1
Jamie McMahan hadn’t planned on coming back to Roan Bluff.
He definitely hadn’t planned on standing in his dead parents’ front yard while Christopher Thacker stopped his truck in the street and looked at him like twenty years had not been enough.
For years, Jamie had treated the town like something sealed in a box and shoved to the back of a closet. It existed, technically, but only if he went looking for it.
He hadn’t gone looking.
Even after his parents died, he kept his distance. The house was handled through a property management company. Rent came in. Repairs got done. He signed whatever needed signing and otherwise let the place remain someone else’s problem.
It worked.
Until it didn’t.
The call from the Vancouver Board of Trustees had been short and careful. Budget cuts. Restructuring. His position at the museum was being eliminated. It had nothing to do with anything else, they assured him. Nothing to do with the fact that he had been seeing his supervisor. Nothing to do with how that ended.
Of course it didn’t.
Two weeks later, Jamie had packed his apartment, boxed his books, and driven east with a kind of numb efficiency that surprised even him. When the offer from the Roan Bluff Historical Society came through, it felt less like a choice and more like gravity.
They needed a curator.
He needed a job.
The house was sitting empty.
So here he was.
Back in a place he had spent twenty years avoiding.
That was what he was thinking as he stood on the uneven front walk, arms folded, watching the landscaper unload equipment from the back of a trailer. The grass had been cut recently, but the shrubs along the front of the house had grown wild, pressing up against the siding like they were trying to get in.
“I can take all of this back,” the landscaper said, gesturing with one gloved hand. “Clean lines. Low maintenance. Something that won’t get away from you again.”
Jamie nodded, though his attention had already begun to drift. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
The man gave him a quick look, like he could tell Jamie wasn’t really seeing the yard. “You just move here?”
“Just moved back.”
“Family place?”
“It belonged to my parents.”
The words came out flat. Time had sanded them down into something duller.
The landscaper nodded once, as if that explained enough. “We’ll get it looking right.”
Jamie glanced back at the house.
The paint was still the same pale blue his mother had insisted on, though the porch sagged more than it used to. The front windows reflected the street in a way that made it hard to tell what was inside and what was memory.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’d be good.”
A truck engine sounded somewhere down the street.
Jamie didn’t pay it much attention at first. Cars passed all the time. This was a neighborhood again, not a place he could keep frozen in memory.
The landscaper kept talking. Something about edging. Gravel. Mulch.
Jamie nodded at the right moments until the truck came into view.
Dark paint. A little worn. Older model. Nothing unusual about it.
It should have kept going.
It didn’t.
Jamie’s gaze followed it without thinking, something in the back of his mind catching before he understood why. The truck rolled past the house, slowed, then dropped into a low idle.
And stopped.
Right there in front of the property.
Jamie frowned slightly and turned his head just enough to see through the windshield.
The driver was already looking at him.
For a second, it didn’t land. His brain tried to place the face and came up empty, like it was flipping through the wrong file.
Then something clicked.
Not all at once. Not cleanly. More like small, sharp recognitions stacking on top of one another.
The shape of his shoulders.
The way he held the wheel with one hand.
The line of his jaw, older now. Rougher.
Christopher.
The name didn’t feel real at first. It sat in Jamie’s mind like something misfiled, something that belonged to a different version of his life.
But the longer he looked, the harder it was to deny.
Christopher Thacker.
Jamie’s chest tightened. Not with anything dramatic. Not a flood. Just a quiet, unwelcome shift, like something inside him had been moved without permission.
The landscaper was still talking.
“—and we could edge along the walkway, give it a cleaner look.”
“Sorry,” Jamie said, cutting in without looking away from the street. “Give me a second.”
The man followed his gaze toward the truck. “You know him?”
Jamie didn’t answer.
Because yes.
And no.
And not in any way that fit into a simple explanation.
Christopher hadn’t moved. He was still sitting behind the wheel, one arm resting against the open window, staring like he wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing either.
Twenty years was a long time.
It should have been long enough.
Jamie became aware of the way he was standing, the way his arms were folded tight across his chest, the fact that he had not moved at all since the truck stopped. He forced himself to drop his arms to his sides.
He told himself it didn’t matter.
People stayed in towns like this. Of course they did. It wasn’t strange that Christopher might still be here. It wasn’t—
The truck door opened.
