I look up at him, and our eyes hook, tunneling me back to every other time we shared an intense, silent exchange. Even this many years later, I think we can read each other pretty fucking well.

Breaking the connection, I glance down at my watch. It’s just after seven thirty. And although no one upstairs would complain if I showed up to work an hour and a half before I was scheduled, Elliot would know that if I said I had to get inside, I’d be lying.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I have about an hour.”

He tilts his head, slowly leans to the right, and, as a smile curves his mouth, he takes one shuffle-step, then another, as if luring me with his cuteness.

“Coffee?” His smile grows, and I notice his teeth, how even they are. A flash of Elliot at fourteen, wearing headgear, pulses through my thoughts. “Bakery? Greasy spoon?”

I point to the next block and the tiny four-table café that has yet to be overrun with residents and family members anxiously waiting for news postsurgery.

Inside it’s warm—bordering on too warm, the theme of my morning—and there are still two tables empty up front. Seating ourselves, we pick up the menus and peruse in tight silence.

“What’s good?” he asks.

I laugh. “I’ve never had breakfast here.”

Elliot looks up at me, blinks leisurely, and something in my stomach melts into a liquid heat that spreads lower. What’s weird, I realize, is that Elliot and I ate out together only a handful of times, and never alone.

“I usually scarf a muffin or bagel from the cafeteria.” I break eye contact, and decide on the yogurt and granola parfait before putting my menu down. “I bet everything is pretty tasty.”

Covertly, I watch him read, his eyes scanning quickly across the words. Elliot and words. Peanut butter and chocolate. Coffee and biscotti. Love matches made in heaven.

He reaches up, idly scratching his neck as he hums. “Eggs or pancakes? Eggs or pancakes?”

As he leans forward on an elbow, his shoulder muscle bunches beneath his cotton T-shirt. He rubs a finger back and forth just below his bottom lip. His phone buzzes near his arm, but he ignores it.

Have mercy. The only thought I have—bewildering and breathless—is that Elliot has become a man who knows how to use his body. I didn’t notice it yesterday, couldn’t have.

As he grins in his decision,

as he slides the menu gently back into the holder,

as he reaches for his napkin and lays it carefully across his lap,

as he looks up at me, pursing his lips slightly in happiness,

I suddenly feel grateful for the eleven intervening years, because would I have noticed all these little things otherwise? Or would they have blended together, blurring, known as the constellation of tiny mannerisms that slowly becomes Just Elliot?

I blink away when our waitress comes to the table and takes our order.

When she leaves, he leans in again. “Is it possible to catch me up on a decade over breakfast?”