Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTRR216K9BNQ4GV3JXWZTFA

The first thing Rory noticed was his laugh. It punctured through the Friday night din of The Raven's Nest—familiar yet foreign, like a song she'd once known all the words to but had since forgotten. She froze, glass halfway to her lips, eyes scanning the crowd. There. By the dartboard. The years had reshaped him. His once gangly frame had filled out, shoulders broader beneath a well-tailored charcoal blazer. He'd grown a beard—neatly trimmed, darker than the chestnut hair she remembered. But it was undeniably him. Simon Griffiths. The boy who'd spent countless afternoons helping her build elaborate forts in her parents' garden in Cardiff. The teenager who'd climbed through her bedroom window at midnight on her sixteenth birthday with contraband cider and a lopsided chocolate cake. The university student who'd stopped returning her calls during second year. Rory slid lower in her booth, calculating the distance to the door. She could leave without him noticing. Should leave. Their friendship had withered seven years ago, and she'd long since stopped picking at that particular scab. "Need a top-up?" Silas appeared beside her table, nodding at her nearly empty glass. "Actually, I was just—" "Aurora? Aurora Carter?" Too late. Simon had spotted her, was already crossing the room, expression shifting from surprise to delight. Rory shot Silas a desperate look, but the older man merely raised an eyebrow before retreating behind the bar, the ghost of amusement playing across his features. "It is you!" Simon reached her table, his smile wide and genuine. "God, it's been what—six, seven years?" "Something like that." Rory straightened, fighting the urge to tug at her worn delivery uniform. She'd stopped by the bar after her shift, not expecting to encounter anyone from her past. "You look... different." "So do you." His eyes lingered on her face, searching. "Good different, though. London suits you." "What are you doing here?" The question came out sharper than she'd intended, and she watched his smile falter slightly. "Business trip. I'm staying just around the corner." He gestured vaguely toward the door. "Mind if I join you? Just for a minute?" She should say no. Should manufacture some excuse about meeting someone or early morning deliveries. Instead, she found herself nodding, watching as he slid into the booth across from her. "The famous Rory Carter, living in London." He shook his head, still smiling. "I always knew you'd escape Cardiff eventually." "Did you?" The words tasted bitter. "Strange, since we stopped talking before I ever mentioned moving." Simon's smile faded completely. He looked down at his hands, twisted the platinum band on his left ring finger. "I deserved that." "You're married," Rory observed flatly. "Three years now. Her name's Charlotte. She's a solicitor." Of course she was. Simon had always been drawn to ambition, to the kind of pedigree and polish Rory had rejected. "And you? What brings you to this particular corner of Soho?" He glanced around The Raven's Nest, taking in the mismatched furniture, the faded maps on the walls. "I live upstairs, actually." Rory gestured toward the ceiling. "And I know the owner." As if on cue, Silas appeared with two glasses of whisky, placing them on the table with a knowing look before retreating. "Cheers." Simon raised his glass. Rory hesitated before clinking hers against it. The whisky burned pleasantly down her throat. "So what kind of business brings you to London?" "Merger negotiations. The firm I work for is acquiring a smaller London-based company." He straightened almost imperceptibly, chest puffing slightly. "I'm heading up the legal team handling the transition." "The firm," Rory repeated. "Your father's firm?" Something flashed across Simon's face—discomfort, perhaps. "Yes, well. Griffiths, Llewellyn & Partners. Though it's more Griffiths, Griffiths & Partners these days. Dad's been grooming me to take over since I joined." Just as his father had always planned. Just as Simon had once sworn he would never do. "Congratulations," she said, the word hollow. "What about you? Still breaking hearts and defying expectations?" His tone aimed for lightness but missed, landing somewhere uncomfortably close to condescension. "I deliver Chinese food and live above a bar. Not exactly the stuff of legend." "I find that hard to believe. You were always destined for something extraordinary." "Maybe the extraordinary part was leaving behind the life everyone else expected me to have." Rory's fingers found the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, tracing its familiar curve. "Besides, not all of us had family businesses waiting with open arms." "That's not fair, Rory." "Isn't it? You spent years telling me how you'd rather die than become your father. How you were going to write novels in a flat in Barcelona, remember? Or was that just the kind of bullshit people say at university before real life kicks in?" Simon drained his whisky, wincing slightly. "We were kids. We said a lot of things." "We weren't kids when you stopped returning my calls." The silence that followed felt heavier than all the years between them. "Charlotte was pregnant," he finally said, so quietly Rory almost missed it beneath the chatter of the bar. "We lost the baby, but by then we were already engaged, already planning the life her parents expected. My parents expected." Rory's anger faltered, but didn't disappear entirely. "I'm sorry about the baby. But a phone call would have been nice. A message. Anything." "I was ashamed." He met her eyes properly for the first time since sitting down. "You were so certain about who you were, what you wanted. And I was folding at the first sign of pressure. I couldn't face you." "So instead you just...vanished." Rory shook her head. "Do you know what that was like? My best friend, gone. No explanation. Nothing." "I fucked up," Simon said simply. "And by the time I realized how badly, it felt too late to fix it." Across the bar, Silas was watching them, his expression unreadable as he polished glasses with methodical precision. "How'd you end up here, anyway?" Simon glanced around again. "This doesn't exactly seem like your scene." "What scene would that be, exactly?" "You know what I mean. You were pre-law. Top marks. You could've been—" "What? More like Charlotte?" Rory leaned forward. "I hated law. I was only doing it because Dad wanted me to follow in his footsteps. Sound familiar?" Simon flinched. "That's different." "Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like we both had to decide whether to become who our parents wanted or who we actually were. I just made a different choice." "And are you happy with that choice?" His voice was soft, the question genuine. Rory thought about her tiny flat upstairs. About the novel she'd been working on for the past year, nearly finished now. About the nights she spent downstairs at the bar, listening to Silas' stories of his intelligence days. About the freedom of her delivery routes through London, the city unfurling before her like a map of possibilities. "Yes," she said, and meant it. "I am." Something like wistfulness passed over Simon's features. "I envy that certainty." "You didn't used to." "No." He smiled, sadly this time. "I didn't used to need it." They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of diverging paths hanging between them. "For what it's worth," he finally said, "I've missed you. Thought about reaching out a hundred times." "Why didn't you?" "Afraid, I suppose. That you'd hate me. That you wouldn't. That you'd be exactly the same and I'd have to face how much I've changed." Rory studied him—this new, polished version of her old friend. The sharp suit, the wedding band, the careful way he held himself. But beneath it all, she caught glimpses of the boy she'd known—in the crooked set of his smile, the way he still ran his hand through his hair when nervous. "We've both changed," she said quietly. "That's what happens."