Her rules were simple. No late-night texts. No lingering dinners. No meetings that could be mistaken for something else. She had written them to protect herself from moments exactly like this. But rules, she knew, were only strong when no one was testing them. And he tested them without trying. When he walked into the café, the sound of his footsteps seemed to settle her in her chair before she even saw him.
They spoke about ordinary things at first—work, travel, weather—but there was a rhythm underneath the words, a pull she felt in the pauses. He didn’t rush the conversation; he let it settle, each silence as intentional as the questions he asked. When his hand brushed hers as he passed her the sugar, it was nothing anyone could name, yet it made her pulse quicken. She told herself it didn’t count as breaking the rules. She knew she was lying.
By the time he asked if she wanted to see the small bookshop down the street, she had already stood. Her rules were still there, somewhere in the back of her mind, but they were faint now, softened by the warmth in his voice and the certainty in his eyes. She told herself she would remember why she made them later. For now, she was content to follow him through the door, into the dim aisle where the scent of old pages and his cologne blurred into something dangerously tempting.