Chapter 17

Adam stays for less than an hour, but for Conrad it feels like three.

He doesn't just sit in the armchair—he occupies it, like he owns the air in the room. The duffel is set down at his feet with the practiced ease of a man who's been in a thousand hotel lobbies. His posture is loose, relaxed, but his eyes are restless, cataloguing details the way Conrad remembers from every childhood report card, every college visit.

Amelia is polite. Perfectly polite. She introduces herself again when Adam repeats her name with just enough confidence to make it clear she won't be steamrolled. Adam's eyebrows tick up, a flicker of surprise quickly smoothed into that politician's smile he's worn his whole life.

Amelia says. "Boston's great for conferences. Where are you staying?"

"The Colonnade," Adam replies, lifting a sturdy ceramic mug to his lips. Steam curls around his fingers. "Comfortable enough, though I'd trade it for a proper kitchen." He sips the last of the coffee, closing his eyes briefly at the warmth. "You cook much Connie?"

Conrad shrugs, shifting on the sofa. The fabric of his shirt feels scratchy under his own gaze. "Enough."

"Ah. The basics." Adam's gaze flicks to Amelia. "And how did you two meet?"

"Next door neighbours," Amelia answers smoothly. "Been the case for the last two years. Our walls are pretty thin, so... friendship was kind of inevitable." She shrugs delicately, as if tossing aside any notion of awkwardness.

Adam chuckles. "Thin walls. I see. And how close would you say you two have gotten?"

Amelia tilts her head, unruffled. "Pretty close. We study together, check in on each other. Conrad's basically family at this point."

Adam lifts his brows, shifting his gaze from Amelia to Conrad and back again, as though weighing their words on a scale. "Family, hm? That's a big word for two young people." Conrad's chest tightens. He forces his shoulders down. "She's right."

Adam's smile becomes sharper—more wolf than father. "Just making sure I'm keeping up. Did you spend the holidays here together, too? Or is this more of a... coffee-and-notes kind of friendship?"

Amelia answers before Conrad can speak: "Both. We take care of each other. Simple as that." Her tone remains light, but her eyes never flicker away from Adam's.

For a heartbeat, Adam studies her. Then he lets out a slow breath and leans back further, the smile softening. "Well. I'm glad he's got someone. He's always been a bit of a lone wolf, my Connie. Not much for letting people in."

Conrad feels a sudden hollow ache, his throat constricting. He stares at the muted pattern of the carpet, willing the knot in his chest to ease.

Adam sets his empty mug on the table with a precise click. "But it looks like you managed to get past that. Impressive."

Amelia gives a small, polite smile. "I don't think it was that hard."

At that, Adam's eyes flick sharply to Conrad—surprise skimmed across his face before he swallowed it down with a laugh. "Then I stand corrected."

The conversation drags on in halting pieces: Adam inquires about Amelia's major, growing up in London, what she makes of America. Words hang between them like cigarette smoke, heavy and insubstantial. Every answer feels weighed for hidden meanings, every pause pregnant with unasked questions.

At last Adam rises, smoothing the front of his shirt with deliberate care. The fabric makes a soft swish. "I won't intrude further. I've got an early start tomorrow."

Conrad's relief hits him like a sudden draft, leaving him breathless.

At the door, Adam claps a firm hand on his son's shoulder, the grip warm but unyielding. "Breakfast. Eight o'clock. I'll text you the spot."

Conrad can only nod, leaning into the contact even as his heart pounds.

Once the door clicks shut, Amelia exhales, the tension leaving her frame in a single, visible wave. She sinks back onto the sofa. "Well," she says dryly, flipping off the television, "he's... intense."

"That's one word for it," Conrad mutters, pacing toward the kitchenette. His fingers tap against the countertop, as restless as his thoughts.

Amelia watches him, calm and steady. "You okay?"

He stops short, nodding too quickly. "Yeah."

She doesn't push, just pulls her knees up on the sofa. The room falls into quiet as they turn on the TV to watch reruns of old sitcoms, laughing occasionally at jokes they've both heard before, until Conrad notices her head has dropped against the cushion, eyes closed. He lets himself drift off too, both of them slumped awkwardly upright as the television flickers blue light across their faces.

