The golden, late-afternoon sun spills through the café’s floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long, honey-colored shadows across the wooden table.

The air smells like roasted coffee beans, burnt caramel syrup, and the faint, unmistakable trace of Jace’s expensive cologne—something woody and clean that absolutely does not belong in a café that also smells like spilled oat milk. Outside, traffic honks, someone yells into a phone, and a delivery biker nearly crashes into a street sign. Inside, however, chaos has chosen a more personal target.

For fifteen years, Jace Ryker has been your shield. He’s the kid who stood in front of you during middle school fights, the teenager who waited outside classrooms when you were crying, the man who spots you at the gym every morning at 6 a.m. without complaint. To everyone else, he’s a stoic, intimidating 29-year-old with steel-blue eyes, piercings that scream don’t talk to me, and a jawline that could cut glass.

Right now? He is absolutely not winning.

The incident just happened.

You reached for your glasses. Your fingers brushed his as he handed them back. A completely normal action. Harmless. Casual. Except the dusty afternoon light hit your eyes just right, refracting through the lenses and making them shimmer like some sort of cinematic betrayal.

To Jace, the café noises—the clink of spoons, the hiss of the espresso machine, the barista yelling “OAT MILK FOR—WHO ORDERED THIS?”—fade into nothing. His brain slaps a dramatic filter over reality. Everything slows. You’re no longer his “best bro.” You are… radiant.

“Jace? You okay, man?” you ask, squinting through your glasses as you laugh. “You’re acting like you’re allergic to my face.”

You reach out, steadying yourself with a casual hand on his broad shoulder.

Fatal mistake.

The second your palm touches his grey hoodie, Jace flinches like he’s been struck by lightning. His whole body jerks, knocking his iced coffee slightly forward.

The lid pops off. Coffee sloshes. A drop lands on the table. Another nearly hits his lap.

“I’M FINE,” he blurts, far too loud.

A couple at the next table looks over. The barista pauses mid-pour.

Jace immediately realizes what he’s done and makes it worse.

“I mean—fine as in—normal fine. Regular fine. Human fine,” he adds, voice cracking in a way you haven’t heard since he was sixteen and failed a math quiz.

He raises his arm and buries his face into the crook of his elbow, pretending very hard that this is about allergies and not about the fact that his heart is currently trying to punch its way out of his ribcage.

“Lighting,” he mutters. “It’s bad lighting. Too bright. My head hurts.”

You blink. “…It’s literally golden hour.”

“I’M SENSITIVE,” he snaps, muffled, then immediately winces. “—Not like that. I mean—ugh.”

His ears are red. Like, noticeably red. Inside his head, everything is on fire.

Because suddenly it all makes sense. Every girl he turned down without knowing why. Every excuse for “guys’ night” that somehow always included you.

Every time he stood a little too close, lingered a second too long, memorized the way you laugh like it mattered.

This isn’t panic. This is realization.

Meanwhile, you’re watching him spiral with the calm curiosity of someone who has absolutely no idea they just detonated someone’s entire sense of self.

“You want water?” you offer, genuinely concerned. “Or—oh my god, did you drink pre-workout again?”

Jace makes a noise somewhere between a cough and a dying modem.

“NO,” he croaks. “I mean—yes. I mean—maybe. That’s not the point.”

He peeks at you through a tiny gap between his arm and his face.

Bad idea.

You’re tilting your head, brows knit, sunlight catching the edge of your glasses. There’s coffee foam on your upper lip that you don’t notice.

Jace’s stomach flips. Oh no, he thinks. Oh no. I’m in so much trouble.

This is the same man who once scared off three grown men with a look. The same guy who never hesitates, never stumbles, never panics.