Ivy Winters: A Skylines Legacy by @occisims
He had been sitting at his desk for ten minutes before he actually dialed.
That wasn't like him. Raiden did not hesitate. He made decisions, followed through, and moved forward. It was practically a job requirement. But there was something about Ivy Winters that made the usual certainty feel a little less certain — the way she talked with her whole self, the way she laughed at something and then immediately wanted to know what you thought about it, the way she was just — a lot, in the best possible way.
He dialed before he could think about it any harder. She picked up the third ring. He asked if she wanted to go to dinner with him — kept it easy, kept it direct, like his heart wasn't doing something mildly unprofessional in his chest.
There was a beat. Just one.
"Sure," she said. He leaned back in his chair and let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
He was already there when she arrived.
She spotted him before he saw her — standing by the yellow cab at the curb, hands in his pockets, looking like someone who was trying very hard to seem like he wasn't watching the street. Then he turned and saw her, and something in his face shifted, just slightly, in a way he probably didn't know was visible.
They hugged hello the way people do when they're not quite sure what they are yet — warm and a little careful and maybe a beat longer than strictly necessary.
And just like that, the nervous part was over.
They got to the table by the window and never really stopped talking.
Ivy had a habit of gesturing when she got excited about something — hands moving, words tumbling out ahead of her thoughts — and tonight she was excited about everything. The restaurant. The menu. The thing she'd been reading about. The story she was working on. She caught herself mid-sentence once and laughed and said sorry, I talked a lot, and he said I know in a way that made it clear he didn't mind at all.
He leaned forward when she spoke. She noticed that.
The food arrived, and they kept talking anyway — conversation weaving in and out of bites, neither of them in any particular hurry. He had ordered a steak. She had ordered salmon, fork moving absently while she made a point about something she felt strongly about. The restaurant hummed around them, and neither of them really noticed.
This was, she thought, a very good first date.
At some point, he held out his phone, and she leaned in without thinking about it — his arm around her shoulder, her head tilting toward him, the city bright and soft behind the glass.
She looked at the photo afterward and felt something she didn't quite have a word for yet. Something that felt a lot like the beginning of something.
They ordered dessert because neither of them was ready for the evening to end. He got a cake. She got cannoli and a glass of wine and laughed at something he said mid-sip in a way that made her must set the glass down carefully. He looked very pleased with himself about that.
The restaurant was quieter now, most of the other tables empty, the staff moving slowly around them. They were in no rush.
By the time the dessert plates were cleared, they had long stopped keeping track of time. Hands moving, both of them talking at once, laughing at the overlap. He had a dry sense of humor that sneaked up on you — the kind where the punchline arrived a beat late and hit twice as hard. She loved that. She told him so, and he looked quietly pleased in the way of someone who didn't fish for compliments but didn't mind catching them.
When the bill came, he reached for it before she could even think about it. She raised an eyebrow. He just smiled.
As they stood to leave, he took her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it — slow and deliberate, like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence he'd been building all evening. She looked at him. He looked back.
The restaurant was nearly empty now, just the two of them standing in the quiet of it, neither quite ready to walk out into the night and let the evening become a memory. He wished it would not end.
He stopped walking without meaning to.
She was a few steps ahead, turning back toward the door, the warm light of the restaurant catching the lines of her dress, her shoulders, the curve of her smile as she glanced back to see if he was following.
He wasn't. He was just — standing there. Looking at her.
She turned fully when she felt it. That was the thing about Raiden — even though his silence had weight. She felt his eyes on her before she saw them, felt the pull of it somewhere in her chest, and when she met his gaze across the empty restaurant, she didn't look away.
The door was right there. Neither of them moved toward it.
It was Ivy who suggested the bar.
She didn't want the night to end — that was the truth of it, and she was done pretending otherwise. The restaurant had been perfect, but it was quiet and candlelit, and she had energy left, the good kind, the kind that only comes when you're with someone who makes the world feel a little more alive than usual.
There's a place near my apartment, she said. If you're not tired.
The bar was loud and warm and exactly right.
She got another drink, and he pulled her onto the floor before she'd even finished it, and she laughed — really laughed, the kind that started somewhere deep and came out bigger than she expected. He wasn't a bad dancer. She was better. He didn't seem to mind being outshone in the slightest.
She spun out and came back, and for a moment they were just looking at each other in the middle of all that noise and light, both of them knowing — without saying it, without needing to — that this had been a very good night.
Evergreen Harbor was quieter than the city — the kind of quiet that settles into your bones after a night of noise and laughter. Raiden's place was warm and lived-in, nothing like what she'd expected and exactly right somehow.
She sat on the couch while he disappeared down the hall, hands folded in her lap, taking it all in. The record player in the corner. The art on the walls. The way his space felt like him — steady, unpretentious, a little more layered than it looked at first glance.
She had not expected to end up here tonight. She found she didn't mind at all.
He came back and stopped.
She was sitting there in the low light of his living room, in a yellow dress, glasses, completely at ease now in a way that made something in his chest pull tight. He had told himself on the walk back down the hall that he would take it slow. That he was a patient man. There was no rush. He crossed the room and kissed her anyway.
Not careful. Not tentative. The kind of kiss that had been building all evening — through dinner and dancing and the bar and the drive and all the quiet moments in between — and finally had nowhere left to go but here.
Her arms found their way around him without her having to think about it, and for a long moment, the record player was the only sound in the room. Something soft and unhurried, turning in the corner while the city glittered distantly beyond the window. When they finally pulled back, she looked at him. He looked at her.
Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to.
One thing led to another, the way it does when two people have been circling something all evening and finally stop pretending they aren't.
It was gentle. It was honest. It was the kind of thing that doesn't need to be described to be understood.
Afterward, they lay tangled together in the quiet of his room. The city in a distant hum beyond the window, his arm around her and her head against his chest. She had not planned for any of this when she got dressed this morning. She found she wasn't sorry about a single moment of it.
He fell asleep first. She listened to his breathing slow and felt something she hadn't felt in a long time — maybe ever.
Completely, entirely at ease.
Then she closed her eyes, too.