Chapter 1

“Uh-oh, Mr. Dante. Looks like your boyfriend’s here.”

Jorge, who had been taking orders with a blatant, unapologetic boredom, suddenly lit up and pointed toward the café entrance. Dante froze. His hand, which had been rummaging through the inner pocket of his coat for his wallet, stilled entirely. A faint thread of anxiety slipped across his handsome face—a face that suited his tall frame perfectly—so subtle that the shift was as thin as a sheet of paper. No one but Dante himself would have noticed the internal disturbance.

Do not turn around. Do not even make eye contact.

From the exact moment the word boyfriend left Jorge’s mouth, reason had been screaming at him to keep his eyes fixed forward. Unfortunately, Dante’s body did the precise opposite of what his mind commanded. He was a professional, never like this on duty, but the second anything involved “love,” his intellect and his anatomy started operating on entirely separate systems. This moment was no exception.

In the end, Dante turned.

Following the direction of the barista’s finger, he saw a beautiful man crossing the room with an elegant, effortless stride.

Sunlight poured through the café’s high glass windows, cutting through the pendant lights suspended from the ceiling and scattering a brilliant wash of color above the man’s head. It looked almost like a burst of camera flashes set off to commemorate his entrance. In fact, the moment he stepped inside, every patron in the establishment turned to look at him.

The beauty walking proudly beneath that dazzling halo was a man with hair the color of spun sunlight. His impossibly long eyelashes and soft, radiant eyes heightened the initial impression of ethereal beauty, but the sharply cut line of his jaw, the slight dip between his brows, the proud bridge of his nose, and the sleek silhouette falling from his broad shoulders all carried a heavy masculine strength. His long legs, stirring the hem of his navy cashmere coat as he walked, seemed more unreal than the proportions of a classical statue, perfectly matched by the pale hand holding a book and the clean, powerful reach of his arm. He possessed the kind of godlike appearance that simply left no room for criticism.

That man was Dante’s boyfriend.

Yes.

Was his boyfriend.

Which meant the word belonged firmly and irrevocably in the past tense.

While Dante’s mind lagged over that reminder like a program caught in a boot error, the man turned his head. His pale face, which had always worn a gentle smile in Dante’s memory, angled briefly toward him.

The instant Dante’s eyes met those luminous gray-blue irises, so vivid against the man’s golden hair, his heart began to pound like mad. Even after four whole years together, Dante still got butterflies every single minute, every single second he looked at him. His stomach lurched as if his blood had suddenly started flowing backward, and a fierce heat rushed to his fingertips and the nape of his neck.

His flushed face immediately drew the man’s gaze. At once, a desperate hope sprang up in Dante’s chest.

Maybe, just maybe, he will call my name. Maybe he will acknowledge me with a glance. The expectation swelled in Dante’s chest in an instant, driving his heartbeat even faster.

Then, the gray-blue eyes shifted elsewhere.

The gaze withdrew. The sensation that had, for one brief second, seemed to bridge the space between them through their eyes evaporated into empty air.

When the man looked away after only a few seconds, without showing the slightest trace of lingering attachment, Dante’s fevered blood cooled. A cold disappointment filled his chest like ice, chilling his hands and feet. He stared at the man a few seconds longer, unable to let go of the pathetic hope that those eyes might look his way again, but it never happened.

Deeply defeated, Dante reluctantly turned back toward the counter. What had he honestly expected? They had broken up two months ago.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” Jorge asked, the question delivered with a blithe, overly generous curiosity, entirely oblivious to how Dante’s heart was currently smeared with disappointment.

Irritated by the easy way the young barista rubbed salt into open wounds, Dante answered with a practiced, forced calm. “We broke up. A while ago.”

Jorge blinked. The young barista, with his warm brown skin, thick brows, and guileless brown eyes, fell completely silent for a few seconds as he processed the words. Then, he burst out laughing.

“You two fought again? Man, this one must be lasting longer than usual.”

Clearly, he did not believe a single word. Dante bristled at the way Jorge so casually brushed aside a tragic truth he had confessed with such grave seriousness.

“I’m telling you, we really broke up.”

“Oh my God. Really? But didn’t you say the exact same thing four months ago?”

“Listen, Jorge. This time I’m serious, so believe me,” Dante pleaded, lowering his voice. “We’re completely done. Done. We properly broke up. So how about we leave my story there and you tell me what’s been going on with you instead?”

“I remember hearing the exact same thing six months ago, eight months ago, and wait—one year ago, too,” Jorge countered, leaning over the counter. “In the two years I’ve worked at this café, I’ve heard you say you broke up at least five times. And how did those end again? Within three days at most, you two came back in here holding hands.”

For a moment, Dante was struck speechless, entirely defenseless against Jorge treating him like the boy who cried wolf. Mostly because the kid wasn’t wrong.

