The second coffee became dinner.
Mia hadn't planned it. She had arrived at the same corner table at the same time, ordered the same coffee, told herself this was not a pattern yet because two data points did not constitute a pattern. Nathan arrived three minutes after her. He looked at the menu for exactly one second and said "have you eaten" and she said "not since noon" and he said "then let's go somewhere with food" and somehow that was that.
They walked to a Mexican place two blocks south because it had outdoor seating and the September evening had finally cooled to something that felt like mercy. They ordered without much deliberation — she had a feeling he was not a man who suffered menus — and the food arrived fast and was good and simple and she ate without thinking about it, whi
