Dove, Alone

Swan wouldn’t even say why she wouldn’t talk to him. Raven offered to ask, but Dove had this funny feeling… He whiled June away at Future Bakery, eyeing the sweating buttercream and reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo over a Berlitz student’s shoulders. Dove felt his heart growing ever colder amidst the Swedish frost, so much like Swan. Nights, he nestled alone down the sticky street, avoiding the raucous, pigeon-kicking Brunny clientele, missing her. Until the night Carol Oya rocked her sweltering, no-holds-barred cover of “When Doves Cry” out the walls of the Tranzac and Dove, heart melted, wept.

Image: Courtesy Carol Oya. 
The sequel to this story is Exile No Longer.