Over the course of dating Rhys, Dante had gone through roughly twenty breakups. Hm. Put that way, the number does sound a little high. Still, if you averaged it out, it was only about five times a year. Was it really that excessive?

Anyway.

Because he had foolishly announced their separation to everyone around him each time it happened, Jorge did not seem remotely inclined to believe him now. Not only Jorge, either. Anyone who had frequently seen them together around SoHo would have said the exact same thing.

But this time, it really was real.

Just as Dante was about to defend himself, the injustice and frustration lodging heavy in his chest, his “ex-boyfriend”—still drawing every eye in the café—approached the counter. Dante did not even need to turn around to know it. The man’s distinctive, faint fragrance heralded his arrival.

The instant Dante sensed his presence, his entire body went rigid. The unique, crushing pressure one felt when standing beside someone far too beautiful settled over him in absolute silence. His mouth went dry, and tension coiled through his muscles. The man’s scent stopped right beside him. Dante wanted to turn his head and look, but for some reason, he found himself entirely paralyzed.

As Dante stood there, still not having finished paying for his order, the man opened his mouth without casting so much as a sideways glance.

“The usual, please, Jorge.”

That smooth, gentle baritone hit Dante like a wave. If someone looked that perfect, surely his voice could have been a little less attractive, yet the man’s tone matched his flawless appearance exactly. Maybe because it had been so long since Dante last heard it, it sounded even sexier today. Whenever that voice used to call his name, it sent a shiver straight down his spine. Especially when it whispered his name in bed.

Thinking back on it in detail, the sex itself had actually been rather monotonous and ordinary, but since Rhys’s looks were anything but ordinary, it had still been spectacular.

Damn it. I want to see him naked. No, forget naked. I’m not even asking for that much. Just look at me once…

Though Dante had been trying to maintain a grave, composed expression, he was soon staring at the man as if utterly bewitched. Seeing the unmistakable longing written all over his customer’s face, Jorge shot Dante a look of fascinated delight. Dante belatedly came to his senses and hurriedly averted his eyes. His attention, however, remained entirely fixed on the ex-boyfriend standing a mere arm’s length away.

“A latte with low-fat milk, three espresso shots, and a little extra foam, right?” Jorge confirmed cheerfully. “I’ll make it good. It’s been a while, Mr. Rhys. Two months?”

“That’s right,” Rhys replied smoothly. “I’ve been busy.”

No wonder, Dante thought, a sudden realization washing over him. He had failed to spot Rhys no matter how often he had wandered around their usual haunts. Rhys hadn’t been going to them in the first place. Now Dante finally understood why all his pathetic attempts to orchestrate “accidental” encounters—by haunting every café, restaurant, bookstore, park, and shared space in the city—had ended in absolute failure.

He had convinced himself that their timing was simply missing by a fraction, but apparently, Rhys really hadn’t shown up at all. It was strange. When they were dating, they had visited those places at least every other day.

Could he be… avoiding me?

No. Not Rhys, of all people. There was no way he would do that. Yes, they had broken up, but it was not as if this was their first time. He had just said he was busy, so that had to be the truth. When people were deeply buried in work, they could disappear as if they had evaporated for two months. Sure. That made sense.

…Which means it has been a really long time since we last saw each other. Is he not happy to see me? We have never spent this much time apart, Rhys. No matter how busy we were, we called each other every single day. I have not heard your voice in almost two months. Was I really the only one whose heart jumped when our eyes met earlier?

Wondering if Rhys might be sneaking a look at him, Dante glanced sideways again.

Rhys was not even casting a shadow of a glance in his direction. His indifferent profile, showing no interest whatsoever, truly looked like that of a complete stranger.

Did we really break up, Rhys?

Dante had begun to sense that something was fundamentally different this time when the usual cold war—which normally ended within forty-eight hours—just kept dragging on. On the third day after the breakup, when Rhys failed to answer the “Are you asleep…?” message Dante had sent at two in the morning, Dante had started to panic. After he could no longer stand the silence and tried calling, only to have the line cut off after a single second about ten times, the sheer seriousness of the situation began to sink in.

Still, he had desperately thought Rhys would at least answer if he asked about Lily, the guinea pig they had raised together. Instead, on the tenth day, Dante received a courier delivery containing every single item he had left at Rhys’s apartment. From then on, he had started mindlessly wandering Manhattan in hopes of running into him.

Which brought him to today.

This… somehow feels real.

To an outsider, Dante probably looked like a remarkably dense man for only realizing the reality of his breakup after two full months. But Dante had a very valid, deeply ingrained reason for being unable to accept this separation. Until now, every breakup between him and Rhys had merely been an extension of a fight—a theatrical exclamation point—never a true finale.

There was a long story behind that.

***