Page 98 of The Wrong Man

Despite everything, despite the tension still lingering from my stupid joke, a smile tugs at my mouth.

“You didn’t look threatened.”

“I am an excellent actor.” He turns back to his eggs. “Coffee. Now. I refuse to have a conversation about last night without caffeine.”

A conversation about last night. My stomach tightens with something that might be anticipation or might be dread.

I move to the coffeemaker and start the familiar process of grinding beans and measuring water. The machine hums to life, filling the small kitchen with the rich scent of brewing coffee.

“I’m not going to make this weird,” Dylan says, his back still to me. He is whisking the eggs now, quick efficient strokes. “What happened, happened. We are both adults. We can be mature about it.”

“Mature,” I repeat.

“Yes. Mature. As in, we don’t need to overanalyze or have some big dramatic conversation about what it means.”

“What does it mean?”

He pauses mid-whisk. “I just said we weren’t going to overanalyze.”

“I’m not overanalyzing. I am asking a simple question.”

“There is nothing simple about that question and you know it.”

He has a point. I pour coffee into two mugs and bring one to him, setting it on the counter within reach. He mutters a thanks without looking at me.

The eggs go into a heated pan. He turns down the flame and begins stirring them slowly, scraping them gently across the bottom in the French style he mentioned once before.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he says quietly. “It can just be... what it was. Two people, stuck in an impossible situation, finding comfort in each other.”

“Is that what you want it to be?”

“I don’t know what I want it to be.” He still will not look at me. “I don’t know what I want any of this to be. You kidnapped me, Dante. You tortured me. And now I am standing in your kitchen making you eggs and trying not to think about the fact that last night was...” He stops. Swallows. “It doesn’t matter what last night was. It doesn’t change what you are.”

The words land like blows. Precise and painful and entirely deserved.

“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t.”

“So we just... carry on. Like normal. Whatever normal means in this situation.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” But his voice wavers on the words. “It has to be.”

The eggs are done. He plates them with mechanical precision, adds toast that I didn’t even notice him making, and carries both plates to the small table. We sit across from each other, knees bumping underneath, neither of us reaching for our forks.

“This is awkward,” Dylan says.

“Yes.”

“I hate it.”

“So do I.”

He looks up at me then, and there is something raw in his expression. Something vulnerable that he is trying very hard to hide.

“I don’t regret it,” he says quietly. “Last night. I know I probably should. I know it complicates everything. But I don’t regret it.”

My chest feels too tight. “Neither do I.”