The eggs were gone. The toast was gone. The fruit bowl had been picked clean somewhere between the second cup of coffee and a conversation about nothing in particular that had somehow lasted forty minutes.

Liam set the tray aside and reached for his jacket.

Rachel watched him from the doorway, shoulder against the frame, arms loosely crossed. She had changed into jeans and a fitted top and her hair was down now, falling past her shoulders. He had clocked it the night before but the morning confirmed it — Rachel was what happened when nature handed someone an average face and the universe quietly compensated everywhere else. The body was doing considerable heavy lifting and it knew it. She had clearly figured out early that charm, warmth, and the ability to cook a breakfast that made a man reconsider his entire morning schedule were more durable assets than anything else, and she had invested accordingly.

The result was a woman who was genuinely good company.

Liam respected the build.

"You have everything?" she asked.

He patted his jacket. Wallet, keys, phone. "Yeah."

"You sure? You came in like a burglar. You might have dropped something in the dark."

"If I find anything missing I’ll know where to look."

She smiled, pushing off the doorframe. She walked him to the front door without ceremony, which he appreciated. No performance, no manufactured moment. Just a woman seeing someone out like it was the most ordinary thing, which — he supposed — was exactly what it should be.

At the door he turned back.

"Breakfast was good, Rachel," Liam wanted to make sure she knew how much he enjoyed it.

"You already said that."

"Worth saying twice." Liam said with a wink.

She leaned against the open door, one hand on the frame, looking at him with that loose, unhurried expression she’d been wearing all morning. "Drive safe."

"I kinda would have been dead if I didn’t."

He headed for the stairs.

-

The morning air outside hit him cleanly — cool, carrying the faint smell of wet concrete from overnight sprinklers wetting the plants. Liam came through the building’s front entrance buttoning his jacket, squinting slightly against the flat grey brightness of the sky.

He was three steps out when he heard it.

Footsteps. Rhythmic, heavy, slowing down.

He looked up.

Darren was standing at the bottom of the path in running shorts and a sweat-soaked grey t-shirt that had given up pretending to be dry approximately forty minutes ago. Earphones around his neck, water bottle in hand, chest still rising and falling from the tail end of a run.

Their eyes met.

Liam said, very quietly, "Fuck."

Darren had the water bottle to his lips.

He lowered it slowly. Looked at Liam. Looked at the building entrance. Looked back at Liam — at the suit, the jacket, the shoes that were the exact same as the one he wore the night before.

Then he looked at the car parked exactly where it had been parked the night before.

His mouth opened.

He spat the water clean across the pavement.

"Liam—"

"Don’t." Liam was already walking toward the car.

"You didn’t—"

"Don’t make a big deal out of this."

"I’m not making a big deal," Darren said, falling into step beside him with entirely too much energy for someone who had just run God knows how many miles.

"I’m making an appropriately sized deal. I specifically told you to be careful with her last night and you—" He gestured at the building. "You went to fuck her right after."

"The door was open."

Darren stopped walking. "The door was—" He put both hands on top of his head. "What does that even mean?"

"It means the door was open and I went in." Liam reached his car. "Straightforward."

"That is not straightforward. That is the opposite of straightforward." Darren leaned against the passenger side, arms crossed, grinning in the way he had been trying and failing to suppress since the moment the water left his mouth.

"You broke into her— she’s not even your girlfriend, you broke into a woman’s apartment—"

"I didn’t break in. There was no breaking. The door was ajar."

"Liam."

"Darren."

They looked at each other.

Darren lost the fight with the grin completely. "How was the food?"

Liam blinked. "What?"

"She made you food, didn’t she. That’s the face of a man who got fed." He pointed at the grain of food on his chin.

"That’s a well-fed man right there."

"I’m leaving."

"Eggs? It was eggs, wasn’t it. She makes good eggs—"

"How would you know what her eggs taste like?"

Darren held both hands up. "She brought muffins down once. For the building. I’m just saying she can cook." He paused. "Was it eggs that made you give it up?"

Liam said nothing, which was its own answer.

Darren laughed his ass off. He shook his head slowly like a man recalibrating everything he thought he knew about how his Tuesday morning was going to go.

"You know what," he said, straightening up, "I’m not even mad. I’m not." He held up a hand.

"Sara had you locked down for years acting like she was doing you a favour. Least now you’re—" He searched for the word. "Moving."

"I was always moving. A man in motion is a man that can never be caught."

"You were stationary, brother. You were a parked vehicle." He slapped the roof of the car once. "Now you’re moving. I’m happy for you. I mean it."

Liam looked at him for a moment. "You’re just hoping she gives you a discount on your rent."

"I’m hoping for many things," Darren said, completely without shame. "A man is allowed to hope."

Liam shook his head and pulled the car door open. "Go shower. You smell like a gym bag."

"I just ran eight miles."

"Do you want a cookie? Go shower."

Darren stepped back from the car, still grinning, pointing finger guns as Liam got in and pulled the door shut. He was still standing there when Liam started the engine.

Liam picked up his phone to check the time.

The notification was already there. Sitting at the top of his screen, timestamped forty-three minutes ago.

"Mrs. Harriet."

He opened the message and read it once. Then read it again.

She had declined his terms.

He almost put the phone down — and then he read the second paragraph.

Her counter-offer sat there in clean, precise sentences. A formal letter of recommendation on firm letterhead. A certificate of good standing, uncontested. Two client referrals with written endorsements.

Liam read it a third time.

She had changed one referral to two. Swapped the partners’ signatures requirement for her signature alone. Moved one term slightly left, another slightly right.

But the bones were identical. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

It was his deal. Dressed in her language, filed under her letterhead, presented as her counter. A woman protecting something that had nothing to do with the terms and everything to do with the fact that she had not, in fifteen years of practice, been out-negotiated by someone a decade her junior.

Liam set the phone down on the passenger seat, he had a deal.

Outside, Darren had disappeared back into the building.

He sat quietly for a moment. Then he pulled out into the street, and allowed himself, just briefly, a very small smile.