“I’ve been scouring the internet for you,” he said, looking at her as if she were a mirage, about to disappear when he blinked. “But I couldn’t find anything more recent than two and a half years ago. At every show I’ve played, I’ve been wondering if you would walk through the door, wondering if you’d heard the song, and if you had, if you’d known it was about you. That’s why I asked them to keep the house lights up, so I could scan the audience for you.”

Emily’s palms felt clammy. She hadn’t expected that he’d be so honest, so direct.

“How could I not know it was about me?” she said, refamiliarizing herself with his easy smile, with the width of his shoulders, the jut of his chin. It felt surreal to be there, like she’d woken up inside a dream, like she was in an alternate version of time, where things had gone differently, where they’d always known each other, never been apart.

“You look like you but grown up,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. “Not quite as I imagined, but close.”

“You too,” Emily said, though until recently, she hadn’t really imagined him at all. She’d managed to keep him out of her head, out of her heart, for so long, but now that he was in front of her, all of those feelings came sliding back. The longing, the guilt, the passion—not just for him, but for everything. For life.

“Can I treat you to a drink?” he asked her, not taking his eyes from her face.

Emily glanced down at her phone, where she’d left it on the bar. Nothing new from Ezra. He hadn’t changed his mind and decided to come home.

“How about a coffee?” she said. “I’m not used to these late nights anymore.”

Rob laughed, a sound she had forgotten, but that, once she heard it, felt as familiar as if they’d laughed together that morning.

“Coffee it is,” he said. “Let’s find ourselves a diner nearby.”

They’d eaten in so many diners back then. All over the city. The one they called the Disco Diner that played disco music and served French fries covered in melted cheese and gravy. The one they called the Pie Diner, because once a guy had walked in who seemed totally high on something and ordered six pieces of cherry pie and proceeded to eat all of them, while Rob and Emily watched in awe.

“Sounds good,” Emily told him, still in shock that this was happening, that she was there with him, that he’d written a song about her, that she’d just watched him perform it, that she agreed to get coffee with him, that they were both slipping into the rhythm they shared more than a decade ago.