The sound cut through the quiet street, sharp and final.
Christopher stepped out.
He looked different. Of course he did. Time had filled him out, broadened him in ways that had nothing to do with high school or college or anything Jamie could easily place. There was a heaviness to him now, not just physical. It sat in the way he stood and the way he looked at Jamie, as if he were trying to bridge a distance he knew he had helped create.
But it was still him.
Unmistakably.
Jamie felt it then. Not a rush of memory. Not anything overwhelming.
Just one steady awareness settling into place.
This is happening.
Christopher took a few steps forward, stopping just short of the edge of the yard. Like there was an invisible line he wasn’t sure he was allowed to cross.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The landscaper shifted awkwardly beside Jamie, clearly aware he had become part of something he did not understand. “I can, uh, give you a minute,” he said, already backing toward his trailer.
Jamie barely registered him leaving.
His focus was fixed on the man at the edge of the yard.
Christopher’s mouth opened slightly, like he was about to say something. Then it closed again. His expression flickered, something uncertain passing through it.
“Jamie,” he said finally.
Just his name.
Nothing else.
It should not have meant anything. It was only a word. Two syllables.
But hearing it in Christopher’s voice after all this time felt wrong in a way Jamie could not immediately explain.
Too familiar.
Too easy.
Jamie held his gaze. Steady. Measured.
“Christopher.”
The name felt different in his own mouth.
Distant.
Deliberate.
Christopher let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, though there was nothing amused in it. “I didn’t think—” He stopped, shaking his head once. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”
“Neither did I.”
The words hung there, simple and true.
Christopher glanced past him at the house, then back at Jamie. “You kept this place?”
“After my parents died, it became mine.”
A brief pause.
“I’m running the museum now,” Jamie added, because it felt easier than letting the silence stretch. “Curator.”
Christopher nodded slowly, like he was filing that away. “Yeah. I heard they were looking for someone.”
Jamie almost asked how.
He didn’t.
Instead, he stood there with the weight of the moment pressing at the edges of his composure. He had come back expecting discomfort. Memories. Maybe a few familiar faces.
Not this.
Not him.
Christopher shifted his weight, still hovering at the edge of the yard. “I didn’t know it was you,” he said. “When I drove by. I just—” He exhaled, a little sharper this time. “I saw you standing here and…”
Jamie waited.
Christopher met his eyes again, something raw and unguarded breaking through for just a second.
“And I wanted to stop.”
Jamie’s jaw tightened.
Of course he did.
Some things didn’t change, no matter how much time passed.
Christopher had always moved toward what he wanted before thinking through what it might cost anyone else.
“I was just passing by,” Christopher added, gesturing vaguely back toward the truck. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
Jamie glanced toward the trailer at the curb, where the landscaper was very deliberately pretending not to watch. “You didn’t.”
Another pause settled between them.
Not as sharp as before.
Not comfortable either.
Christopher nodded once, like he was accepting something unspoken. “It’s been a long time.”
“It has.”
Christopher looked at him for another moment, then said, “You got a minute to catch up?”
Jamie didn’t answer right away.
He could feel the pull of it, the old instinct to say yes, to fall into something familiar just because it was there.
He didn’t.
“I’ve got him waiting,” he said instead, nodding toward the yard. “Trying to get this place back into shape.”
Christopher followed his gaze, then nodded. “Right. Yeah.”
For a second, it looked like that might be it. That Christopher would get back in his truck and drive off, and this would become something Jamie could process later, alone.
But Christopher didn’t move.
“Maybe later?” he said. “We could grab dinner or something.”
Jamie went still.
Dinner.
Like they were old friends who had run into each other after a few years. Like there wasn’t twenty years of silence sitting between them. Like there wasn’t something heavier under all of it.
His first instinct was to say no.
Clean. Simple. Safe.
But standing there, with Christopher looking at him like that, like he was trying not to push too hard, Jamie found himself hesitating for a different reason.
Avoiding him now wouldn’t undo the fact that he was here.
They were in the same town again.
This wasn’t going to stay contained to one moment in a yard.
Better to control it.
Set the terms.
“Dinner,” Jamie repeated.
Christopher nodded quickly. “Yeah. There’s a place on Main. River Street Grill. It’s good. If you’re free.”
