[Liam’s POV]
The B&B mattress has a dip in the centre that my spine has not been appreciating since midnight. I chose this place because it was far enough from the pub to qualify as restraint and close enough to, well, not.
Five AM, and trainers on, laces double-knotted the way I've done every morning since the wedding that wasn't—a sport that isn’t a sport, but a punishment for my sins. The route is different here—coastal path instead of London pavement, salt instead of exhaust, waves throwing themselves against rock below.
My lungs burn by the second mile, which is the point. The pain is a language my body understands when my brain won't stop replaying the pub—Callum's hand resting on the bar—easy and uncomplicated, like he’s never once questioned whether he belonged somewhere.
I know that hand, because I used to be that hand—four years of resting my palm at the base of Odette's spine, the casual territorial behavior that I was allowed to act on. Not anymore. His eyes tracked her while she carried plates, and the worst part wasn't the looking—it was the not-hiding.
He watched her the way I watched her before I learned that watching could be taken from you overnight. I run harder, and the cliff edge is closer than sensible, and I don't adjust.
The shower at the B&B has two settings: punishment and scalding. I take both, shave with a razor from the village shop, and walk to the pub at half eight because coffee is a legitimate reason and I'm done pretending I have others.
Callum is behind the bar, cloth over his shoulder, and his look carries the professional hospitality of a five-star hotel—every courtesy extended, every boundary drawn. "Coffee?" He's already reaching for a mug.
"Please, black." I take a stool and my hands find the bar top, and his hands are on the same surface three feet away, and the wood between us is doing more diplomatic work than most treaties.
He sets the mug down without ceremony. The coffee is excellent, which I find personally offensive—terrible coffee from the man sleeping—or at least wanting to—with your ex-fiancée would be at least narratively consistent.
"How long are you staying?" He asks it while wiping down the espresso machine, not looking at me, giving the question the casual weight of weather chat.
"I don't know, depends." My thumb traces the handle of the mug, and the ceramic is warmer than anything else in this conversation.
"Depends on what?" One eyebrow lifts, half a glance over the machine—economical with his attention the way I used to be with company budgets.
"On whether the conversation I came for actually happens." I hold his gaze because not holding it would show that I’m giving up. And I’m not. "How do you know Odette?" The question is tactical, and we both know it, and his mouth twitches as he folds the cloth.
"She works for me—waitresses, lives upstairs." He meets my eyes across the bar. "Walked in a few weeks back looking like the world had kicked her out in the rain. How do you know her?"
"We were engaged." The words taste different said aloud in this pub, in front of this man—smaller, past tense, where they used to be everything.
He absorbs it the way a harbour wall absorbs a wave—no flinch, no crack, just the water finding its level. "She never mentioned an engagement—said she was running from something, didn't specify the something."
"The something was me." My coffee is going cold and I don't drink it, because my throat has closed around a sentence I didn't plan to say so plainly. Admitting it to herself is unpleasant, certainly, admitting it to this man? Downright horrific.
He nods, slow, fitting a piece into a puzzle he's been working on quietly for weeks. "That tracks—she flinches every time the post arrives, whole body, bracing for impact." He takes a beat, and his eyes don't leave mine. "I figured debt or a court order, but fiancé's worse."
The laugh that comes out of me is involuntary and tastes like rust. "Appreciate the ranking."
"I call it like I see it." He pours himself a coffee—black, same as mine—and leans against the counter, and we drink in a silence that's doing the work neither of us will.
"She's settled in well, good with the regulars." He says it in a tone meant to sound neutral, while saying something that’s not neutral at all. "Quick learner."
"She was always better with people than me—I once made a client cry at a dinner party by asking about her portfolio performance." My thumb moves against the ceramic. "Odette kicked me under the table hard enough to bruise."
His mouth curves, but the curve doesn't reach his eyes. "Coffee's on the house." He sets his mug down, and the five words carry the weight of a border checkpoint—entry granted this far, no further, passports checked on the way out.
The stairs creak—fourth step, then ninth—and Odette appears at the bottom in a jumper too big for her, hair tied back, her face absolutely ordinary and calm, which tells me she’s not calm at all. I know the arrangement because I build the same one every time I see her.
She sees me and stops for half a beat before the mask completes itself. She takes the stool between us like she’s choosing the centre seat at a negotiation table.
"Morning." Callum slides coffee toward her before she's fully seated, the action so practised my chest contracts. "Your gentleman caller beat you down."
"He's not my anything." She wraps both hands around the mug and doesn't look at either of us, which is its own point that I try to pretend doesn’t hurt.
"Former gentleman caller, then—Liam was telling me about your table-kicking technique." Callum's voice is warm and easy, and I want to dislike him for it, except the warmth is real and the ease is earned.
Her eyes cut to me, calculating what's been shared and what's been kept. "That was one time, and his client deserved it."
"She absolutely did not—she was sixty-four and very sensitive about her bonds." I almost smile, and across the bar, Odette sips her coffee, and for three seconds the air between the three of us is something that could, under different circumstances, be easy.
Callum breaks it the way he breaks everything, with charm that looks effortless. "Speaking of hopeless cases—Gerald, the fisherman, six years now, proposes to the same woman every spring, same knee, same speech, same pint after she says no."
"Does she ever say yes?" The question leaves me before I've considered what I'm really asking, and all three of us hear the second question underneath it.
Callum's eyes meet mine across the bar. "No, but she keeps showing up—every spring, same stool, same earrings, never misses a year." He picks up a glass and starts polishing it. "I reckon that's the same thing."
The silence that follows is three different silences stacked on top of each other. Odette's hand tightens on her mug, my thumb stops on the ceramic, and Callum polishes a glass that doesn't need it.
Then Odette's phone buzzes on the bar, screen up, and all three of us see the name before she can flip it—Celine—and the colour drains from her face so fast I nearly reach for her.