Chapter Three

The coffee shop was quieter this time. No rain on the windows. Just the occasional scrape of a mug being set down, the low hum of conversation. Mal sat at his usual corner table, a different textbook today—Congenital Heart Defects in Pediatric Medicine—but the same americano, already going cold. Again. He tapped his pen against the page, restless. Claris had only been admitted for two days, but the absence felt... distracting. It wasn’t logical. Mal didn’t even know him—not really. Two conversations, and a handful of shared silences. But still. He adjusted his glasses and stared out the window instead.

The memory of Claris’s voice from the hospital echoed in his head.

“Could you... water him while I’m out? Didn’t ask the nurse. Asked you.” That kind of trust—easy, warm, unguarde—Mal didn’t know what to do with it. He looked down at his hand, stained faintly with soil from watering the little mallow that morning. He’d done it carefully, like it was a task worth grading. He’d even rotated the pot to make sure the plant got even light. Ridiculous.

He set the pen down and closed the book, rubbing his eyes. His fingers brushed the skin beneath—dark and warm, a shade somewhere between hickory bark and fresh toffee, though he’d never been good at poetic self-description. His mum used to say he looked like the earth after summer rain—rich, full of story. She’d say it while taming his mess of curly hair and asking if he’d eaten enough that day. He missed her most when he felt uncertain.

And that’s what this was. Uncertainty. He didn’t do this. Mal didn’t get flustered over strangers, didn’t fumble feelings, didn’t look twice at people unless they’d already proven themselves safe. That was how his wiring worked. He didn't trust just anyone, they had to have meant something.

And... Claris hadn’t proven anything. He was a walking contradiction: fragile in hospital whites, yet somehow impossibly calm; bright without trying, sharp without biting. And when he smiled—really smiled—it made Mal’s chest tighten in a way he couldn’t name yet. And Mal wanted... not skin. Not heat. He wanted presence. To fold into Claris’s laugh. To feel that flower-scented quiet more often. To hold a life like that in his palms without breaking it.

It terrified him.

He took a shaky breath and pressed the heel of his palm into his chest. Beneath the ribs, the heart beats. And beats. And questions.