Sunday Afternoon

Sunday Afternoon

POV: Bash

"Tell me you're not actually replying to that."

My fingers hovered over the cracked glass screen, the glow of Julian's message washing over my knuckles. I didn't look up at Rhys. I couldn't.

"Sunday works. Three o'clock." I typed it fast before I could talk myself out of it and hit send before my thumb could hesitate one more time. The message left with a soft whoosh, and the second it disappeared into the little blue bubble, something cold and heavy dropped straight through my chest, like I'd just signed my name to something I hadn't finished reading.

I didn't understand the feeling. I hadn't done anything wrong. I'd said yes to a coffee, to a walk in a park, to one single hour of being a normal person having a normal afternoon with someone who liked me for no complicated reason at all. And yet my stomach twisted like I'd just betrayed something, like I'd broken a promise I never remembered agreeing to in the first place.

"It's just an hour, Rhys," I said quietly, mostly to myself, my voice thin in the empty kitchen. "It's just coffee."

Nobody answered because Rhys had already left for work by the time I sent it, but I said it out loud anyway, like the sentence needed a witness to become true.

The diner gave me somewhere to put my hands, at least. I threw myself into the shift the second I clocked in, wiping down tables that were already clean, restacking plates that didn't need restacking, counting silverware into their bins in neat little rows because my brain needed the numbers more than it needed to keep spiraling. Twelve forks. Thirteen. I lost count once and started over rather than let the wrong number sit there unresolved.

Priya caught me refolding napkins for the third time and set her tray down with a clatter, planting herself across the counter from me like she had all the time in the world to interrogate my nervous system

"Okay, what's going on with you," she said. "You've folded that napkin into a swan. It doesn't need to be a swan, Bash."

"I like swans."

"You look like you're preparing for a job interview or a hostage situation, and I genuinely can not tell which."

"I have a date," I admitted, before I could think better of it, and immediately regretted giving her that much material to work with.

Her eyebrows shot up so fast I thought they might leave her face entirely. "A *date* date? With the mystery man from two weeks ago? The one whose cancelled dinner made you look like a kicked puppy for an entire shift?"

"His name is Julian, and yes."

"Julian." She said it like she was trying the name on for size, testing whether it deserved the drama I was clearly assigning it. "Okay, and why does that look like you're folding napkins into swans about it. Swans are a happy bird, Bash. You should not look like you're at a funeral for one."

"I don't know. I just feel weird about it."

"Weird how? It's weird like you don't like him, or weird like you like him a normal amount, and that's somehow terrifying?"

"The second one," I said, quieter, before I could stop myself.

"Okay, well, that's just called having a crush, my guy. It's not a war crime." She swiped a fry off a passing basket that wasn't hers and popped it in her mouth, entirely unbothered by the theft. "Some of us go on a date and just... go on the date. Wild concept, I know."

"You don't understand."

"Enlighten me, then." She leaned her elbows on the counter, genuinely curious now instead of just teasing, and something in her tone softened enough that I almost told her the whole thing — the counting, the doorway, the hand on my jaw I still hadn't found a word for. I didn't. I couldn't figure out where the sentence would even start.

"It's complicated," I said instead, which wasn't a lie, just wasn't the whole truth either.

"Everything's complicated with you." She said it lightly, but her eyes lingered on me a beat too long, like she was filing the moment away for later. "Just — have fun on Sunday, okay? You're allowed to have a nice afternoon that doesn't come with a performance review."

"Thanks, I think."

"Don't overthink the shirt. Whatever you pick, he already likes you enough to survive a cancelled dinner and still text back." She scooped up her tray again, already moving toward table six before I could respond, tossing one last line over her shoulder. "Also lose the swan. It's freaking out the customers."

I ran the logic in circles the rest of my shift, and it never once landed anywhere solid. Rhys wasn't my boyfriend. Rhys was my brother, my roommate, the person who'd raised half of me alongside people who'd only managed the other half by accident. None of that gave him the right to occupy the part of my chest that lit up every time I thought about disappointing him. And yet it did, somehow, every single time, whether or not it had any right to.

Sunday came anyway.

I stood in front of my closet for longer than any single decision about clothing should take, pulling out one shirt and then another, holding each one up to the mirror like the fabric itself might tell me whether this was a mistake. The house was too quiet around me, the kind of quiet that made every small sound feel enormous — the creak of the floorboard outside my door, my own breathing, too fast, too shallow, like my body already knew something my brain hadn't caught up to yet.

I laced my boots twice, unlaced them once just to redo it, my fingers needing the ritual more than the boots needed the adjustment. I checked my reflection one last time, smoothing down my collar, trying to convince the person staring back at me that this was allowed, that wanting an ordinary Sunday afternoon didn't make me a traitor to anyone.

I reached for my jacket on the back of the chair, sliding one arm through the sleeve, and turned toward the doorway to grab my keys off the dresser.

Rhys was already standing there.

I turned around with my coat half-on, my breath catching in my throat so fast I choked on it.

Rhys was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, his eyes completely dark as he tracked the movement of my hands against my buttons. He didn't move. He didn't say a word. The silence pulled between us like a wire stretched until it hummed.

"Say something," I blurted, my voice cracking against the quiet wall. "Rhys, please. Just say something."