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"Did I ever tell you about the word sincerely?" He sips at his coffee.

"No, what about the word sincerely?"

"Well... It's from the Latin-"

"You've always gotta do that, don't you?" She sets her coffee cup down hard on the table.

"Do what?"

"That thing with the words. The history. Breaking them down. Why can't you just enjoy them like they are?"

"I-" And for once he has no words. "It's just what I know. I am a linguist." He's looking down at the mosaic tiles on the table. Around them conversation bubbles and boils over, and he's catching pieces of stories and dissecting them by roots and syllables.

"I'm sorry." She reaches across the table to touch his hand. "Tell me about sincerely." And she's sincere.

"Well..." He leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling of the coffee house with its white Christmas lights strung madly overhead. "Let me tell you a story."

"OK." She raises an eyebrow at him.

"Way back when the Italians were making a million sculptures and trying to make them so intricately perfect, they used to use wax to fix any imperfections they found. Sometimes the marble cracked or they chipped off something wrong, and they'd just patch it up. But when something came out perfectly, they'd say it was sine cerus, without wax." She nods, smiling a little.

"I like that." He loves it when she smiles like that, the way her lips curl lazily.

"I knew you would." He's feeling smug, grinning at her.

"But I don't think it's true."

"What? That's really where the word comes from." He's sitting up straighter and looking at her indignantly. She sips from her cup, peering at him over the rim.

"Oh, I believe that it means without wax and that those old Italian guys fixed their statues with wax," She nods. "But I don't think anything is without wax."

"Reyna."

"Booker." She's shaking her head. "I don't think anything is."

"What about us?"t

"Not even us. We've got our flaws." She curls into her plush chair, bringing her knees closer to her chest.

"Reyna."

"Booker." He studies the holes in the knees of her jeans and the curve of her back when she rests her cheek on her shoulder. "We've fought. Things have gone wrong. We're not perfect." Booker furrows his brows together and runs a hand through his mahogany hair. He opens his mouth once. Twice. And for the second time that day she's robbed him of words.

"It's OK though." Reyna smiles. She's rolling her coffee cup between her palms and glancing out the window at autumn. "We're doing fine." Booker looks up at the criss-crossing lines of white Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling. As the temperature drops, the windows of the coffee shop fog up with steam from drinks and the breath of people's words.

"You really think so?" Booker spits out, stumbling over the simple phrase. Matt Nathanson is playing over the PA.

"I really think so." Reyna nods. She sets her cup on the table and reaches for her army surplus coat. "Let's get out of here, huh?" Booker glances at the clock behind her, but doesn't register the numbers.

"Nothing's perfect?" His voice is small.

"If it was, how would the plot keep moving?" Her eyes are twinkling as she laughs.

"Film students," Booker sighs.

"Linguists." They bundle into their coats and Reyna wraps her scarf around her neck. "Imagine this as a scene in a movie. Autumn night, a boy and a girl in a coffee shop, they get up to leave. The last scene is them walking down the street, holding mittened hands."

"Talking about the origins of sincerely."

"Talking about music. They both like music." Booker smiles, opening the door to the blustery breeze.

"Well, have you heard that track on the radio?"

"Which one?"

"The one about those kids in love." Reyna slips her hand into Booker's.

"Yeah, I think I have."