The evening settled over the city with a slow, tired quiet. Office lights glowed behind tall panes of glass like borrowed suns, flickering on as people streamed out of buildings in steady waves. The street smelled faintly of rain that had not yet fallen, asphalt still holding the warmth of the day beneath the cooling air. A bus released a long sigh at the curb down the block while distant laughter drifted across the intersection from a group leaving a restaurant.
Zane stood apart from it all.
He had not moved much in the last twenty minutes. He shifted his weight once, adjusted the grip he had on the stems in his hand, and checked the building entrance again without realizing how many times he had already done it. The lilies were beginning to bruise where his fingers tightened unconsciously. The small forget-me-nots trembled with every breath he took.
This was not how he had imagined seeing her again.
