“Tell me if you want me to stop,” I added, quieter still.
“I will,” she said.
She lifted her wrist slightly toward me.
I stepped in carefully, aware of every inch of space I crossed, aware of her in a way I couldn’t quite dial down. I didn’t take her wrist at first, just hovered for a second, letting her choose, then slid my hand underneath hers, light and steady, enough to support but not hold.
The moment I touched her, something in my focus narrowed.
Her skin was warm. Softer than I expected. I kept my grip careful, controlled, but I could feel how immediately aware she was of it too, the stillness that settled into her shoulders, the way her breath changed just slightly.
I turned her wrist just enough to look, slow and deliberate, making sure there was nothing there. No mark, not yet anyway. No pressure left behind.
Still, I didn’t let go straight away.
Her pulse moved under my thumb, quick and steady, and something in me shifted at the feel of it. Even more so when she didn’t pull away.
Then I eased my hand back, carefully, breaking contact before the moment could slide into something else.
“Okay,” I said quietly, my voice rougher than before. “You’re right. No damage.”
But I stayed close for half a second longer, just long enough to feel the space between us again once I stepped back.
I held her gaze for a moment. “If it gets worse—if he gives you any real trouble—you’ll tell me.”
She looked at me for a long moment, something moving through her expression that I couldn’t fully read. Then, quietly, “Okay.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ll get going. Thanks for a great evening.”
“Okay. Thank you for helping me clean up.” She held my gaze for one more second, then looked down at the counter and straightened a stack of coasters that didn’t need straightening. The quiet stretched between us, not uncomfortable—just full of things that didn’t need to be said yet.
I moved toward the door and pushed it open, the night air slipping in. “Text me if anything feels off,” I said, glancing back at her.
Her brows lifted slightly. “I will.”
She rinsed the last mug and set it on the drying rack, and the shop was quiet around us, just the two of us and the soft glow of the shelf lights and the pleasant wreckage of a good evening. She dried her hands on the small towel by the sink and then stood there for a second, like she was deciding something.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” she said. “Before you go.”
She said it to the counter rather than to me, which told me it had cost her something to say it. I looked at the side of her face—the line of her jaw, the way she was very carefully not making it a big thing—and felt something settle in my chest that had no interest in going anywhere.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that.”
She reached for the kettle without looking up, and I leaned against the counter beside her and watched her move around the small back space with the ease of someone who knew every inch of it, and I didn’t say anything, and neither did she.
She made two mugs and handed me one, and we took them to the reading nook at the back of the shop, two armchairs angled toward each other with a low table between them.
She tucked her feet beneath her and wrapped both hands around her mug, and I sat across from her with my elbows on my knees, and for a moment neither of us said anything. The shop had gone quiet, all shadow and warm light. It felt, unexpectedly, like the library at Sweetbriar High used to feel.
She’d taken her glasses off at some point and set them on the table, and without them her face was softer, more open. She was beautiful. She’d always been beautiful, even at fifteen when she hadn’t seemed to know it—but it was beauty that came from more than her looks. It was how she listened, making you feel like what you were saying was important to her. The way she’d sat across from a difficult seventeen-year-old in a school library and treated his half-formed opinions about books like they were worth something. That had always been the thing that got me. I could have gotten used to her beauty, stunning as she was. But I never forgot how she had made me feel.
“I’m glad you’re running this place,” I said. I was looking at the shelves, because it was easier than looking at her directly while I said it. “You used to talk about it. Back then. Not in a big way—just in passing. Something your grandfather had said, something you were going to change when it was yours.”
She looked at me with an expression I hadn’t seen from her yet tonight—something open and a little unguarded, like I’d surprised her. “You remember that?” A small laugh escaped her, warm and self-conscious. “God, I used to ramble on so much.”
“I remember everything.” I held her gaze when I said it, long enough that she understood I meant it, and watched the color rise slightly in her cheeks before she looked down at her mug.
She turned it slowly in her hands, and I watched her fingers move around the ceramic, saying nothing, giving her the quiet she was clearly using to figure out what to say, or how to feel.
