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WASHINGTON, D.C.— "SO, WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO D.C.?"
There it was. The question Lyla had spent the afternoon attempting to avoid. She had The question she didn't even have an answer to. She looked down at the cup of coffee in front of her that she hadn't even bothered to touch and then back up at the man who was sat across from her, a weary smile on her lips. For the first time since she had moved here, she answered him honestly, "I don't know."
"You...you don't know why you're here?" Aaron asked. The question didn't come across as condescending or rude, but sincere, a tone Lyla wasn't really used to, "How did that happen?"
"I...I just couldn't stand being where we were before." She stirred some sugar into her coffee and looked down at it again, "Too...I can't think of the right word."
"Too...boring?" He offered, smiling slightly as Lyla let out a snort, "Cold?"
"Haunted." She tried, letting out a light laugh as he raised an eyebrow, "Not like, with ghosts or anything. Just...actually, you know, Tommy might as well have been a ghost, now that I think about it..."
'Tommy?' Aaron thought to himself, 'Who the hell is Tommy? Or, was Tommy?'
"I feel like I've been talking about me forever. What about you?" She quipped, steering him from his thoughts. She broke off a piece of the cookie they had decided to split— snickerdoodle, Lyla's choice and her favorite, as Aaron had learned, "Are you from here?"
"Yes, and no. I'm from Manassas, around an hour away." He explained, "I moved here when I started...my job."
"Your big, fancy government job." She nodded, a teasing smile on her face, "The one you can't tell me about?"
"That's the one." He smiled weakly at her, "I've been there for almost twenty years."
It wasn't like Aaron didn't want to tell her, of course he did. Ever since Haley had passed, he had become a bit weary of telling anyone about what he did— he especially wasn't going to tell a woman he had know for just a few hours. Part of it was for safety, but the other was avoiding the conversation about Haley in general. Having to explain how his job could be so fulfilling yet simultaneously lead to the biggest heartbreak of his life was not an easy conversation he wanted to have well, ever.
"Twenty years, huh. You must know all the good spots in D.C." Lyla mused, "You'll have to tell me your secrets."
"Why tell you if I can show you instead?" He spoke quickly, his face flushing as Lyla let out a giggle, "You and Stevie, I mean."
"I think we would like that a lot." She hummed, "You know, Stevie and I."
The two of them exchanged soft smiles, neither saying another word before the two of them both reached for the cookie at the same time. Stevie quickly pulled her hand back as their hands brushes and Aaron's face turned bright red.
