He steps a fraction closer. Not enough to be inappropriate, but enough to make the air between us thicken. Heat coils at the base of my spine before I can stop it. Fear, fascination—something tangled between both.
“You don’t look like someone who lives in this neighborhood,” he says calmly.
I bristle without meaning to. “What does someone who lives here look like?”
He doesn’t smile, not fully, but something shifts at the corner of his mouth. “Distracted. Rushed. Guarded. You’re alert. Focused. Too aware of your surroundings.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It depends who’s watching.”
A pulse of heat flicks along my nerves: fear again, but different now. Sharper. Darker.
I force my shoulders to relax. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“I make it my business to know my surroundings,” he says. His tone softens by a degree. “This area isn’t safe for someone walking alone.”
He doesn’t sayfor someone like you, but I hear it anyway.
I try to steady my breathing. He’s standing so close the scent of him reaches me: clean, faintly smoky, expensive. His coat brushes the breeze and the fabric shifts just enough to hint at the strength beneath.
“What’s your name?” he asks, voice quieter now.
Every instinct I have screams not to answer. Yet the part of me that’s been replaying his silhouette since last night leans forward, almost involuntary.
“Eden,” I say before I can second-guess it.
His attention sharpens. “Eden.”
He repeats it like he’s testing the weight of it. The syllables roll off his tongue with a strange kind of heat, like he’s already memorizing them.
“Simon,” he adds.
My heartbeat stumbles. Hearing his name feels like something important shifts between us—dangerous in its own right.
“Well,” I say, stepping back slightly, “I should go.”
He doesn’t touch me, but the air feels taut until I move past him. My steps stay measured, controlled, even though everything inside me wants to sprint.
I resist the urge to look over my shoulder, but I can feel him there. His gaze burns into the back of my neck with enough intensity to make my breath stutter.
I shouldn’t look.
Halfway down the block, I glance back anyway.
He stands exactly where I left him. No movement. No softness. Just silent interest carved into a man built for violence. After a moment he turns and walks in the opposite direction without hurry.
I keep going. My hands shake by the time I round the corner. Every rational part of me begs me to stay far away from him.
Something in me—something reckless, something I don’t recognize—keeps replaying the way he looked at me. Calculating. Dangerous. And underneath it all, a strange edge of protectiveness that shouldn’t make sense.
Our encounter wasn’t accidental. I know that as surely as I know my own name.
By the time I reach my apartment building, my nerves are stretched thin. The hallway smells faintly of coffee and old carpet. I’m digging through my bag for my keys when a voice calls from down the hall.
“Eden?”
I turn. A woman rushes forward, short brown hair bouncing, her tote bag knocking against her hip. Suzy. I blink at her in disbelief.
