Instinct Over Pride

by wifecrazy

Summary:

His computer was broken, his attitude unbearable and yet, in a closed store past midnight, tension turned into something else.
Between arguments, shared food, and a problem that mattered more than either of them expected, two strangers found something unexpected: not just conflict...but attraction.

It's a one-shot and it's pure lust desguised as a plot. Love you! (I really love this one hehe). I'll fix the small mistakes soon !

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead with that particular, soulless persistence that only revealed itself after closing hours, when there was no ambient noise left to drown it out. The store existed differently past midnight. The colors flattened. The shadows pooled in the wrong corners. Everything that had looked ordinary at noon now looked vaguely abandoned, like a photograph of a place rather than the place itself.

You were counting the minutes the way you always did in the final stretch of a long shift, not because it helped, but because your brain needed something to do with its misery. 00:07. Almost twelve hours in. The register drawer was already half-counted, the till sheet half-filled, and you had been entertaining a detailed fantasy about your couch for the better part of an hour.

That was when the door opened.

You did not look up immediately. The motion sensor above the entrance let out its usual electronic chirp and you assumed it was the security guy doing his round, or maybe the wind catching the latch wrong the way it sometimes did when the temperature dropped. You kept your eyes on the register and your fingers moving across the keys.

A beat.

 

"I'm very patient."

 

The voice was flat and deliberate and came from somewhere closer than you expected. You finished the number you were entering before you responded.

 

"Yeah." you said. "So am I."

 

You looked up.

He was standing at the counter with a laptop bag hanging from one shoulder and an expression on his face that suggested he had not come here to be told no. He looked like someone who was rarely told no. Not because he was charming, not because he smiled or softened or made it easy on anyone, but because something in the arrangement of his features communicated, with total efficiency, that he intended to outlast you.

 

"We're closing." you said.

"Then you should fix it fast." He deadpanned, slowly putting the laptop on the counter. 

 

You set down your pen.

There was a specific kind of patience required for this job, a patience that lived in the chest and had to be consciously maintained, the way you had to consciously keep your shoulders down when they wanted to creep up toward your ears. You had been doing it for twelve hours. The reserve was not what it had been at noon.

 

"I can't help you." you said.

 

He did not move. He did not shift his weight or glance toward the door or show any sign at all that the concept of leaving had entered his mind as a possibility worth considering.

 

"No." he said, and his voice dropped by about half a register when he said it, not louder, just more precise. "You won't help me. That's different."

 

You leaned back against the counter behind you and crossed your arms.

 

"Why would I refuse? I want you out of here, trust me."

 

His gaze moved over you for just a moment, quick and assessing, the way someone looks at a situation they are already categorizing.

 

"Laziness, for one."

 

A laugh came out of you that had no warmth in it at all.

 

"It is seven minutes past midnight. I have been here for twelve hours. Are you sure you want to keep going?"

"I need my computer fixed. Tonight."

"The technician isn't here. Come back tomorrow."

"Your website says two-hour repairs."

"Not at midnight."

"That's obviously implied."

"It really isn't."

 

The silence that followed was not a comfortable one. It had an edge to it. He held your gaze across the counter and you held his and neither of you looked away, and the fluorescent light kept buzzing its small, indifferent buzz above you both.

 

"I'm a fucking lawyer."

 

You blinked once, slowly.

 

"And I'm a retail associate, not a technician."

"I need it fixed."

"You're acting like a child."

 

He scoffed, and there was something almost elegant about the dismissiveness of it, like the words you had just said were not worth the full energy of a proper reaction.

 

"You know how to fix this."

"Why would I?"

"Because you work here."

"At the front. Selling things. Not repairing them."

 

Something shifted fractionally in his expression. Not much. A narrowing at the corners of his eyes, barely there, the kind of adjustment a person made when they were recalibrating.

 

"You look like you would."

 

You stared at him.

 

"That's offensive." 

"Observant."

 

You exhaled through your nose and looked at the ceiling for a moment and then looked back at him.

 

"I can't help you. You're going to have to find another solution."

"I don't have one."

"And you think that's my problem?"

 

The silence came back. It sat between you in the flat white light and it was a different kind of silence than before, not combative exactly, just tight. Like something held under pressure.

It was in that silence that you actually looked at him. Not the quick functional look you had given him when he walked in, when your brain had simply registered obstacle and begun formulating responses, but a real look, the kind that takes in actual information.

