#johnbernsteinx

She’s more nervous than she should be. Lara nearly hopes she gets a phone call that forces her to cancel, nearly thinks that she’d rather put herself through the five round of interviews it had taken to get her job all over again, nearly nearly nearly loses her nerve but she stares at her phone’s lock screen after locking it for the umpteenth time and exhales at the sight— herself and Mason on his sixteenth birthday. This is for him, like everything that she does. Of course she is happy that Quinn’s found someone, but if it weren’t for Mason’s sake and the fierce protectiveness that burns in her chest and sears her soul at the sight of her son’s wide grin in that photo, there’d be no reason to be doing this. 

This, being having coffee with her ex-boyfriend’s significant other.

It’s after the song finishes that she slides out of her car, pocketing her phone as she makes sure her keys and wallet are in her other pocket. Dark jeans, hoodie, white leather sneakers make for a simple, clean cut look as Lara pushes her curly hair out of her face and walks into the cafe, inhaling and exhaling slowly as the scent of coffee lulls her senses. She’s early. So she orders her drink and picks a table near the window of the cafe, glued to her phone until she sees a now becoming familiar figure make their way through the door. “Over here,” Lara calls out gently, a tentative smile curled at the corner of her mouth. If John’s good for Quinn and makes him happy, that’s all good and well. But it’s Mason that’s her primary concern, so her quiet, underlying doubts (quiet for now, but later maybe not so) about his father bleed into his partner as well. 

He had a terrible habit of never calling first. There was something much more narratively romantic about just showing up to a place. With Ela, he felt as if he’d sort of blown past the borders of ‘impress and be professional’ and he only felt a little intimidated as he walked through the gallery, eyes scanning around for the artist. They fell, instead, upon an impeccably dressed man, one he recognized as John-- a longsuffering friend of Ela’s who’d had to put up with Ewan’s ramblings on more than one occasion. He strolled up to him now, grin stretched wide across his face. “Berny! Hey, man. Do you happen to know if Ela’s around? I didn’t tell her I was stopping by. Actually, I didn’t really know I was planning on stopping by until I was inside, so.” He shrugged. “How are ya?”