AI The bell over the door at The Raven's Nest jingled just after nine, letting in a gust of January air and the needle hiss of rain against Frith Street. Rory didn't look up at first.
She was perched on the far end of the bar on a stool that wobbled, her delivery bag dumped at her feet, the red Golden Empress logo smeared with rain. Her shift was over, her hair was wet at the ends, straight and black and cut blunt at her shoulders, and her knuckles were white around a chipped mug of tea that Silas made for her when she came in like this — not because she asked, but because he knew she wouldn't ask for anything stronger on a work night.
The Nest was quiet for a Thursday. The green neon outside buzzed and bled its color across the wet pavement, and inside, its reflection swam in the lacquered bar top. The maps on the walls were dark with age, their edges curling. Someone had turned the old radiator up too high and the air smelled like damp wool and lemon cleaner and old beer.
Silas was behind the bar, polishing a glass with a cloth that had seen better decades. His auburn hair was more grey than she remembered from when she'd first moved in upstairs, pulled back low, his beard trimmed to a neat point. He favored his left leg tonight; the cold always got to it. The silver signet on his right hand caught the light when he turned the glass.
"You're going to wear a hole through that mug," he said without looking at her.
Rory lifted the mug slightly , found it empty, set it back down. The small crescent-shaped mark on her left wrist showed pale against her skin when her sleeve rode up. "It's my grounding technique."
"Mm. Very zen."
The bell jingled again, and this time she did look up, because the draft hit the back of her neck and because Silas's shoulders tightened, just a fraction, the way they always did when someone new came in — old habit. A woman stood in the doorway, shaking out an umbrella, rain dripping from the shoulders of a good black coat. Not a good coat in the thrifted sense. A good coat in the real sense. Wool, cut clean, belted.
It took Rory a full three seconds.
Eva's hair had been long in school, half the time in a messy ponytail leaking yellow highlighter ink. Now it was cropped short, bleached nearly white on top and dark underneath, swept to one side. Her face was thinner. Same mouth, though, wide and quick, and the same way of taking up a room without appearing to try.
Eva saw her at the exact same second Rory placed her.
"Oh, fuck," Eva said.
Rory slid off her stool. Too fast. The stool scraped loud against the floor.
"Evie?"
Eva laughed, a sharp, startled sound, and crossed the three steps between them and then stopped, as if she couldn't decide whether she was allowed to touch her. Her eyes, lined dark, went bright blue to bright blue.
"Rory? Holy shit. Rory Carter, living in a bar."
"It's above the bar," Rory said automatically, and then, hearing how stupid that sounded, opened her arms.
Eva smelled like expensive perfume and rain . Her coat was damp. Under it she wore a soft grey jumper and trousers that looked pressed despite the weather. Her hug was hard and brief and warm. When she pulled back her hands stayed on Rory's forearms.
"You cut your hair," Eva said.
"You bleached yours."
"I mean — look at you." Eva's grin was the same. It made her whole face untidy. "London suits you. You look — you look grown up."
That was the word for it, Rory thought. Eva had always looked like she was about to be sent out of class. Now she looked like someone who sat on the other side of a desk and decided things. There was a thin, fine line at the corner of her left eye, not a wrinkle, a scar from something. A little silver hoop in her cartilage. Her nails were short and unpainted.
Silas had gone very still behind the bar. He watched them with his quiet, hazel-eyed watchfulness, not interrupting.
"You never said you were coming back to Soho," Rory said.
"I wasn't. I'm — I'm here for work, actually. Dinner fell through, I was just walking, I saw the sign." Eva glanced over her shoulder at the green neon bleeding down the glass. "I didn't know this was yours."
"It's not," Rory said. "It's Silas's. I live upstairs."
Eva turned. Silas inclined his head.
"Silas Blackwood," he said. "Welcome to the Nest."
"Eva Hughes," she said, and offered a hand. His signet flashed as he shook it.
"You two know each other," Silas said, not a question.
"We were inseparable," Eva said, still looking at Rory. "Year seven to year — God, until you left Cardiff. Missed your entire uni career, you cow."
"I sent you pictures of the campus," Rory said.
"You sent me one picture of a pigeon sitting on a law textbook. With the caption 'peer.'"
A laugh cracked out of Rory before she could stop it, loud in the quiet bar. A couple near the maps looked over. Rory felt her face go hot.
Silas, with the perfect , invisible tact of a former spy, set two glasses down. Whisky for Eva without asking, tea topped up for Rory. Then he limped, slight and deliberate, toward the back, where the bookshelf hid the false wall, giving them the bar to themselves under the pretense of inventory.
Eva perched on the stool next to Rory's, unwound her scarf. She ordered edamame once, Rory thought, at a Nando's in town and pronounced it like it was a dare.
"So," Eva said, cradling the whisky. "Pre-law's worst nightmare, delivery driver by day, barfly by night. Is this what you had planned?"
Rory bristled out of old reflex. "Part-time. And I'm saving. I'm — I like it here. It's quiet."