He was not especially tall. He was the kind of man who did not need to be. Everything about him was compact and deliberate, like he had been edited down to only the necessary parts and nothing had been left over. Dark hair cut close at the sides, not a single millimeter of growth beyond what was intended. Pale skin that caught the overhead light and held it strangely. A jaw that was doing a lot of work in the tension department. He wore a collared shirt with the top button undone and the sleeves rolled to the forearm in a way that suggested the day had been long and the concessions had been calculated.

His eyes were doing what they had been doing since he walked in, which was looking at you as though you were a problem that had been handed to him without adequate documentation, and he was determining, with some displeasure, how to proceed.

They were an unusual color. Or maybe it was just the light. Either way you wished they were less interesting to look at because it was making things more complicated than they needed to be.

Annoying was the clinical term.

Catastrophically annoying, given the hour and the state of your feet and the number of hours until your next shift.

The thought arrived sideways and uninvited, the way the worst thoughts always did: that you could ruin his night completely, right now, simply by asking him to leave, and he would have no legal recourse because the store was closed and you were well within your rights. You could absolutely do that. The image of it was almost pleasurable.

Your eyes moved, just briefly, to his mouth, which was pressed into a flat and unhappy line.

Or you could do something else entirely.

You blinked. Hard. Pulled yourself together with both hands, internally.

 

"Stop staring." he said.

"I'm trying to figure out how someone this rude survives in the world." you said.

"I manage."

"Barely, I'd imagine."

 

His jaw tightened in a way that was, against all reason, satisfying. But when he spoke again the quality of his voice had changed. It was still controlled. It was always controlled. But underneath the control there was something else now, something you had not heard before.

 

"There's something on that computer I need. Tonight."

 

You held very still for a moment.

He had not said it like a demand. He had said it like a fact he had not entirely meant to say out loud.

You looked at him and he looked back at you and the fluorescent light buzzed and the store was very quiet around you both.

 

"That still doesn't turn me into IT." you said.

"You don't need to be IT. You just need to not be useless."

"Wow." you said. "Really working on my sympathy there."

"I don't want your sympathy."

"You want something, though."

 

He said nothing. Which was, somehow, more of an answer than anything he had said in the last ten minutes.

You uncrossed your arms and looked at him for another moment and then you exhaled, the long slow kind that carried a shift in the decision.

 

"Fine." you said. "I'll take a look. No promises."

 

Something happened in him then. It was barely visible. If you had not been watching closely you would have missed it entirely. The line of his shoulders, which had been absolutely rigid since the moment he walked in, released by some fraction of a degree.

 

"Good." he said.

 

No thank you. Not even close to a thank you. You were not sure the concept of thank you had ever successfully docked in his brain.

You pushed off from the counter and moved past him toward the back room.

 

"Don't make a habit of this."

 

He followed without responding.

You could feel him behind you, two or three feet back, not crowding but present in that particular way he had, that quality of taking up exactly as much space as he needed and not an inch more, but making every inch count.

You glanced back at him over your shoulder.

 

"Try not to insult me while I'm helping you."

 

A pause. Long enough to be deliberate.

 

"No promises." he said.

 

You faced forward again and kept walking.

Terrible idea, you thought. An objectively, measurably terrible idea.

You went anyway.

You set the laptop on the counter in the back room, where the light was a different quality than the floor, brighter and more direct, the kind that flattened shadows and made everything look more serious than it might otherwise be. The room smelled faintly of cardboard and electrical equipment and the cold that came under the back door no matter how many times maintenance said they had fixed the seal.

You crouched down and pulled open the drawer beneath the counter where a small toolkit lived, technically for minor hardware displays and fixture adjustments, practically for the various improvised repairs that accumulated in any retail environment over time.

 

"Don't touch anything." you said.

 

He said nothing. You could hear him breathing, calm and even, which for some reason was more irritating than noise would have been.

You flipped the laptop over and began removing the back panel, your fingers finding the screws by memory and moving without hurry. This was something you had taught yourself over years of broken hardware and no money to pay someone else to fix it, late nights on forums, trial and error, the particular satisfaction of putting something back together with your own hands and having it work. You had never talked about it much. It was not the kind of thing that came up.

The panel came off with a soft plastic click and you leaned close, scanning the interior under the light. Battery looked intact. No bloating, no visible burns, no disconnected ribbon cables. Nothing obviously wrong, which meant it was something less obvious.

 

"Power issue?" you said, mostly to yourself.

"It shut off." he said. "And didn't turn back on."

"Very thorough." you said.

 

You pressed the power button. Nothing happened. Not even a flicker of the screen, not a single fan rotation, nothing. You plugged in the charger. Still nothing.

You frowned.

Not a dead battery, then. Something else. Something further in.