The café Adam chooses is the flavourless sort of upscale that makes Conrad feel both out of place and accused. The sign out front—brushed metal, minimalist font—doesn't even bother with a name, just calls itself "Brunch." Inside, the place is all dark wood, white tablecloths, and waiters in black aprons moving with military economy. A wall of windows throws pale winter light over everything, the glare making Conrad squint as he shadows his father to their corner booth. Adam sits with a flourish, scanning the menu even though Conrad knows he's already decided. The man's been ordering "black coffee, eggs if they're not rubbery" since Conrad was a kid. Still, Adam pretends to consider, flipping the page with a performative flick of the wrist. Conrad, meanwhile, is stuck on the opposite bench, stiff as a conference call, perched on the edge of the seat so his knees don't touch the table's gleaming underside. The waitress arrives, pouring water with the same mechanical smile she'll deploy ten more times before noon. Adam orders coffee immediately—black, no sugar, no cream—then glances at Conrad, who parrots the order, not trusting himself to choose anything else. Adam folds his hands, leans back with the confidence of a man who's never faced consequences, and starts the performance: "You do look well, Connie." Conrad feels a flicker of nerves at the old nickname. He shrugs, staring at the condensation on his water glass. "I'm fine." Adam's eyes flick to the window, brow furrowed, a practiced gesture that somehow says both "I'm worried" and "I'm bored." "You always say that," he says, voice pitched just loud enough to carry to the next table. "But you don't answer my calls, and your brother says you hardly talk to him these days. You expecting me to believe you're really, objectively fine?" Conrad's jaw tightens. He hates being interrogated, even in friendly tones. He especially hates the way Adam absorbs a room—other diners glancing over, tuning in to this little drama even as they pretend to butter their toast. "What do you want me to say?" Conrad says. Adam smiles, all teeth. "I want to know about Amelia. She seems... interesting." And there it is. Conrad should have known—his father's always been able to find the weak spot. "She's my neighbour," he says, trying for cool and failing. "We study together. That's it." Adam's smile sharpens, like he's just solved a puzzle. "I didn't ask what she is. I asked what she's like." Conrad shifts, glancing at the table. The water glass sweats onto his sleeve when he lifts it, the chill biting at the thin skin of his wrist. "She's smart. Organized. Keeps to herself." "That's not what I saw," Adam says, voice lowering. "The way she handled herself, you'd think she owned the place. I bet she's the reason your kitchen isn't a disaster zone." Conrad bristles. "I clean my own apartment." Adam laughs, that easy, dismissive sound. "Sure, sure. But it's different when you have company." The waitress returns with coffee and menus. Adam thanks her, then gestures for Conrad to order first. He picks the "Farmer's Plate"—eggs, bacon, potatoes—because it's at the top of the list, and he doesn't want to drag out the moment. Adam smirks, then orders an omelette with "whatever vegetables you have in the back." The woman writes it down with a flourish and disappears, heels clicking briskly on the tile. Adam pours a packet of sugar into his coffee, stirs once, then leans in. "You see, the thing about neighbours is, they're either your best friends or your worst enemies. That thin line gets blurry fast. Especially when you're young, alone, and the walls are—what's the word she used? Thin?" Conrad flushes. "It's not like that." Adam lifts a brow, unimpressed. "You sure about that? Because it looked a lot like that last night. The way she looked at you, like she was checking for glass in a wound." He takes a slow sip, letting the implication hang in the air. "I'm not judging, Connie. I just want to know what's really going on. You can talk to me." Conrad hates that it's working. He can feel the blood in his cheeks, the prickly heat of being correctly guessed. "She's just a friend," he repeats, and wonders if he believes it himself. Adam grins, shaking his head. "If you say so. But let me give you some advice—don't let it get messy. Nothing sinks a life faster than a mess with the girl next door." Conrad's fingers drum on the table, rapid and uneven. He wants to change the subject, but knows Adam will just circle back when he thinks Conrad's guard is down. He tries anyway: "How's work? Still flying out every week?" Adam's face closes a little, but he keeps the smile on. "Always. Somebody's got to keep the wheels turning. But I'm slowing down, believe it or not. Board's been pushing for me to take on more of a mentor role." He says it like "mentor" is a joke, a made-up job for old executives with nothing left to prove. Conrad nods, not sure what to say. He has nothing in common with this man, and the longer they sit in the quiet hum of the café, the clearer that becomes. He wonders if Adam knows it, if he feels the same divide, or if he just enjoys the sport of poking at Conrad's soft spots. "You ever hear from your brother?" Adam asks, polishing off the last of his coffee. "He says you ghosted him after the holidays." Conrad winces. He didn't mean to, but it's true—he hasn't answered Jeremiah's calls in awhile, and as time passes, less calls are made. Some guilt stirs in