Part 2: The Last Seat on the 6:15.

Nora arrived at the rehearsal dinner eighteen minutes late, breathless and unbothered, sliding into a seat next to her sister with an apology that was only about sixty percent sincere.

"You missed the toast rundown," her sister Bea whispered, narrowing her eyes. "You have that look."

"What look?"

"The look you get when something interesting happened. Spill."

Nora glanced at her phone under the table, Sam's text still glowing on the screen, and felt her face do something she couldn't quite control. "I met someone. On the train. It's probably nothing."

"It's never nothing when you get that face." Bea grabbed her phone before Nora could stop her, scrolling shamelessly. "'For the record, I do recommend the book' Nora. NORA. You gave a stranger your number?"

"He seemed nice! And mildly suffering through a very sad novel, which felt like a good character reference."

"That is not a character reference, that's a red flag with excellent taste in literature."

Nora grabbed her phone back, laughing despite herself, and spent the rest of the rehearsal dinner only half-present, sneaking glances at her screen every time it buzzed which, over the course of the evening, was more often than she wanted to admit to her increasingly smug sister.

Sam: How was the rehearsal? Did chronic optimism get you there in time?

Nora: Eighteen minutes late. A personal best, actually.

Sam: Impressive. I finished the book, by the way. You were right to be worried about page two hundred.

Nora: I TOLD you. Did you cry?

Sam: Absolutely not. I simply had something in my eye for eleven consecutive pages.

Nora laughed out loud at the table, drawing a curious look from her future brother-in-law, and typed back before she could overthink it.

Nora: I'm free tomorrow, if you wanted to discuss your extremely emotional eleven pages over coffee. No pressure. Just I liked talking to you today, and forty minutes felt too short.

The reply took a few minutes this time, long enough that Nora started composing an exit strategy in her head, some version of "it's fine, forget I said anything" ready to deploy.

Sam: I liked it too. Coffee tomorrow sounds good. Fair warning, though I'm significantly less charming when I'm not trapped next to you on public transit with no way to leave the conversation.

Nora: I'll take my chances.

She set her phone down, smiling at nothing in particular, and caught her sister watching her with an expression that had shifted from teasing to something softer.

"You really like this one," Bea said. Not a question.

"I met him ninety minutes ago," Nora said. "That's insane, right? That's an insane thing to already feel."

"Maybe," Bea said, squeezing her hand. "Or maybe some things just don't need forty years to make sense. Go find out tomorrow."

to be continued... ☕💫