smile. "Can we just get the out of here now?"

"Already heading out," he laughed.

Mason’s apartment was exactly what you’d expect from a man who considered the bare minimum to be a complete sentence.

It was functional.

There was a couch that was clearly bought because it was on sale, and a television so large it must have cost more than the rest of his furniture combined.

There were no plants, no art on the walls, and definitely no throw pillows. In the corner, there was a weight bench and a pile of resistance bands.

A tub of protein powder sat on the kitchen counter next to a coffee maker and two mismatched mugs. The walls were stark white because no one had ever bothered to paint them.

It was a space that was used, not inhabited. But tonight, it felt oddly comfortable. It was simple. There were no hidden meanings in the furniture.

Mason "cooked," which in his world meant frying the chicken we bought. The smell filled the small apartment, and it was immediately better than everything about the last hour at the store.

I sat on the couch with a beer in my hand and my phone in the other. I opened the text screen for Cassian. The cursor just blinked at me. I typed out Are you okay? then deleted it. I typed Just checking in, then deleted that too.

I told myself he was fine. Cassian didn’t need me texting him every time he crossed my mind, because if I did that, I’d be texting him every five minutes. I put the phone face down on the cushion.

The wrestling came on the TV, the beer was cold, and the chicken was greasy. The evening became exactly what it was supposed to be. It was enough.

By ten PM, the beer had left me feeling warm and heavy. Mason was half-asleep on the other end of the couch.

That was when the thought of my laptop came back. It was still at the villa. I didn’t exactly needed it immediately, it could’ve waited but I wanted a reason to just see his face so I called a taxi, told a drowsy Mason I was heading out, and left.

When I arrived at the villa, the outside lights were glowing against the dark stone. The gate responded to the code Cassian had given me weeks ago. I still felt a little shock of surprise every time it actually worked, like I was waiting for someone to realize I shouldn’t have access.

Miss Chen opened the door before I even knocked. She always knew.

"Ohh, Noah," she said, her voice warm and welcoming.

"Sorry for the hour, Miss Chen," I said, feeling a bit guilty. "I left my laptop upstairs and I need it for tomorrow. Is Cassian home?"

There was a small, almost invisible pause. "He hasn’t returned yet," she said. She was being accurate, but there was a carefulness in her voice that made me look at her twice.

"He went out for a meeting?" I asked.

"He went out yesterday evening," she said. "I haven’t seen him since."

I processed that. It was now Wednesday night. He’d been gone since Tuesday evening. "Okay," I said, trying to sound like this was perfectly normal. "I’ll just grab my things."

I walked up the stairs. The corridor felt different at night, quieter, more imposing. I pushed open the door to Cassian’s bedroom.

The room was perfectly ordered, just like he was. My laptop was sitting on the desk where I’d left it on Sunday. I picked it up, but I didn’t turn to leave right away.

The room smelled like him. It was a specific scent of expensive wood, faint tobacco, and something clean. Standing there, the beer-warmth in my blood made the edges of my thoughts feel soft, but not soft enough to ignore the growing pit in my stomach.

He hasn’t been home since yesterday.

He wasn’t at the office.

He didn’t call.

I told myself he was a grown man. He didn’t have to report to me. But the pause in Miss Chen’s voice wouldn’t leave me alone.

I turned my head, my eyes scanning the room. My gaze fell on something sitting on a wooden shelf near the bed. It was a brown wallet, but not the sleek one I usually saw him carry. This one was worn, the leather scuffed at the edges.

Curiosity won. I picked it up. I told myself to put it down, but my hands were already opening it.

Inside, there was a small amount of cash and three different IDs. I pulled one out. It didn’t look like a fake; it looked official.

Julian Garcia. That was the name on it.

It sounded oddly familiar. Like I was supposed to know who it belonged to, except I didn’t or if I did, then I couldn’t remember who.

There were vague business cards with no company names, just numbers. I felt something sharp and found a razor-thin blade tucked into a hidden card slot.

There were old restaurant receipts dated back as far as six years ago, scraps of paper with addresses and codes, two cigarettes, and some mints.

Then, I found the picture.

It was an old, wrinkled photo.

I smoothed it out with my thumb. It was Cassian. He looked much younger, his hair longer, his expression alive and stubborn.

He wasn’t alone. Another man had his arms wrapped around Cassian’s shoulders. The stranger was handsome, with a bright, beautiful smile that seemed to light up the whole frame.

But it was Cassian’s face that made my stomach twist. He was looking at the man with an expression of pure, lovestruck devotion. It was a look I had never seen on him.

Suddenly, I remembered the night Cassian had mentioned a "him" with such a pained, hollow look in his eyes.

This was the man from his past. The one who had left the mark. My heart sank, the warmth from the beer turning into a cold, heavy weight.

Standing in his room, holding his secret, I felt more like a stranger in his life than ever before.