Charles comes in at nine and helps me move the last batches before he heads to the roof to tend his garden. The gardening had started at his place before he sold it to move in with Dolores two years ago. Dolores who hates gardens, hates that they attract animals and bugs and the way it all looks in the winter.

     "How does it look exactly?" Charles had said over lunch one day.

     "Dead," Dolores responded dryly. "Like someone lit the whole thing on fire."

     "But they come back in the spring," Charles insisted.

     It didn't matter. Dolores likes fake potted plants and the grass you roll out and don't have to water. She's settled on having some succulents in her front window, but that's about all the green thumbing Charles can get up to in their place. I'd offered the roof to Charles in an attempt to appease Dolores, hoping that making Charles happy would make her happy, but what started as some planters quickly turned into a greenhouse.

     I didn't expect much to come of the rooftop gardening, maybe a pepper here or there, but then Charles started producing baskets of fresh produce. Too much for him and Dolores to get through without copious waste. Even with what we were using for baking, there was still too much left over to, in good conscious, throw away. Charles suggested running a farmer's market on Sundays, and since Weston's was closed on Sundays, anyway, I gave in under the caveat it was Dolores and Charles's endeavor. Sundays were my day off, and they would remain that way.

     For the most part, Weston's has stayed pretty much the same in the last few years, serving coffee, cupcakes, and the occasional seasonal dessert. Every so often I pick up an event, the pushy couple who wants a three-tier cupcake wedding cake and won't take no for an answer. I cater a lot of birthdays but they're generally pretty easy. The only thing I expressly don't do are gender reveals, although I did, once, at Cas's urging.

     "Gender reveals are huge," he had said. "You want to go into this market."

     "What happens when you do a gender reveal, take all these photos, and your kid is actually nonbinary? Gender reveals set a bad precedent."

     Cas looked at me, then, and it was one of those moments, like he was seeing me for the first time. "What?" I had asked when he said nothing.

     "That's very woke of you, is all," he'd responded and I rolled my eyes. He was always using weird young people terms. I supposed I was technically a young person then, too, but I didn't particularly feel like one.

     Before Charles leaves for the evening, he helps with tomorrow's prep and puts the last of the day's inventory out for the evening rush. Rumi's on the register, handling the evening crowd like a champ. At some point I realized I was only hiring Baxter students to work here so then I decided to only hire Baxter students, as some sort of first job experience type of deal. The only exception being my daytime full-timer, Tasha. She's a grad student at the local University, but also a Baxter alum.

     Rumi just started over the summer but she's gotten the hang of things a lot faster than the last barista, Celeste. Celeste was great with customers, had this big smile that could assuage even the messiest of mistakes, but she was also constantly screwing up orders and moved at a snail's pace. I never had to fire anybody but Celeste made it a close call.

     Coming as no surprise, Dolores doesn't like Rumi and outright hates Tasha. She hasn't liked a single hire though, since Cas, and I don't think its any coincidence.

     "Rumi is sour," Dolores had said one day that summer. "She doesn't smile and she doesn't talk."

     "Sure she smiles," I had argued back. Rumi smiles without her teeth, this close-mouthed small thing, that you could miss if you weren't paying attention. It's to hide her braces, I think. "And anyway, smiling isn't part of the job. Neither is talking. She's a good worker."

     "Tasha is always late," Dolores snapped back.

     I couldn't argue with her. Tasha was always late, but she also has a daughter and takes classes at night. And, anyway, I'm not in the business of firing people.

     It's getting late, so I head back out onto the floor to start clearing out the displays for the night. At the counter is a lone customer speaking quietly to Rumi. I'm halted in the doorway, watching, feeling what one could mistake for a heart attack.

     At first, Cas is not recognizable.

     He's a tall, swaying figure in all black, wearing a coat that reaches past his knees, covering most of him. He looks taller, but it could be the boots or the fact he's in all black, like a splat of wet ink you've rubbed your finger in and dragged across the page.

     Even in profile, I can see the angular cut of his jaw, more angular than I remember, and thin facial hair he never had. It's Cas, though, with the same broad nose and puckered lips, features that would be overlooked elsewhere, would mean nothing separated, but together make him look like both art and the artist.

     His hands are tucked in the pockets of his coat and a scarf hangs loosely around his neck. It's not that cool yet, just the beginning of fall. I wonder where he's coming from. I wonder where he's been.

     I imagine walking over to him, taking him by the shoulders, saying, "Where've you been?" As I hug him. "I've been waiting for you."

     Have I? I wonder.

     My brain is saying his name over and over like I can cast a spell and make him disappear. Like I can cast a spell and make myself disappear. I'm stuck in place, waiting for him to turn and see me. If I've been waiting for this moment, you would think I would've decided what I would say by now.

