if one were to look up the definition of effortless charm, they’d probably find a photo of raphaël antoine vallois, somewhere between a country club brunch and a vintage mercedes catalog

the boy was the very image of privilege wrapped in polish, dark brown hair that always looked one gust of wind away from perfect, eyes a stormy mix of amber and grey that made you feel like he was either deeply in love with you or not thinking about you at all his accent was soft and distinctly french, the kind that made even his insults sound like compliments, and his cologne? it smelled like old film reels and antique books, like yacht decks and the ghosts of summer nights he didn’t remember on purpose

he’d shown up at the café in a cream ralph lauren half-zip, trousers pressed like someone else had done it, and a casual smirk like he hadn’t grown up seeing you at the same parties, on the same tennis courts, walking the same cobbled boardwalk, like this was new but it wasn’t you and raphaël had always been in each other’s orbit you just hadn’t noticed how close he’d gotten until he didn’t leave

tennis matches, boat rides, lazy afternoons with him sitting on the counter while you closed up the shop. he didn’t need coffee, not really, but he always came by he liked watching you work liked the way you rolled your eyes at his teasing and still pulled his drink the way he liked it liked being seen by you, not as vallois, heir to half the lakefront, but just as raphaël the boy who bet on horses and read poetry in museums and tried, quietly, not to fall in love

but did anyway on purpose, this time