his chest. "We're both busy." Adam's gaze goes sharp, like a scalpel. "Busy is the easy excuse. You know it, I know it. Maybe you just don't want to deal with him." The accusation lands with a thud. Conrad's chest tightens. He swallows, then shakes his head. "It's not like that." Adam leans back, folds his arms. "Fine. Have it your way. But you'll have to face your family again eventually. It's a small world, Connie. Even smaller when you're carrying baggage." They lapse into an uneasy silence. The waitress brings food, sets the plates down with mechanical precision, and vanishes. Conrad stares at his eggs, appetite gone. Adam eats with gusto, as if the conversation never happened. When he's finished, he dabs his mouth with a napkin and sets it carefully beside the plate. "You know, I used to think you were the tough one. The one who could handle anything. But sometimes I think you're just hiding behind all that silence." Conrad meets his gaze, unblinking. "Maybe I am." Adam laughs again, but there's a thread of pride in it. "At least you're honest about it. That's more than most people." He reaches into his pocket, slaps two bills on the table, and stands. "Conference runs through Sunday. We'll catch up again before I go." Conrad nods stiffly, already exhausted. "Yeah. Sure." Adam places a heavy hand on Conrad's shoulder, squeezes once, then disappears into the morning light. Conrad watches him go, then slumps in the booth, staring at the muddy dregs of his coffee. He thinks of Amelia, of every time he's tried to cut himself off from people and failed. He thinks maybe Adam is right—maybe he can't do it alone. Maybe that's not a weakness, just a fact. He leaves the café, blinking into the glare. The city is loud, bustling, but Conrad walks in a bubble of silence, his thoughts fuzzed and far away. He trails through the streets, ending up at the river without knowing how he got there. The wind knifes through his coat, but he doesn't move. He just stands, watching the water, watching the light change, trying to puzzle out who he's supposed to become now. He spends the rest of the day drifting. The walk back from the river is slow, heavy, and he takes the long way home, weaving through campus, letting the concrete and eucalyptus haze wrap around the raw edges left by Adam. He tries to focus on the sidewalk, on the endless stream of students darting past, faces tucked into jackets, earbuds in, every single one of them in a hurry to get somewhere. Stanford is a parade of motion, everyone in pursuit of something urgent and bright, and for the first time in a long time, Conrad feels entirely, embarrassingly lost. His head is too loud, his chest too tight. Adam's voice keeps replaying, smug and certain, Friends like that? Rare. And they don't stay platonic forever. Conrad drags a hand down his face, muttering under his breath, "Shut up." But it doesn't shut up. It threads into other voices—Theo's sing-song teases when Amelia saves him the last slice of pizza. Tyler's relentless jokes at Lumière, half-serious about asking her out. Even Agnes once, tipsy and leaning over the counter at New Year's, You two need to hurry up and admit it already. They'd all laughed. Conrad too. Because it was easier than dealing with the weight of it. But now, walking alone with his stomach still sour from breakfast, he can't stop turning it over. Does Amelia like him like that? He thinks of the way her hand lingers sometimes on his shoulder when she's making a point. The way she drops off tea without asking when he looks worn out. The way she talked at his mothers grave—no, not talked, spoken, really spoken, with this certainty in her voice that made him want to believe in things again. It could mean something. It could mean nothing. Amelia's kind like that—with everyone, probably. Maybe she just... cares. Maybe he's the one who's weird, for dissecting every micro-interaction like it's a message in a bottle from some distant, unreachable shore. He closes his eyes and leans against a parking meter, waiting for the street noise to drown out his thoughts. The worst part is, he can't even tell what he wants. Does he like her like that? He tries to picture it—Amelia's hair running through his fingers, her face soft and open in the blue light of morning, their knees touching under a table not because the apartment is cramped but because they want them to. He tries to imagine kissing her, really kissing her, and his brain short-circuits. It's not that it's repulsive—far from it. It's just that every scenario ends in a dead end, a blank page, a wall he doesn't want to punch through. He's still raw from the last time. The way it ended with Belly, the way he and Jeremiah haven't spoken since the first anniversary, the way the whole world seems to have shrunk down to this single, airless room he carries inside of him. Maybe that's all he has left to offer anyone. He shoves away from the parking meter and keeps moving, but he's not really going anywhere anymore. Just burning calories and time, hoping that by the time he gets home, the answers will be clearer. They aren't, of course. They're worse, if anything. He almost walks straight past the door to his own apartment building. His key misses the lock twice before it finally turns, and the click of the deadbolt sounds impossibly loud in the quiet hall. He climbs the stairs two at a time, out of habit, and stops outside his own door, forehead pressed to the cool, painted wood.

