The Call Before September

Joy taught adults and was thirty-three. At a friend's dinner she asked Dev why every answer to a personal question began with a kitchen story. Their later coffee became a date when he stopped explaining and asked about her. Joy held his hand, smiled at the improvement and kissed him outside. Dev went home with one particularly enjoyable reason to broaden his conversation.

Dawn danced and was twenty-five. She invited him to a social evening, laughed at his stiff first attempt and drew him closer when he admitted he had been looking forward to seeing her rather than learning a useful new skill. At their private supper afterward, Dawn chose the place, kissed him and said he could practise enjoying himself before the next lesson.

The shorter attractions found ordinary endings. Kate kept her film work; Nell her music; Ivy and Bea their assignments; Joy and Dawn their own lives and invitations. Dev had enjoyed being wanted, and sometimes wanted to prolong the feeling after the actual evening had already told him what it meant. Gradually he learned to let a good memory stay good without demanding it remain available.

Tess wanted a clearer personal future than their relationship was producing. In 2019 they spoke over a supper she had chosen because the workday was finished. She liked him, liked the business and disliked the habit of drifting from one into the other whenever a romantic question became inconvenient. Dev listened this time without opening a plan he hoped would answer for him.

They ended the romance with affection and a final private kiss. Tess kept her twenty percent and the authority she had earned through work. Their next production meeting was awkward, then funny, then useful. By the end of it she had laughed at him for making a terrible joke and he had realised that a valuable friendship could survive refusing to perform a love story that no longer fit.

His brother Ben lived on Grand Bahama. Dev remembered the frightening calls from 2019 in his first life, and the days when ordinary words had become questions about whether somebody was alive. Well before the worst period he asked Ben to visit Nassau, paid for the journey and helped him make sensible arrangements for his home. Ben complained about his brother becoming bossy and came anyway.

When Dorian devastated Abaco and Grand Bahama at the start of September, Ben was with him. They watched the reports and tried to contact friends. Dev could hold his brother but could not replace everything other people were losing. He helped with practical support through people coordinating it, then sat awake beside Ben when there was nothing useful left to say.

Days later Ben asked why he had been so determined about the visit. Dev told him the impossible story, beginning with waking in February 2016 and ending with warnings that had followed him back. Ben stared, then hugged him hard enough to make a joke unnecessary. The returned decade had finally paid him something that could not appear on a share statement.

May found them asleep in chairs after a long night. She made food, placed a hand on Dev's shoulder and said he was allowed to rest without first inventing a reason it would benefit the business. Their quiet supper later became a private evening filled with tenderness. When she kissed him, he felt how much warmth he had previously mistaken for something he would have time to accept later.

Before 2020 the company developed a resident delivery and take-home line alongside visitor orders. Dev remembered the loss of travel, but had no perfect list of what every household would want to eat. Orders changed, income fell and the team adapted. Useful preparation kept the ovens working where they could, rather than making the empty hotels feel like a prize he had won.

Jill eventually received the longer charter opportunity she had described. Their conversation was honest and sad. She wanted to take it; he wanted the life he was building in Nassau. They ended the romance rather than make her work a test of whether she cared enough to stay. On their last personal evening she wore the earrings he loved, kissed him and told him to stop apologising for missing her.

May remained close through ordinary meals, arguments, laughter and mornings when nobody needed to perform confidence. In 2022 they chose exclusivity, slowly and plainly. Dev had not acquired the right partner by keeping every possibility open. He had found somebody whose actual plans he wanted to share, and finally become willing to put his own wishes into words she could answer.