Jamie studied him.
Christopher held his gaze, steady, but there was something under it. Not pressure. Not exactly.
Hope, maybe.
That felt more dangerous than anything else.
Jamie let out a slow breath. “Okay.”
Christopher blinked, like he had not been entirely sure that would work. “Yeah?”
“Dinner’s fine.”
Something in Christopher’s shoulders eased. “Tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Seven?”
Jamie nodded. “Seven.”
Christopher stepped back toward the truck, like he didn’t trust himself to linger now that he’d gotten what he asked for. “I’ll see you then.”
Jamie didn’t answer.
He just watched Christopher climb behind the wheel. The door closed with a solid, familiar sound.
The engine turned over.
For a second, Christopher didn’t pull away. He sat there with his hands on the wheel, looking at Jamie with a small, disbelieving smile that made him look briefly, brutally young.
Then the truck eased forward, rolling down the street and out of view.
The quiet that followed felt different.
Heavier.
Jamie stood there a moment longer, staring at the empty stretch of road like something might still be there if he looked hard enough.
“Friend of yours?”
The landscaper’s voice pulled him back.
Jamie didn’t turn right away. “Something like that.”
The man gave a low, understanding hum that did not understand anything, then clapped his hands together. “Alright. Let’s talk about these shrubs.”
Jamie forced himself to focus.
He nodded as the man launched back into measurements and plans. He answered when he needed to, pointed where he was supposed to, and signed off on things without really thinking about them.
All the while, his mind circled the same three details.
Seven o’clock.
River Street Grill.
Christopher.
By the time the landscaper packed up and left, the afternoon had slipped further along than Jamie realized. The sun had shifted, casting long shadows across the yard.
The house loomed behind him, quiet and waiting.
Inside, it still smelled faintly like the last tenants. Something artificial layered over older traces that no amount of cleaning ever fully erased.
Jamie dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and stood there, staring at nothing.
Dinner.
He could still cancel.
He had plenty of reasons. He had just moved back. He had work to prepare for. The museum opened in two days. He had contractors coming in the morning. He was tired.
All valid.
None of them true enough.
He pushed off the counter and moved through the house, each step familiar in a way that felt both distant and immediate.
Upstairs, the bedroom was mostly empty. A bed. A dresser. A few boxes he had not unpacked yet.
He opened one at random and flipped back the top.
Books. Old notebooks. Things he had not had the energy to sort.
He closed it again.
Not today.
By the time he left the house, the sky had begun to soften toward evening. Roan Bluff looked different at this hour. Quieter. Almost smaller.
Main Street had changed less than it should have.
A few storefronts were different. Fresh paint here and there. New signage. But the bones were the same. Same sidewalks. Same narrow stretch of road. Same sense that everything important happened within a few blocks and everyone knew before you did.
River Street Grill sat near the end, its windows lit from within, a soft amber glow spilling out onto the sidewalk.
Jamie slowed as he approached.
He didn’t remember this place.
Which meant it was new.
Or new enough.
He reached for the door, then paused.
This was a bad idea.
The thought came through clearly.
Sharp. Certain.
He ignored it.
The door opened with a quiet chime.
Warm light. Low conversation. The faint clink of glass and silverware.
It was nicer than he expected. Not overly polished, but deliberate. Clean lines. Dark wood. A place that knew what it was doing.
Jamie stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind him.
“Hey, welcome in.”
A server looked up from behind a small host stand, offering a quick smile. “Table for one?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Name?”
“Thacker.”
The server’s expression shifted, just slightly.
Recognition.
“Oh,” she said, already reaching for a menu. “He’s here. Let me grab him.”
Of course he is.
Jamie exhaled slowly, his gaze drifting across the room.
And then he saw him.
Not sitting.
Not waiting.
Working.
Christopher stood near the bar, sleeves rolled to his forearms, talking to someone behind the counter with the easy authority of a man who belonged there.
Not a regular or a guest.
Jamie’s stomach tightened, something clicking into place.
Christopher turned, like he felt it.
Their eyes met across the room.
And just like that, everything from earlier came rushing back, sharper this time, harder to ignore.
Christopher said something quickly to the person beside him, then started toward him.
Jamie stayed where he was.
Waiting.
Of course.
This wasn’t just a restaurant.
It was his.
