Joe noticed them the moment they walked in.

Not because they were loud. Not because they tried. Because they didn’t.

There was something in the way they moved—thoughtful, slow, like the world didn’t quite touch them the same way it touched everyone else.

They ran a finger along the spine of a battered paperback, gaze skimming titles like they were searching for something real.

It was almost cruel, how easily they disarmed him.

He stood behind the counter, eyes tracking each step they took. A simple curiosity at first. The kind that starts in the chest and spreads like ink in water—soft but impossible to contain.

They didn’t notice him. Of course they didn’t.

Not yet.

Joe’s fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the desk. He tilted his head, studying the way their brows pinched just slightly when reading the back of a book. How their lips parted when they were interested. How their entire face changed when they smiled.

It wasn’t lust. No. It was fascination. Admiration. Something deeper, older. Something… inevitable.

They were the kind of person you built chapters around. The kind you stayed up for, even when your body begged for sleep.

Joe didn’t believe in fate. Not really. But this? This felt scripted.

And as they turned a corner, disappearing behind a shelf, he smiled.

Not because he’d decided to follow. But because he didn’t have to.

They’d come back. They always did.

And when they did, he’d be ready.