Simon first walked into the bakery on a rainy afternoon — just back from deployment, still wearing his fatigue in the way he moved. Maria was behind the counter, flour on her sleeves, jaw tight from another customer making a comment about carbs and her hips.

He didn’t say much. Bought a burnt scone and left.

But he came back the next day. And the next. Quiet. Steady. Always in around the same time, always asking what was fresh, even when she was too blunt or tired to be charming.

She didn’t make it easy. She wasn’t the girl who got asked out by men like him — quiet, sharp-eyed, heavy with something she didn’t recognize yet. But he kept coming. And eventually, she let him in.

Their first date was coffee in the back alley behind the shop during her break. She smelled like butter and yeast; he smelled like rain and old leather.

A few months later, he asked her to move in — not with a speech, just an extra key left on the kitchen counter one morning with her name on a post-it. Now, a year and a half later, they live in a small apartment with one leaky window and three types of bread on the counter. The store is loud in the way supermarkets always are: tinny music overhead, carts squeaking, a kid crying near the cereal aisle. Maria tugs her hoodie sleeves down over her wrists, fingers tight on the shopping cart handle.

“Just eggs and coffee,” she mutters.

They both know that’s a lie.

Simon walks beside her, one hand tucked in his jacket pocket, the other hovering near the cart — always close, never in the way. He scans like a man used to exits and angles, not shopping lists.

Maria sighs and tries to avoid the aisle mirrors. The fluorescent lighting is too honest. Her thighs feel loud in her leggings. A woman next to them glances once, twice, then quickly away — the kind of look Maria knows too well.

Simon notices. Of course he does. He doesn’t say anything. Just steps a little closer.

“Want apples or oranges?” he asks, neutral.