"It's fucking tiny," Eva said, affectionate . "How's Brentford? No — Brendan? Your dad still being —"
"Brendan, yeah." Rory pulled her sleeve down over her wrist. "He's fine. Mum's retired. They visit. Sometimes."
Eva nodded. Sipped. Her eyes flicked to the stairs at the back that led up to Rory's flat.
"Do you remember when you said you were never, ever going to live in London?" she said, quieter . "You said London was where people went to pretend they were someone else."
"I was seventeen."
"You were very convincing at seventeen."
Rory stared at her tea. The radiator ticked. Outside, a bus hissed past.
"What about you?" she said. "You were going to do art foundation and move to Berlin and never wear matching socks again. You look — you look very corporate."
"I am very corporate," Eva said, and there was a flash of something hard, amused, unapologetic. "Brand strategy. Clients like the hair. Edgy but employable. I have a flat in Clapham with a dishwasher that talks to me. And a girlfriend. Her name's Priya."
Rory's head snapped up. "You have a girlfriend?"
"Two years. She hates it when I smoke, so I only do it when she's away." Eva smiled, but it didn't quite reach . "I was going to tell you. I wrote it like four times. Then deleted it."
The weight of it landed all at once, not dramatic, just heavy. The two years of messages that had gotten shorter. The last Christmas where Rory had video-called and Eva had been busy, then busy again, then had sent a text — sorry, mad week x.
"You could have just told me," Rory said. Her voice was even. Cool-headed, people had always called her. It was a different thing from being calm.
"I know," Eva said. She looked down at her drink. "I know. It's just — after Evan — after everything, you left and you were finally out, and I was still there, and I felt like —"
"Like what?"
"Like I'd told you to jump and then got annoyed you landed somewhere else."
Rory felt the old familiar click of an argument slotting into place, the way it used to in their kitchen in Cardiff when Jennifer Carter would put biscuits out and they'd fight about something stupid and then eat the whole pack in apology. Her jaw tightened.
"You did tell me to jump," she said. "You told me to get on the Megabus with one bag and you said Brendan would understand later. And you were right."
"I know I was right." Eva's fingers tightened around her glass. "Do you know how terrifying it is to be right about that kind of thing? You were my best friend and you were disappearing and I was — I couldn't do anything else."
"You did everything."
"And then you stopped answering properly."
"You moved on," Rory said.
"We both did," Eva shot back, and then immediately looked sorry. The scar at the corner of her eye caught the low light.
Silas had returned, soundless on the old floor, and set down a small bowl of peanuts he knew Rory didn't like but put out anyway. He caught Rory's eye over Eva's shoulder. Is this okay? His expression asked. She gave a tiny nod.
Eva exhaled. "I missed you. Properly. Not in a, oh, I miss the old days way. In a, I still have that stupid mix CD you made me in my car, and it doesn't even play anymore."
"I have that photo of you with green hair from the school play still taped to my mirror," Rory said before she could think better of it.
"You do not."
"I do. You're doing Lady Macbeth with a Guitar Hero controller."
Eva barked a laugh, wet this time. "God."
The bell rang again, two men coming in loud and cold, shaking snow that wasn't there yet off their shoulders. Silas moved to serve them, his limp more pronounced as he went.
Eva leaned in, elbows on the bar, closer now. "Are you happy?" she asked, low, like it was a secret.
Rory considered the question. She thought about Yu-Fei counting the till and tucking the extra spring rolls in for her. About the flat upstairs that was too cold in winter and had a view of the fire escape where pigeons held endless, pointless meetings. About the bookshelf door that led to a room where Silas sometimes let her sit while he talked on a phone that wasn't supposed to exist, and how safe that had felt, once.
She thought about the fact that she didn't wake up braced anymore.
"I'm getting there," she said. "Most days. Yeah. Are you?"
Eva's bright eyes held hers. Grown-up eyes now, lined and tired and steady.
"Most days," she said, and it was the most honest thing either of them had said all night. She finished her whisky. "Don't be a stranger, yeah? Again. For real this time. I'm still in your phone."
"You never changed your number," Rory said.
"Neither did you."
Eva stood, pulled her good coat around her, left a ten note under her glass that Silas would pretend not to see and then give back to Rory later. She hugged her again, longer this time, and when she pulled away her hand brushed Rory's left wrist, over the sleeve, over the crescent scar, without noticing.
"I'll text you," Eva said.
"You better," Rory said, and meant it.
The green neon flared as Eva pushed out into the rain again, umbrella snapping open, white-blonde hair disappearing under it. The door shivered shut.
Rory sat back down on her wobbly stool. Her tea had gone cold.
Silas came back, picked up Eva's glass, polished it with his cloth. The silver ring on his right hand turned, turned.
"Old friend?" he asked, mild .
"Oldest," Rory said. The word felt warm in her mouth now, not bruised.
Outside, the rain kept falling on Frith Street, turning the pavement to a river of green light.