He can hear Amelia inside. Not her voice, but the soft, steady shuffle of her feet as she moves between the sofa and the kitchenette, the clink of her mug against the countertop. He pictures her in her "study uniform" again—oversized hoodie, shorts, hair twisted up with a pencil—and something in his chest expands and contracts at the same time. He wonders if she's been waiting for him, or if she's just there because, well, she's always there now. He takes a deep breath and lets it out through his nose. "It doesn't have to mean anything," he mutters, but the lie tastes bitter. He's never been good at lying, even to himself. He waits another sixty seconds, maybe more, before he finally turns the knob and steps inside. The apartment is warm and lit with the mellow gold of late afternoon sun filtering through the blinds. Amelia is exactly as he pictured her: legs folded under her on the sofa, laptop open, a mug in both hands. She looks up when he enters, and the bright, immediate smile she gives him is enough to undo a whole morning's worth of resolve. "You're back," she says, as if he's been gone for days instead of hours. He shrugs off his jacket, lets it fall onto the back of the nearest chair. "Breakfast ran long," he says. "My dad wanted to talk."

Amelia's eyes go gentle. "Everything okay?" He nods, but she doesn't buy it for a second. She waits, silent, the way she always does when she knows he's about to say something real. "Just the usual," he says, waving it off. "He thinks I should be more..." He struggles for the word. "Open. I guess." Amelia cocks her head. "He told you that?" "He told me a lot of things." Conrad can't help the smile that slips out, thin and a little self-mocking. "But you know how he is." She does. She nods, and that's it—they don't need to talk about it anymore. He likes that about her, the way she doesn't fill every silence. He drops onto the other end of the sofa, grabs one of the textbooks from the coffee table and pretends to flip through it. But he's not reading. He's watching her, trying to find the line Adam was so sure existed. The line between friends and something else. Amelia closes her laptop and lets it rest on the cushion between them. "You ever get tired of being the responsible one?" she asks. The question catches him off guard. He laughs, a sound that surprises even him. "You think I'm responsible?" She grins, a flash of teeth and dimples. "You're the most responsible person I know. I mean, you even alphabetize your spices." He rolls his eyes. "That's not responsibility, that's compulsive." "Still counts," she says, tucking her legs tighter under her. "I'm just saying, it's okay to... I don't know. Cut loose. You don't always have to be in control." He looks away, out the window, at the way the sky is already starting to bruise with sunset. "It's easier," he says, almost to himself. Amelia doesn't push, just sips her tea and lets the silence fill in the gaps. He can't help it; he studies her profile, the way the light catches the fine angles of her face, the way she bites her lip when she's thinking. He remembers the way she'd looked at him last night—right after Adam left, before the two of them collapsed onto the couch and watched reruns until they both fell asleep sitting up. There'd been something in her eyes then, some flicker of recognition, like she was seeing him for the first time or maybe just seeing him differently. He wonders if she remembers it, or if it was just one of those tricks of light and proximity that happen when you're tired and a little bit lonely. He wants to ask. He wants to say, "Did you mean it?" but he's too afraid she'll say no. Instead, he thumbs through the pages of his textbook, not seeing any of the words, and listens to the sound of her breathing, steady and calm. He thinks about what Adam said—about things getting messy, about the line between best friends and worst enemies. He wonders if that's what he and Amelia are. If they're standing on the edge of something beautiful or something catastrophic, and the only way to find out is to take a step. He looks down at his hands, pale and thin in the slanted light, and wonders what they'd feel like with hers in them. If it would be awkward or perfect or maybe both at once. He wonders if she'd pull away, or if she'd just laugh and call him an idiot and then pull him closer. He glances over at her, and she catches him looking. She holds his gaze for a second, then raises her brows. "You want the last cookie?" she asks. He blinks, startled out of his own head. "What?" "The last cookie." She points to the Tupperware on the coffee table, but doesn't look away from his face. "I saved it for you."

He reaches for it, fingers brushing hers as she passes him the container. Neither of them pulls away immediately. When they do, the apartment feels different somehow—like the air has shifted, rearranged itself around this new possibility between them.

*************************Hi there, I don't normally do any sort of 'authors note' but I'm currently working a couple chapters in advance to what gets posted and need to know if anyone has opinions on the level of spice to incorporate. I haven't written a scene like that before and I don't want it to come across as gross/cringey, but I think with the mature context of this fic I don't want it to fade to black either.Let me know if you have any thoughts!