"You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Ryne?"

I didn’t answer right away. I waited on purpose, letting the moment breathe.

"Why here?" I said at last, my voice still a little rough from sleep. "Don’t you have enough places to visit? Family to greet? Food to try?"

Mayo let out a laugh, but her eyes didn’t move from mine. "No," she said finally, which delighted Nolan.

"Why, Mayo? You were never one to love work," added my magician, trying not to look at her.

A pained smile formed on her face. "Didn’t I tell you?" The air froze at those words — she wouldn’t, she couldn’t say it. "I’m getting married soon, Nolan, and I’m moving to Saudi Arabia," she said, and something in her tone lost its usual volume, dropping to something that was almost quiet. "I’m not coming back. Never."

She placed a hand on the table, feeling every crack in the wood. Then on the wall, as if she were taking the temperature of the place, or feeling it like a memory.

"I don’t want to leave without this," she continued, looking at the café with those black eyes that at this hour seemed larger. "The smell, the order, the people. This new shape of your lives" — she looked at both of us — "I want to feel it before it becomes just a place that once existed. To experience something I can’t have, at least once."

The silence that followed had a specific texture. The kind of silence no one wants to break.

I lowered my eyes to the floor, looking at my worn shoes — something unforgivable in Norway, normal here.

"Nolan," I said, my voice unsteady. "What do you think? You’re the boss here. I’ll go along with whatever you say."

Nolan also looked down, also at the floor. His fingers drummed once on the table.

"It’ll only be for what’s left of my week," Mayo clarified before he could respond. Her voice dropped to that tone of hers from when she stopped performing, and her eyes found Nolan’s with a calm I hadn’t seen in her all day. "Like before. It won’t be long."

She looked at him.

Nolan didn’t answer right away.

Those black eyes held something I recognized — not because they’d ever been directed at me, but because I had studied Mayo enough to understand them. They were the eyes of a day at the beach without shoes. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

And with a voice that was somewhat unsteady, Nolan said:

"All right. You can work."

Mayo smiled.

She went to him, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her broad chest against my man’s. Nolan was seated, having been enjoying the cookies just a minute ago, and she nearly settled into his lap, with that closeness that in any other context would have had a different name.

For a moment, with her face so close to his, the angle between them was so small that any movement in the wrong direction would have closed it entirely.

"Thank you, Boss," she whispered to him, while Nolan pulled back when he noticed me. "That’s why you’re the best," she told him in his ear — my hands tightening, watching the pastry display out of the corner of my eye.

But she pulled away, with a smile more curved than usual.

"I start tomorrow," she announced, taking her coat from the back of the chair with that efficiency of hers — someone who has already gotten what they came for. "Don’t be late."

And she left.

The little bell rang.

Nolan let out a long sigh, the kind that isn’t planned, that only comes out when something that had been clenched finally finds room to let go.

"It was a mistake," he said quietly, almost to himself. "A mistake, a mistake."

"It wasn’t, Nolan," I said, walking toward him slowly. "You did it out of the goodness of your heart." I sat in his lap, in the same spot where Mayo had nearly stolen from me, claiming the space with the same ease with which I lower the chairs every morning.

I touched my cheek with just my fingertips — it was warm. I moved them to his neck, leaning in for a kiss.

I felt his shoulders drop. His breathing found its usual rhythm, the one I knew by heart, the one that belonged to me.

"Easy, love," I said, resting against his chest. "It’s only going to be one week."

He wrapped his arms around me without a word. His heart was beating fast against my shoulder, faster than it should at this hour, in this quiet.

We stayed like that for a moment. Him resting his sharp beard on my head, while I breathed in his scent.

"You’re right," he said at last, pressing his forehead against my hair. "One week is nothing." He laughed, looking into my eyes. "I don’t know what I’d do without you by my side."

"Maybe walk home without shoes," I laughed.

He kissed me on the mouth. A brief kiss, the kind that says I’m here more than anything else.

"You’re right," he smiled. "But it’s time to close up," he said, with a half-smile that was already more like his own. "And get as much ready as we can, so Mayo ruins as little as possible tomorrow."

I laughed. A small, genuine laugh, the kind that comes out on its own with no useful purpose.

"We can start by closing up," I said, climbing off his lap.

We divided the work as always, in silence, in our two-year synchrony. Me, the chairs; him, the kitchen. Me, the bar; him, the register. Everything in its place, everything on its mark, everything exactly as it should be.

But as I arranged the cups on the shelf, handles facing right, I thought about her hands touching the table. About her steps landing on the floor’s worn marks. About those black eyes looking at the café with the expression of someone who wants to take something that isn’t theirs.

"Just one week," I repeated softly, aligning the last cup. "And I’ll never have to see you again."

I turned off the lights.

And the café was in order.

That day I woke up the same, dressed the same, and followed the same route. I saw the café already open — common on weekends. My entrance was met with the clink clink of the little bell.

But also by her eyes.

"Early riser, Ryne," said Mayo, putting on my cap carelessly. "This week is going to be a lot of fun, I promise you that," she smiled — or at least tried to. "I’m also going to be a happy girl. Friend."