The skyscrapers pierced the close clouds; their reflections glittered on the surface of the bay.
“I don’t know anything about San Francisco,” the woman said. Her voice traveled on the water.
The guy pocketed his phone, and his face went dark. “You can learn.”
“Perhaps,” she said doubtfully. “SoCal will always be home.”
"Not for me.” His laugh was warm, even on this cold, damp night.
Your home is beautiful, she'd said at dusk, a year ago, up in that apartment on the fourteenth floor above downtown L.A.

It’s not home. It's just a rental for work, he’d murmured against her bare shoulder later, at dawn. “The place where I stay here is more beautiful,” he added now.
"You don't call that place home, either.”
"I would if you lived in it.”
She didn't blush at his words. Apparently she’d grown immune to the awkwardness of his raw honesty. The sole of her sneaker squealed against the dock railing. “If that's how you feel, then come back and live with me in Long Beach.” He turned his head toward her. The skyline was mirrored in the lenses of his glasses. His voice was low but warm this time. “Perhaps.”
She reached out to him and squeezed his hand.