The café on Elm Street went dark at ten on weeknights, but Quinn always left the narrow side door cracked for thirty extra minutes. Officially, it was logistics. Unofficially, it was the only place in Kansas City where time could bend, where the ordinary rules of daylight dissolved and two women could become something more than names on a lease or faces behind a counter.

Tonight, the river fog had rolled in thicker than usual, pressing against the windows like a lover who couldn’t decide whether to knock or break in. The air inside still carried the ghost of the day’s espresso, dark and sweet, undercut by the wet pavement smell that followed Sage through the door.

Quinn was wiping down the last milk pitcher, movements deliberate, almost ritualistic, when she heard the hinges sigh. Then silence. Then the soft, measured click of heels stopping just inside the threshold—like a heartbeat deciding whether to race or rest.

She kept her eyes on the stainless steel. “You’re early.”

A velvet laugh, low and fond, wrapped around the room. “And you’ve been checking the time as it might run away from you.”

Quinn’s cloth slowed. “I have a business to close.”

“You have a girl who’s been carrying your last text in her chest since 7:32.” Sage’s voice dropped softer, almost reverent. “‘Wait.’ One word. It’s been living under my skin all day.”

Quinn finally turned.

Sage stood in the doorway as she had always belonged there. Midnight-blue trench coat belted tight at the waist, auburn hair pinned in a severe chignon that exposed the elegant line of her neck. The new gold chain at her throat caught the amber after-hours light—delicate, deliberate, vanishing beneath the lapels. Quinn’s throat tightened with the same fierce recognition she felt every time Sage chose to walk through that door: this woman kept offering pieces of herself no one else was allowed to see.

“You look...” Quinn searched, failed, and settled on honesty. “Like you’re carrying something heavy tonight.”

Sage’s smile flickered—half mischief, half vulnerability. “I overheard Jenna in the alley when I was coming in. She was whispering to her girlfriend about the sounds you make when you fuck someone against the pantry door. She said you snarl.” Sage’s gaze held Quinn’s, steady, searching. “It made me jealous. Not of her hearing it. Of the idea that anyone else might ever think those sounds belong to them.”

Quinn crossed the room in three strides. She didn’t grab. She cupped Sage’s face with both hands, thumbs brushing cheekbones, studying every freckle as though she were still learning the map of it after all these months.