     He doesn't turn to me, though. He takes a coffee from Rumi's outstretched hand and then he walks out. That's it. If the last five years were leading up to this moment, they could've done better.

     I blink, wondering, maybe, if I'd made the whole thing up. I count my breaths just to be sure that I'm still breathing.

     When I walk over to Rumi, she's gone back to her algebra homework. She looks up and smiles, not a tooth in sight. She's somehow managed to conceal her teeth even when she speaks.

     "Rumi," I say unsurely. "What did that guy just say to you?" My tone is a little too urgent.

     She stands upright, thin eyebrow creasing in question. "Who? The last customer?"

     I nod. "Yes. Him."

     She glances up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Uhm, he asked me how long I'd been working here and who the owner was."

     "And what did you say?"

     "Well, I told him that you were the owner. Was I not supposed to?" Rumi's voice hits a panicked note.

     I shake my head quickly. "No, that's fine. That's what you should've said. Did he say anything else?"

     Rumi nods, responding, "He asked if I went to Baxter and I told him I did. Who is he?"

     I make a thoughtful sound, turning to walk away. "Thanks, Rumi," I call back to her. Of course he didn't say anything else. He doesn't want to see me. I cling to that hope.

     What is he doing back here?

     The lights are off in the kitchen, which stalls me momentarily. Charles has left for the evening and Dolores wouldn't have any need to come back here. I step inside slowly, flick the light on even though I can see the outline of a figure in the dark. Part of my brain has run in the direction that someone's going to be standing there pointing a gun at me. Some part of me maybe even wants that.

     But it's Cas.

     He's leaning against the island, arms folded across his chest and gaze trained on the doorway so that we're immediately locked in eye contact. He looks just like Cas, even with the parts of him that have clearly changed. He's wearing his hair differently, no longer a mess of curls on his head but voluminous tousled waves that were styled to be messy. The facial hair is very much not Cas.

     Every thought of mine is a thought of what to say and everything I think to say sounds wrong. So I don't say anything at all. I stand there, staring at Cas, until finally he goes, "I've imagined this moment at least a thousand times."

     So have I, Cas.

     "But now that it's." He breaks off, shaking his head. "Yeah, this was an awful idea."

     Cas pushes away from the counter behind him, moving towards the door with quick, deliberate steps. I'm standing in the doorway, though, and he can't get past me.

     "Wait," I say, grasping at the seams of this moment. "What are you doing here?"

     Cas stops. There's tension in his jaw and his shoulder. He squints at me, incredulously. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"

     "At Weston's?" I ask, confused.

     "Uh, yeah, Weston's. Aurora. The country," Cas snaps. "You're supposed to be in the military. You're supposed to be MIA or AWOL or something. Not standing in front of me right now."

     I swallow back bile and the truth and the lies, not entirely sure which one I should let out first. The bile, maybe. That feels like my most optimal choice.

     Cas has his hands shoved back in his pockets as rocks on his feet, moving his eyebrows a fraction as a question. "Glad to see some things just do not change."

     He starts to pass me again but I reach out, muscle possibly the longest reigning memory of all, grasping his arm.

     I look into his eyes when I say, "I never left."

     It takes a second for what I said to read on his face. He jerks backwards, putting space between us. He's out of my grip and beyond my reach. His face opens and it's there. The pain reads like a flashing Open sign outside a motel. Vibrant, fluorescent, unmistakable.

     "What?" he responds, his voice low.

     "I didn't leave," I repeat. "I never reenlisted."

     His eyebrows go up, his expression moving from shock to quiet discontent back to shock again. I can tell he's working to keep all of it off of his face. He's better at it than I remember. In an instance his expression is smooth, no indication of what he's thinking.

     He shakes his head slowly. "So you — you were here the whole time..."

     I nod. "Yes."

     Cas nods back at me. It feels sarcastic. "That's so." He makes this sound. "That's really just. So then you got my letters, right? I was sending them to Dolores's address, so you must have gotten them."

     I nod again. "Yes."

     "That is." He pauses, licking his lips. "Okay, wow, well fuck you." He clicks his tongue against his teeth. I don't remember that being something he did. "I can't believe — I cannot believe I wasted all that time on you. Jesus. You are not fucking worth it."

     I'm too stunned by the hostility in his voice to stop him this time when he shoves past. All of my senses are shot, like there's been a sudden change in barometric pressure. The kind of change that a bomb can cause, being caught in a blast wave so that it bursts your ear drums and rattles your chest, knocking the organs around like a salad mixer.

     Cas is the bomb I've just set off.