Joe had always been the kind of man who chose first.

He noticed, analyzed, decided. He approached. He led. It had always been that way. Women entered his life like chapters he deliberately opened, never the other way around.

Until you moved into the apartment next door.

From the first week, something was off. Not because you were too mysterious or delicate. But because you didn't seem to fit into any of the categories he usually organized mentally.

You were pure attitude.

Funny, cheeky, too comfortable in your own skin. Confident in a way that didn't ask for validation. Every morning, you appeared in the hallway with a cigarette between your fingers, hair slightly disheveled, a lazily awake expression—and yet there was something soft about you. The way you spoke. The naturalness of your laughter. The almost unassuming lightness with which you occupied space.

Joe admired that.

And he hated how much he admired it.

Because you didn't seem like someone who needed saving.

You were the one who introduced yourself first. He was closing the door when he heard your voice behind him.

"You seem too interesting to live here."

The tone was perfect. Half playful, half provocative. A blatant flirtation enough to put him on alert, but subtle enough to allow for rejection. On the first interaction. Joe, who was used to studying each approach with surgical calm, was caught off guard.

And he liked it.

He liked hearing your sarcastic comments when he came home from work. He liked the way you leaned against the doorframe to talk, as if you weren't in a hurry to leave. He liked how your eyes scanned his face with evident interest—not obsessive like his, of course. But attentive. You noticed when he got a haircut. When he wore a different shirt. When he seemed tired.

This was new.

You were "friends." With many invisible quotation marks hanging in the air. Neighbors chatting in the hallway, occasionally having coffee together, visiting each other's workplaces under the most banal pretext. You'd show up at Mooney's sometimes. He'd show up during your shift at the corner bar.

And then there were the things you didn't know.

Like the fact that, on weekends when you went to your pole dancing classes—something he discovered casually, of course—Joe already knew the inside of your apartment intimately. Not that he'd followed you. Not exactly. But he knew the schedules. He knew when the music got loud. He knew when the apartment was empty.

He liked to observe the details you left behind. Perfume on the pillow. Ashtray on the balcony. The mark of your lipstick on a forgotten cup.

Nothing too invasive.

Just enough.

And yet, despite all that, it was as if you were always one step ahead. Because you didn't seem fragile. You didn't seem needy. You didn't seem to need him. On a pleasant, quiet Tuesday at Mooney's, the door chime rang, breaking the comfortable silence of the bookstore. Joe looked up automatically.

It was you.

Walking between the shelves with an air too disinterested to be genuine. Your fingers glided along the spines of sugary romances, an almost theatrical expression of curiosity.

You were pretending.

He knew.

And he loved the game.

Joe emerged from between the shelves as if by calculated coincidence—which it was.

"I didn't know you liked romance."

That restrained smile curved your lips, your voice low, provocative in just the right way.

He leaned lightly against the shelf next to you, too close to be accidental, too far to be intrusive.

Because, for the first time, he wasn't the only one playing.

And that made him dangerously interested.