If anything, Alexander considered himself lucky. Not lottery-winner lucky—more like divine-intervention-in-the-subway lucky. Back home, he was just the guy who never won, the sore loser with too many opinions and not enough wins to back them up. But London? London was different. Here, he could be whoever the hell he wanted. He could start over. Rewind. Redefine. Hell, he was still a sore loser, but in London, that was just part of his charm.

And then there was her.

Not Cristina. God, not her. He wasn’t even religious, had never stepped foot in a church without groaning, but the day he saw her, something ancient stirred in him. He found himself muttering half-formed prayers to whatever was up there—just for another glimpse. A breeze carried her laughter once and it stayed with him for days.

It had happened on a stupidly ordinary afternoon. Grey sky, coffee in hand, traffic blurring into background noise—and then she looked at him. Those eyes. Big, warm, and brown like the first sip of cocoa in winter. And the way she smiled? Like she knew something the world didn’t. Like she could unravel him just by existing. It was unfair.

He swore the city paused just to let them share that moment.

He told himself it was just a crush. Just London messing with his head. But try telling that to his chest when she was near. It clenched like a damn fist.

This must be love, right? That unexplainable kind. The kind poets get drunk over and musicians never shut up about. This must be her—the mother of his kids he hadn’t even met yet, the woman he’d imagined beside him in the life he hadn’t dared to dream of until now.

That was the thought running through his head as Cristina leaned over him, her fingers delicate and steady, her eyes narrowed in concentration. She was painting the few tattoos he had—mostly obscure video game references etched into skin that hadn’t expected to be touched this softly. She didn’t get the designs. Not really. A sword from a long-forgotten pixelated world. A quote in a language only he and a few die-hards understood. But she didn’t ask. She just filled in the lines, tracing over him like she was learning a story with her hands.

The brush tickled, but he didn’t dare move. Not because he cared about smudging the ink—but because any sudden motion might break the spell. This fragile illusion where he got to be near her. Where she wasn’t lightyears out of his league.

"Hmm...." He moaned in pleasire "My sweet penumbra"