The terrace was empty except for the two of them and the distant sound of the DJ packing up equipment inside. Maya wrapped her arms around herself, less from cold than from the unsettling feeling that she'd just agreed to something dangerous.
"You're not a serial killer, right?" she asked, aiming for levity. "Because I just realized I'm alone on a dark terrace with a stranger."
"If I were, that would be a terrible opening line." Ethan settled onto the stone ledge, leaving plenty of space between them. "And for the record, Sienna can vouch for me. Probably. I mean, we haven't talked much in a few years, but I assume she wouldn't have invited a serial killer to her wedding."
"Comforting."
"I try." He looked up at the sky, still deep with night. "We've got about three hours until sunrise. That's a lot of time to fill with conversation between strangers."
"Maybe we should have thought this through."
"Probably. But thinking things through is overrated." He glanced at her. "Want to make it interesting?"
Maya sat down, maintaining the careful distance between them. "Interesting how?"
"Honest. Completely honest. We're never going to see each other again after tonight, right? No consequences. No need to perform or impress. Just… real conversation."
"That's a terrible idea."
"The best ones usually are."
Maya considered it. Anonymous honesty had a certain appeal like confessing to a stranger on a plane. No history, no future, just the contained truth of now.
"Okay," she said. "But you go first."
"Fair." Ethan was quiet for a moment, his profile sharp against the ambient glow of the city. "I'm thirty years old and I've never lived anywhere longer than six months since I was eighteen. I tell people it's because I'm passionate about photography, about capturing the world. And that's partly true. But mostly I'm terrified of staying still long enough for people to leave me."
The admission hung in the air between them, vulnerable and unexpected.
"Your parents," Maya said softly.
"My dad left when I was twelve. Just… gone one day. Turns out he'd been planning it for months new job in California, new girlfriend, new life. I came home from school and half the house was empty. My mom wouldn't get out of bed for a week." He picked at the stone ledge. "And then she got out of bed and became someone else. Someone angry and bitter and convinced that loving people was the worst mistake you could make."
"That's" Maya struggled for words. "That's awful."
"It was a long time ago. I'm very well-adjusted now." His smile was wry. "Hence the inability to stay in one place and the commitment issues my ex-girlfriend was kind enough to point out."
"How many ex-girlfriends?"
"Not as many as you'd think. Turns out most people don't love dating someone who's perpetually leaving." He turned to her. "Your turn."
Maya's instinct was to deflect, to give him something surface-level and safe. But he'd been genuinely honest, and something about the night the darkness, the exhaustion, the champagne loosened her usual defenses.
"My mom died two years ago," she said. "Brain aneurysm. She was fifty-three, healthy, normal. She went to bed with a headache and never woke up." Maya's voice stayed steady through years of practice. "And the last real conversation we had was a fight.
She told me I was living too small, too safe. She said I was so afraid of getting hurt that I was hurting myself. I told her she didn't understand my life and to stop pushing me."
"Maya"
"Three days later she was dead. No warning, no goodbye, no chance to tell her she was right." Maya looked at her hands. "So now I'm twenty-eight and I help other people process grief and trauma while I'm completely stuck in my own. I go to therapy. I do the work. But I can't"
Her voice caught. "I can't stop believing that everything good is temporary. That people leave. That the moment you love something, you're just setting yourself up for loss."
Ethan didn't offer platitudes or try to fix it. He just sat with her in the weight of it.
"Is that why you're hiding at your best friend's wedding?" he asked gently.
"I'm not hiding. I'm here."
"You're here the way I'm here. Present in body, absent in heart." He shifted slightly. "I recognized it because I do the same thing. Different strategy, same result."
"What's your strategy?"
"Keep moving. If you never stay long enough to build something, you can't lose it. If every relationship has an expiration date built in, the ending doesn't hurt as much." He laughed without humor. "Except it turns out that hurts too. Just differently. Death by a thousand small goodbyes instead of one big one."
Maya found herself moving closer, drawn by the strange comfort of shared damage. "We're a mess."
"Catastrophically." Ethan's expression was lighter now, more present. "But at least we're honest about it. That's more than most people at this wedding can say."
"You don't believe in marriage?"
"I don't know. My parents' marriage taught me that promises are easy to make and easier to break. But Sienna and Marcus" He gestured toward the reception hall. "They seem solid. Like they chose each other knowing it would be hard and deciding to show up anyway."
"That's brave."
"Or foolish. I can't tell the difference anymore."
They fell into silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The city hummed around them distant traffic, the wind through the garden trees, the muffled sound of the cleanup crew inside.
"Tell me about Iceland," Maya said. "The non-glacier parts."
Ethan's face lit up. "It's alien. That's the only word that fits. Everything looks like another planet black sand beaches, green moss that glows, mountains that feel alive. I spent a week in a fishing village where the sun barely set. It messes with your head, no darkness. You lose track of time."
"Sounds disorienting."
"It was perfect. I'd wake up at what felt like morning and it would be 11 p.m. I'd work until I was exhausted and sleep in full daylight." He pulled out his phone, swiped through photos. "Look."