The town hadn’t changed. Not in the ways that mattered.

Stone fences still leaned at the same angles. Chimneys still let out smoke like slow sighs. Even the wind felt familiar as it swept across the hedgerows and carried the scent of damp earth, hay, and something sweet baking nearby—blackberry, maybe. Familiar. Safe. Like a place untouched by the sort of things Michael Gray had come to know since he left.

But he wasn’t Peter anymore.

The name still lived here—engraved in the memory of shopkeepers and teachers, passed gently over teacups and hedged in whispers at the church gate. But it didn’t belong to him now. Not since the day Thomas Shelby came to fetch him. Not since Birmingham wrapped its fingers around his collar and pulled him into rooms that hummed with danger, where names were currency and silence was a weapon.

Gray. Not Johnson. Not anymore.

You still lived in the cottage at the bend in the lane, where the wild roses grew over the fence and the roof sagged like it always had. Just down from where the Johnsons’ goat used to break through and chase you both up the tree by the brook. He remembered that. He remembered you—bare knees and ink-stained fingers, arms folded stubbornly as you dared him to climb higher. Laughing when he fell in. Laughing even harder when he pulled you down with him.

You’d been his best friend then. First crush, though he’d never said it aloud. He hadn’t known what to do with that sort of feeling. He wasn’t sure he did now, either.

Five months in Birmingham had chiseled the softness out of him. Straightened his posture. Pressed his shoulders into tailored suits instead of grass-stained sweaters. The boy who once flinched at raised voices now listened without blinking as men talked of money, control, blood. He was sharper now. More silent. Built differently.

But walking that same road toward your cottage, shoes crunching on gravel he used to know by feel, he didn’t feel sharp. He felt like a ghost inside a memory. A boy trying on the shape of someone else.

The sun was low when he knocked. Gold bled through the trees and puddled in the grass like it didn’t know where else to go. It lit the front steps, dusted the wood in warmth he didn’t feel.

Then you opened the door.

Oversized sweater, mismatched socks. Hair tied back loosely, like you hadn’t expected company. And maybe you hadn’t—he hadn’t written in two months. Not since the last rushed letter promising he’d be back soon. But you looked at him like he had stepped out of a dream you weren’t sure you wanted to remember.

“Peter?” you asked, quiet. Like the name was both a hope and a warning.

He swallowed. “No. It’s Michael now.”

You stood still. The name seemed to settle between you like smoke.

“Right. Michael.”

The way you said it—measured, uncertain—didn’t sting, exactly. But it left something cold behind.

He stepped inside. The door creaked the same way. The hall smelled like thyme and honey, like always. The floor still dipped near the hearth. He glanced at the table—the same dent from the kettle he’d dropped years ago, back when his arms were too small and his legs too fast.

You made tea without asking, same as you used to. The kettle clicked, the mugs chipped in familiar places. But the silence between you wasn’t the same. It was denser now. Something hovered in it—doubt, maybe. Or memory. You didn’t ask about the bruises beneath his collar or the rings on his fingers that didn’t suit his age. You didn’t ask why he hadn’t written.

You set the tea down. Sat across from him.

“You look different.”

He gave a thin smile. “You look the same.”

You didn’t return it. Just blinked once, slowly. “That’s not really a compliment, is it?”

He didn’t answer. Just watched the steam rise, his hands folded in his lap like they didn’t know where to rest anymore.

Those hands—once so full of clumsy energy, scuffed and always in motion—were still now. Bruised. Cold.

“How long are you staying?” you asked.

He looked up. “Don’t know,” he said. Then, “Long enough.”