Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXE1CTTHPTR2FY3NEV7CDE

The green neon sign of The Raven's Nest cast an eerie glow across the wet pavement outside. Rory pushed through the heavy wooden door, shaking rain from her jacket. Her delivery shift had run late, and all she wanted was a drink and maybe some quiet conversation with Silas before heading upstairs to her flat. The bar smelled of aged wood and spilled bourbon, the same way it always did. She'd grown accustomed to it over the past three years—the way the scent wrapped around you like an old coat. Low lamplight pooled across worn leather booths. A handful of patrons occupied the corners, their faces anonymous in shadow. Rory moved toward the bar. Silas stood behind the counter, polishing a glass with deliberate, practiced motions. He glanced up, his hazel eyes catching hers with that particular knowing look he'd perfected over decades of reading people. "Rough night?" he asked. "Chicken lo mein doesn't deliver itself," she said, sliding onto a stool. She was reaching for a menu when the figure in the corner booth shifted. Someone stood. A silhouette emerged from the darkness, moving between tables with a careful, measured stride that triggered something in her chest before her mind could catch up. The face that appeared in the better light made her go still. "Rory?" Five years had passed since she'd heard that voice. Seven since she'd actually seen him in person, though there was a time when she'd seen him every single day. The Jamie she'd known had been lanky, perpetually exhausted from second-year exams, with a habit of pushing his dark hair back from his forehead when he was thinking. That Jamie had worn cheap trainers and charity shop jumpers. This Jamie wore a tailored charcoal suit that fit him like it had been sewn into place. His hair was styled with precision. His jaw had acquired a sharper angle, and there was something in his bearing—a controlled straightness in his spine—that hadn't existed before. "Jamie?" She hadn't meant for it to come out as a question. He closed the distance between them, and she caught the scent of expensive cologne mixing with the bar's ambient smell. His smile arrived carefully, like something he'd had to think about. "I can't believe it's actually you," he said. Silas had discreetly vanished into the back, leaving them alone in the way that suggested he'd learned long ago when to make himself scarce. She appreciated that about him. "What are you doing here?" Rory asked. Jamie gestured back toward the booth. "Meeting a client. Well, I was. They cancelled last minute." He laughed—a smooth, professional sound that bore only a distant resemblance to the raw, unguarded laugh she remembered from university. "The universe apparently thought I needed to run into you instead." She didn't respond immediately. He filled the silence by sitting on the stool beside her, angling his body toward hers in a way that felt rehearsed. Everything about him felt rehearsed now. The slight tilt of his head. The way his fingers flexed against the bar counter. Even the casual nature of his posture seemed calculated. "You look well," he offered when she still hadn't spoken. "Really well, actually. London suits you." "You look different," Rory said, because it was true and because saying so felt safer than reciprocating the pleasantry. Jamie's smile held. "Different good or different—" "Just different." He nodded slowly, as if processing this. His fingers drummed once against the counter, then stopped. "I'm in corporate law now. Senior associate at Harrington & Webb. You probably wouldn't know them. City firm. Quite competitive." Rory picked up the menu Silas had left, though she already knew every item on it. "You were doing environmental law at Cardiff. You were going to change the world, remember?" The smile shifted. Tightened. "That was a long time ago." "Not that long." "Long enough." He straightened slightly, and she watched the shift happen—like watching someone deliberately brace themselves. "Life doesn't often work out the way you plan it when you're twenty-two and convinced you've got all the answers. You chase the practical stuff. The stable stuff. You grow up." There was something accusatory in that statement, though his tone remained pleasant. As if he were suggesting that she, by remaining in London in a small flat above a bar, by delivering food for a living, had failed to meet some unspoken expectation of adulthood. "I wasn't accusing you," Rory said quietly. "I didn't say you were." But he was defensive. She could feel it in the way his jaw tightened, in the way his eyes had gone somewhere else for a moment. The Jamie of five years ago would have argued this through. He would have said something like, "No, come on, tell me what you actually think," and meant it. They would have talked until three in the morning in some grotty student kitchen, dissecting every assumption and fear until they arrived at something resembling truth. This Jamie seemed intent on avoiding any genuine excavation. "When did you move to London?" she asked. "About four years ago. Just after—" He paused. Didn't finish the sentence. "Right after university, basically." Four years. She'd been here for three. Their timelines had nearly overlapped, and she'd never once run into him. She'd wondered about him occasionally, in that distant way you wonder about people who've gone through significant portions of your life. But she hadn't wondered enough to look him up. Silas returned with two glasses of whisky, setting them down with quiet efficiency. He'd known what she'd order without asking. Jamie picked up one of the glasses. "Still drink whisky neat?" "Still do," she confirmed. They drank in silence for a moment. The bar hummed around them—the low murmur of other conversations, the clink of bottles, the exhale of the rain hitting the window outside. Rory found herself studying him in her peripheral vision, trying to locate the boy she'd known under the man he'd become. There were echoes of him there. In the shape of his hands. In the specific way his shoulders angled. But the essential substance had changed. "I got engaged," Jamie said abruptly. "About six months ago." Rory set her glass down carefully. She'd known he would say something like this. Not known exactly, but anticipated it, the way you anticipate which direction a conversation will turn even when you haven't heard the words yet. "Congratulations," she said. "Her name's Catherine. She works in marketing. Very successful. Her family's quite well-connected in the City." He said this as if these facts comprised the essential nature of Catherine. As if how successful and connected she was had anything to do with who she actually was. The crescent scar on Rory's left wrist caught the light as she moved her glass. She'd gotten it at twelve when she'd fallen out of a tree in their back garden, trying to impress Jamie, of all people, who'd been visiting her parents with his own mother. She'd scraped her way down the rough trunk. He'd been the one who'd helped her to the bathroom and helped her clean the blood away. "When's the wedding?" she asked. "Spring. Nothing too grand. Just family and close friends, really." He paused. "You'll probably get an invitation actually. I'm sure your parents would have our address." This was a lie, and they both knew it. He wouldn't have invited her. He was saying he would have invited her because that's what the version of himself he was presenting would do—maintain the appearance of connection to the past while keeping it safely compartmentalized. "That's nice," Rory said. Jamie finished his whisky. The glass made a hollow sound against the wood when he set it down. He stood, and she recognized the gesture as dismissal, as the end of whatever this was. "I should get going. Catherine's expecting me." He extended his hand—a formal gesture, handshake territory. "It was good to see you, Rory. Really good. We should stay in touch." She took his hand. His grip was firm and professional and entirely without warmth. When he released her, she felt the absence of him immediately, as if the space he'd occupied had somehow been erased. "Take care of yourself," he said. She watched him collect his coat from the booth, watched him nod politely to Silas as he passed, watched him walk out into the rain without looking back.