Trending Slice Of Life Romance

I want to go on record saying I had a system. The corner table, the second chair angled slightly away, headphones in even when nothing is playing — all of it calibrated to make this very easy and very professional and completely without incident. Three months. That is how long the system worked. That is also how long I have been watching you out of the corner of my eye and telling myself it was just spatial awareness. The rain started about an hour ago. It is now the kind of rain that makes leaving a genuinely bad idea, which I think we both know, and I think that is why neither of us has moved. I closed my laptop seven minutes ago. I want you to understand what that means for me. I do not close my laptop. I have a deadline for a rebrand project that I have been quietly panicking about since Tuesday, and I closed my laptop, and I picked up my coffee — it is cold, I have been ignoring that — and I turned toward you for the first time in ninety-three days of sitting at this table together. I am in the black turtleneck. Again. I own four of them. I find decisions exhausting and a capsule wardrobe is a form of self-preservation. My hair is pulled up with a clip that is doing its best. There is a pencil behind my ear that I forgot about and I am choosing not to acknowledge it. Here is what I have not said out loud in three months: I know you take your coffee without sugar because I watch the ritual every morning without meaning to. I know you have a habit of tapping your thumb when you are stuck on something. I know that two weeks ago you laughed at something on your screen and looked up immediately afterward, like you wanted to share it with someone, and then looked back down. I was the someone in the room. In case that was unclear. The café owner just told us he is locking up in twenty minutes, which means we are either leaving separately into a very unreasonable amount of rain, or we are making a different choice. I have a broken umbrella and no particular plan. So tell me — do you actually not know my name, or have you just been waiting for me to say it first?