KAIA REYES
The restaurant was already humming with weekend life when I stepped in. The warm scent of roasted garlic and espresso drifted through it.
It made my mouth water but I wasn't in the mood for it.
I glanced around, unsure of how I felt about this whole thing.
Then I heard it.
“Kaia.”
His voice cut clean through the din.
Caleb stood near a corner booth, already rising to his feet like he’d been waiting with one eye on the door the whole time. His usual calm was cloaked in something more tentative—nervous, almost.
He smiled, that familiar curve of his lips that used to make my knees soft. But today, it didn’t move me.
I walked over, clutching my bag tighter than I needed to.
“You look… beautiful,” he said as I sat down across from him.
I met his compliment with a quiet n
