AI The last delivery box scraped against Rory’s ribs as she shouldered through The Raven’s Nest’s back door. The scent of stale beer and lemon polish hit her, a familiar , weary perfume. She slid the box onto the scarred wooden counter of the tiny office nook, exhaling a cloud of winter air. Tuesday nights were dead. A low, bluesy guitar riff bled through the wall from the bar proper, mixing with the murmur of three or four regulars.
Silas was polishing a glass behind the main bar, his movements methodical , economical. The green neon from the sign outside painted one side of his face in an emerald wash, catching the silver of his signet ring. He didn’t look up, just tipped his chin toward the box.
“Yu-Fei’s getting ambitious with the wonton shipments.”
“Supplier mix-up.” Rory unzipped her delivery jacket, the worn fabric sighing. “She’s turning it into a special. ‘Chef’s Surprise Potstickers.’” She hooked the jacket on a peg, rolling her shoulder. A dull ache lived there, a souvenir from the bicycle courier days she hadn’t fully shed.
The bell above the front door chimed, a bright, lonely sound. Rory glanced through the service window. A man stood there, shaking rain from a very expensive-looking overcoat. He was tall, his dark hair styled with a product that caught the low light. He scanned the room with the quick, assessing gaze of someone used to looking for exits or better options. His eyes, a familiar, startling green, landed on her.
He froze. The polished, confident posture faltered for a second, a crack in the veneer.
“Rory?”
The name, spoken in that specific, polished-up accent, scraped against a decade of silence . She didn’t move, her hand still on the zipper of her jacket. Liam Doherty. Not the lanky, nervous boy who’d shared spliffs with her behind the university library, smelling of cheap aftershave and big dreams. This man’s shoulders filled out the coat, his jaw was sharper, a faint shadow of stubble artfully maintained.
He walked toward the bar, his gaze drinking her in—the faded band t-shirt, the black work trousers, the smudge of grease on her wrist near the crescent scar. His smile was a well-rehearsed thing, charming and tilted.
“My God. Rory Carter. In the flesh.” He stopped a careful few feet away. “I’d heard you’d… left Cardiff.”
“People hear things.” Her voice came out flat, a stone skipping across still water. She watched his face, the way his smile tightened at the edges. He’d always hated when she didn’t play along.
Silas placed the polished glass down with a soft click. He said nothing, just began drying another one, his hazel eyes moving between them like a spectator at a particularly slow tennis match.
“Buy you a drink?” Liam gestured to the empty stool beside him. “For old time’s sake. You look… well. Different, but well.”
She could have said no. The thought was a clean, sharp blade. Instead, she walked around the end of the bar, snagging the stool. She didn’t take the one he indicated, choosing the one two spaces down, creating a buffer. “I’ll have what he’s having,” she told Silas, nodding at Liam’s untouched tumbler of amber liquid.
“Macallan 18,” Liam said, a hint of pride in his voice . “Only the best, now.” He waited until Silas poured a measure for Rory, the whisky glowing like a trapped sunset. “So, you work here?”
“Sometimes. I work for a restaurant. Deliver things.” She took a sip . The whisky was smooth, burning a clean path down her throat. A waste on a palate like hers, which was more accustomed to tea and cheap lager. “You’re in London for business?”
“The firm has an office in the City. Mergers and acquisitions. I’m based here now.” He swirled his glass . “I’m a partner, actually.”
“Congratulations.” The word was neutral, a pebble dropped into a well. She remembered him crying over a failed mock exam, convinced his life was over.
“It’s… a lot of work. Long hours.” He leaned forward, conspiratorial. “But rewarding. You know how it is.” He didn’t, of course. He had no idea how it was. His eyes flickered to her hands, wrapped around the glass. “What happened to law? Your dad must have been thrilled. Following in his footsteps .”
The mention of her father was a carefully aimed dart. “I decided courtrooms weren’t for me.”
“A waste. You were the sharpest one in our year.” He said it like a compliment, but it was an accusation. *You had this potential . Look at you.*
“I found other uses for it.” She looked at Silas, who was now methodically slicing a lemon, the knife a silver blur. “Some places don’t care about your degree. They care if you can think on your feet. If you’re reliable.”
Liam’s smile finally slipped, replaced by a flicker of discomfort. He was here for a different kind of reunion—one where he could display his success to a ghost from his past, not debate life philosophy with a delivery woman in a Soho dive. “Look, Rory… about Evan. I heard what happened. After. I should have called. I was… going through my own stuff, with the training contract, and…”
“And it was easier not to.” She finished his sentence, her voice still quiet. No heat, just the plain fact of it. She took another drink. The whisky was warming her now, softening the edges of a very old, very cold anger.
He flinched. “It wasn’t like that. It was complicated.”
“It wasn’t complicated. It was simple. You chose what was easy.” She set the glass down. The green light caught the condensation on its side. “It’s fine, Liam. People choose easy every day.”
He looked down at his hands, at the signet ring she hadn’t noticed before. A family crest, probably. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Truly.” This apology sounded different, scraped raw. “I was a coward. I saw how he was, the way he looked at you. And I did nothing.”
The admission hung in the air , heavier than the smoke that wasn’t there anymore. Silas stopped slicing lemons. He placed the knife down, perfectly aligned with the cutting board’s edge. His gaze on Rory was steady, a silent anchor.
“He’s in prison, you know,” Liam added, as if offering another shiny coin for her collection of facts . “Assault charge. Not related to you, but…”
“I know.” Rory had made it her business to know. The knowledge was a locked box in a dark room in her mind. She never visited, but she knew its dimensions.
A silence stretched, filled only by the blues guitar. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just vast. The ghosts of their younger selves crowded the space between them—the Rory who argued law theory with fierce, sparkling eyes, the Liam who dreamed of changing the world, not just owning a piece of it.
“You’re different,” he finally said, and this time it wasn’t an observation on her clothes. It was a confession.
“So are you.” She looked at him, really looked. The fine lines of stress around his eyes, the tight set of his shoulders, the way his expensive coat seemed to wear him, not the other way around. “You got everything you wanted.”
“I did.” He didn’t sound sure. He sounded like a man stating a fact from a prospectus. He finished his whisky in one go, the gesture suddenly rough. “I should… I have an early meeting.”
He stood, pulling a wallet from his inner pocket. He dropped two crisp twenties on the bar, far too much for two drinks.
“Keep the change.” He looked at Rory, a universe of unreadable things in his green eyes. “It was… something. Seeing you.”
“You too, Liam.”
He walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the brass handle. He didn’t look back. The bell chimed his exit, a final, bright punctuation mark.
Rory stared at the two twenty-pound notes. She picked one up, feeling its crisp, alien texture. She looked at Silas, who had resumed his polishing.
“Partners don’t usually drink alone in places like this on a Tuesday,” she said.
“They do when they’re hiding from their own lives,” Silas replied, his voice a low rumble . He nodded toward the bills. “You going to keep his guilt money?”
Rory held the note up to the green light. It looked strange, unreal. Then she folded it neatly, not in half, but in quarters , and slid it into the pocket of her work trousers.
“No,” she said, picking up her glass again. The whisky tasted sharper now, cleaner. “I’m going to keep it. A reminder that the price of admission to a life like that is everything you leave behind.” She took a drink, the burn familiar and good. “And that some things aren’t for sale.”