God, she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
Honey hair. Fair skin. That easy warmth she carries like she doesn’t know how dangerous it is. The cherry-red lipstick is a boldness her softness doesn’t account for, and it pulls my focus like a fucking magnet.
I scowl. She’s wearing heels today. They don’t belong to her the way her flats do. She walks careful in them, precise, like she decided this morning needed a different version of herself. I don’t like it. In fact, I fucking hate it. Hate what—or rather who it’s for. Those shoes change her posture but not her nature, and the effort grates on something raw in my chest.
She stumbles half a step, laughs at herself, grabs the maroon scarf before the wind takes it. Her lips always hover at the edge of a smile like she’s daring the world to disappoint her.
My heart does this weird fucking thing behind my ribs when she passes me, so close I catch the vanilla and orange peel scent of her shampoo.
She doesn’t notice me. Of course she doesn’t. I’m not here to be noticed. I’m here to watch. To observe.To suffer.
The bell jangles as she pushes open the cafe door, every head turning in her direction because she’s the kind of bright people follow without knowing they do. And when she scans the room, I know she’s searching. For him.
I hold my breath until the pressure eases.
From the outside, I watch her lips move as she speaks to the barista. I don’t have to be close to know what she orders.
Cinnamon latte. Apple cinnamon muffin. I also know she says the word cinnamon like it’s a small, private comfort. Something the world can’t take from her.
She holds her card between forefinger and middle, chews her lip while she waits for the chip reader to decide. I’m never bored when I watch her. She’s my favorite fucking movie, but for someone like me, Sophia Sinclair is pure fiction. Something that can never happen without burning the whole goddamn theater down.
Dean arrives, and I shift my weight. Violence pricks at my fists as he yanks the door open in a rush. He’s late. He knows it.
I watch as he searches the room, and when he finds her, his face changes, softens, like he’s already decided she’s the best part of his morning.
The ribbon tightens around my fingers, and I let the moment pass through me without sharpening the edge. And I manage it…until he touches her elbow, and she smiles at him. Not the smile she gives strangers. It’s something warmer. Earned.
Motherfucker. I don’t like it.
“Sorry,”he says. I can’t hear it, but I recognize the shape of apology. It’s in the way he leans in to say it, head tipped down, voice meant only for her, and she waves it off without thinking—easy, forgiving—like forgiveness is something she hands out on instinct.
The barista calls her order, and she reaches for the cup first, then the bag. Dean’s hand overlaps hers and lingers, his thumb brushing her knuckle before he takes it from her.
I wonder what shade his blood will be on my hands…
Sophia reacts with a soft smile, faint color rising in her cheeks, that precise shade she gets when she’s pleased but trying not to show it too much. I track it the way I track everything. Cause and effect. Stimulus and response.
He wanted that smile. He got it.
They take the small table by the window, and I watch him break the muffin in half without asking, crumbs falling, sliding the larger piece toward himself like it’s automatic. She doesn’t stop him. Just laughs and takes the smaller one, brushing sugar from her fingers. She always does that—loves the taste but not the texture on her hands.
My vision tunnels until the rest of the café disappears. All that exists is her mouth as she takes a careful bite, sugar catching on her lower lip like a secret I’m not supposed to see. Dean’s hand lifts without thinking, already reaching to wipe it away like he has any fucking right.
The urge to cross the street and break every bone in that hand flares hot and vicious, but I force it down like broken glass, eyes slamming shut for half a second.
I should leave. But just like every other time I’ve tried to…I don’t.
When I finally manage to open my eyes again, I’m looking through the window just as he leans in closer, already animated, hands moving in broad strokes while he tells her something—a work thing, maybe, a complaint dressed up as humor. Shelistens the way she always does, head tilted, attention complete, as if whatever he’s saying deserves the full measure of her.
It doesn’t.
He breaks off another piece of muffin and offers it to her. Every muscle in my body locks as I watch her lean in and take it from his fingers—the way her lips close around it, the way he smiles like he created this moment just for her.
Something shifts in me. Violently. A fracture running through steel. Again, I should walk away. Turn my back. Disappear into the cold. But that’s the thing about Sophia Sinclair. You don’t just walk away from her. Not when she’s the only thing that ever made the dark feel like it might be anything other than dark.
And the fact that she exists in a world where men like Dean get to feed her pieces of muffin and watch her smile is already carving something jagged out of me—something that bleeds when I breathe, something I hate because it means I’m still capable of bleeding at all.
I stay rooted. Hands flexing in my pockets until my knuckles ache. Jaw locked so hard my teeth feel like they’ll crack.
