A Rainy Evening

The rain started suddenly, the kind forecasters call "possible later in the day" and then dump on a city without warning at exactly closing time, when an umbrella is hardest to find.

Dani stood under the narrow awning outside Midnight Café, staring at the wall of water between her and the bus stop, mentally cycling through the entire stock of curse words she allowed herself only on special occasions.

"Not the best evening to forget an umbrella," a voice said beside her, and she turned to find Theo standing under the same awning holding an umbrella — open, dry, mockingly functional.

"You have an umbrella."

"I have an umbrella," he confirmed, with the same irritating smugness Dani had always found unbearable and now, to her own unease, found more amusing than anything.

"Are you going to offer it to me, or just enjoy the moment?"

"A little of both," he said, but stepped closer anyway, opening the umbrella wide enough for them both, which automatically meant standing shoulder to shoulder far closer than simple politeness required.

They walked toward her place — it turned out they were nearly on the same route the whole way, a fact neither had bothered to notice in a year as neighbors — under one umbrella that was built for exactly one person and categorically failed to handle two, so that they kept bumping shoulders with every gust of wind.

"This is a pretty small umbrella for a man so proud of being prepared," Dani observed, when another gust pressed them closer together.

"It's built for one average-sized adult. Not my fault you decided to join without warning."

"You offered."

"Out of politeness. Didn't think you'd agree so eagerly."

"I didn't agree eagerly. I agreed under duress. There's a difference."

The rain intensified, and at the next crossing, waiting for a car to pass, they ended up so close together under the tight dome of the umbrella that Dani caught the smell of his jacket — coffee, rain, and something else, warm and entirely too pleasant for someone she officially still considered a rival.

"Thank you," she said, quieter than intended. "For the umbrella. And for not leaving me to get soaked out of revenge for all those chalkboards."

"I thought about it," Theo admitted with a half-smile. "But then decided it would be too easy a win, and I prefer to win more elegantly."

"So that's what this is. Not kindness. Strategy."

"Partly," he said, and something in his voice turned more serious. "Partly I just didn't want you to get wet. No strategy involved."

Dani looked at him — really looked, without her usual defensive irony — and for a second the rain, the umbrella, and the whole ridiculousness of the situation fell away, leaving only that uncomfortable, warm feeling she'd been trying to ignore since the night by the broken fridge.

"Theo," she said, and his name came out of her mouth unfamiliarly soft, without its usual sharp last-name edge.

"Yeah?"

She was about to say something — she didn't fully know what — but at that exact moment a car swung too close to the curb, drenching them both in a wave of dirty rainwater from head to toe, and the moment dissolved into laughter, cursing, and attempts to shake themselves off, leaving the unspoken words hanging somewhere between them, unsaid but no longer fully hidden.

"That," Theo said, flicking water off his sleeve, "was humiliating."

"The universe is clearly on my side," Dani said, still laughing, but with the sense that something important had happened even without being spoken aloud.