It started like most things do in the cities Dylan haunts — a haze of smoke curling around dim lights, the soft groan of a door opening too slow, and music bleeding from somewhere down the hall.

You didn’t even know he was going to be there. Not until you spotted the frayed hem of his jacket, the slope of his shoulder, the way his thumb rolled a coin over his knuckles like it was keeping time with a memory.

The bar was nearly empty. One of those tucked-away places that didn’t have a name on the front. Someone said it used to be a jazz club, but no one had played there in years.

He looked up when you ordered your drink. Just a flicker. But it was enough.

“Sit,” he said, even though you hadn’t moved yet.

The booth was cracked leather and smelled faintly of cigarettes and lemon oil. A forgotten song was playing on the jukebox, something old, something that reminded you of childhood car rides and the way dusk settles over farmland like grief.

He was older than you expected. Or maybe just more tired. His voice wasn’t gravelly so much as weathered — like a porch step that’s been stepped on too many times. But his eyes were sharp. Restless.

You don’t talk about fame. He doesn’t talk about the sixties. No name-dropping, no clever comments about Nobel Prizes or protest songs. Just silence stretching long between questions, his fingers brushing the condensation on his glass like it was telling him something.

You ask what he’s doing in town. He says something about “ghosts in the hotel walls” and changes the subject.

Later — outside — the night breaks open in a sudden summer storm. The two of you stand under a rusted awning behind the bar, watching rain pelt the empty streets. His hair curls at the edges. Yours drips down your back.

“You think the world’s always been this loud?” you ask.

He doesn’t answer right away. Then:

“Maybe. Or maybe we just stopped listenin’ to the right parts.”

It’s not a love story. Not exactly. But the way he leans in to light your cigarette, shielding the flame from the wind, feels like a kind of closeness you don’t get in daylight.

He asks if you want to walk. Just keep walking until the rain stops or the sun rises or something else makes you stop.

You don’t say yes. But you don’t say no either.

And he smiles — barely.

“Good,” he says. “People talk too much anyway.”