Jason folded his menu and set it aside.
“So,” he said, keeping his tone easy, “are you here for long?”
Hannah shrugged slightly, tracing a finger along the edge of her glass. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Just depends?”
“Yeah.” She leaned back in her chair. “It depends on how the opening goes.”
“The new office?”
“Mm-hmm. If everything runs smoothly, I’ll probably head back in a few weeks.” She paused. “If it’s a mess… I could be here for a while.”
Jason nodded.
A few weeks.
He wasn’t sure why that mattered to him, but it did. The thought of her disappearing back to Charlotte sat strangely in his chest.
Something about her felt… important.
Not in a dramatic way. Nothing he could point to. Just a quiet instinct tugging at him like a thread he couldn’t see yet.
He pushed the thought aside.
“Well,” he said lightly, “for your sake, hopefully it goes smoothly.”
Hannah laughed. “You say that now. Ask me again after the first supply shipment arrives late.”
“Oh, I’ve seen enough hospitals to know how that goes,” Jason said. “Someone always forgets a box.”
The server returned with their food. Two burgers, fries piled high on the plates. The smell of grilled meat and toasted buns filled the air between them.
Hannah took a bite almost immediately.
“Oh wow,” she said, pointing at the burger with the hand not holding it. “You weren’t kidding. This place is good.”
Jason grinned.
“Told you. I know my burger stops.”
They settled into an easy rhythm after that. Conversation moved from one topic to the next without effort.
Atlanta traffic.
The strangest hospitals Jason had visited.
Hannah’s love of statistics and why she found supply chains fascinating.
Jason listened closely, more closely than he usually would with someone he’d just met.
Every now and then he asked small questions.
Where she usually traveled for work.
What kind of projects she liked best.
Whether she preferred cities or quieter places.
Hannah answered easily, sometimes laughing at his reactions when she tried to explain engineering models.
Jason made a face. “I’m telling you, the moment someone starts talking about probability distributions, my brain shuts off.”
“Your loss,” she teased.
But while he joked, Jason was paying attention.
The way her voice lifted when she talked about solving a difficult problem.
The fact that she preferred coffee over tea.
How she pushed her fries to one side of the plate and ate them last.
None of it seemed important on its own.
Yet he found himself storing it away instinctively, like pieces of information he might need later.
Across the table, Hannah was saying something about shipping delays when Jason caught himself studying her again.
The light above their table caught the edge of her hair. For a moment he had the strange sensation that he’d watched that same light fall across her face before.
Not here.
Somewhere else.
The thought vanished as quickly as it came.
Hannah finished her sentence and tilted her head. “You’re quiet all of a sudden.”
Jason blinked.
“Sorry,” he said with a small smile. “Just listening.”
She smiled back and reached for another fry.
Jason leaned back in his chair, trying to shake the odd pull in his chest.
Whatever it was, he knew one thing.
He didn’t want this to be the last time he saw her.
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