You reached in and disconnected the battery carefully, held the power button down for a slow count of ten to bleed out the residual charge from the capacitors, the way you had learned to do years ago from a forum post that had saved your own laptop and therefore, indirectly, a semester's worth of coursework.

 

"Resetting the charge." you said, though you were not sure why you felt the need to narrate it.

"I knew you were a nerd." he said.

 

You did not look up.

 

"Shut up."

"I mean that seriously."

"I said shut up."

 

You reconnected the battery and tried the power again. The screen flickered. One brief, pale shimmer, there and gone, like something waking up and thinking better of it.

 

"Come on." you murmured, leaning closer, fingers already moving toward the keyboard.

"Who comes to a tech store at midnight?" you asked, more to fill the silence than because you wanted to know.

"Someone who barely has a life outside work." he said.

 

There was no self-pity in it. No wryness. He said it the way you might say a fact about weather, something observable, not particularly worth feeling anything about.

You glanced at him.

He was watching the screen. His arms were at his sides. His face was composed in its usual arrangement of controlled surfaces, but the words he had just said were sitting in the air between you in a way that was harder to dismiss than you would have preferred.

You looked back at the screen.

You pressed a few more keys and got the machine to boot partway before it stalled on a black screen with a single blinking cursor, a cursor that blinked twice and then gave up.

 

"Okay." you said. "Not ideal."

 

You restarted it and this time went directly into the BIOS, navigating the menu with the ease of someone who had spent too many hours in there, adjusting boot orders and checking hardware recognition and doing all the small unglamorous things that kept machines alive.

 

"Drive is detected." you said. "That's something."

 

You ran a diagnostic. The progress filled in line by line and you followed it with your eyes, reading the output, watching for the moment when the process would tell you what it already suspected.

There.

 

You clicked your tongue once.

 

"There it is."

"What?"

"Your system's corrupted. Probably a bad shutdown or a failed update that didn't complete properly. It's trying to boot and hitting a wall halfway through and giving up."

"Can you fix it?"

 

You held still for a moment, looking at the screen.

 

"Maybe."

 

You felt the quality of his attention change before you even turned to look at him.

 

"What does maybe mean."

 

It was not a question. It was a request for precision.

 

"It means..." you said, turning toward him, "I can try to repair the corrupted files without touching anything else. If that works, you lose nothing. If it doesn't, the only reliable fix is a reset."

 

He looked at you.

 

"No reset."

"You don't know what's on there that can or can't be recovered yet."

"I know what's on there." he said. "No reset."

 

You held his gaze for a moment. There was the edge again, the one that you had been reading as impatience or arrogance all night, and maybe it was those things, but it was also something underneath them, something that had nothing to do with being difficult and everything to do with something he needed and could not afford to lose.

You did not ask what it was. You did not know why you did not ask. Maybe because you already understood the shape of it, even without the details.

 

"Alright." you said, and turned back to the screen. "Non-destructive first."

 

You launched the recovery tool and watched the progress bar begin its slow crawl across the screen.

 

"You're lucky I'm bored." you said.

"Doesn't sound like it."

"This is the most interesting thing that's happened since eight o'clock. The bar is low."

 

A pause.

 

"Yeah." he said.

 

Just that. One word, and quiet, and you found yourself glancing at him again without meaning to.

He was looking at the screen now, not at you. His arms were still at his sides. Something in his posture had shifted in some way you could not entirely name, some small releasing of the architecture he walked around in. He looked tired, you realized. Not dramatically, not in a way he would have allowed you to comment on. But he was tired the way people got when they had been holding something tightly for a long time and had briefly forgotten to keep holding it.

The screen flickered once, the way screens do when they are about to deliver news you do not want, and then it settled into a flat blue interface, clean and cold and completely indifferent to the hour or to either of you.

 

System update in progress. Do not turn off your device. Estimated time remaining: 1 hour.

 

You read it twice.

Then you leaned back slowly in the chair and pressed the heel of your hand against your forehead and held it there.

 

"You have got to be kidding me." you said, to no one in particular, or to the universe, or to whatever sequence of decisions had led you to this specific back room at this specific hour.

"An hour." Levi said from somewhere behind you. It was not a question. It had the tone of a man filing a formal complaint with reality.

"Apparently."

 

The silence that followed had a particular quality, the silence of two people absorbing information that neither of them wanted and that both of them had to accept anyway.

You pushed yourself up out of the chair with a sound that you were not proud of, the specific groan of a body that has been on its feet for twelve hours and was now being asked to continue indefinitely, and reached for your phone on the counter.

 

"So we wait." you said. "And I'm ordering food."

 

You heard the small shift behind you, the almost imperceptible change in his stillness that meant something had surprised him.

 

"You're still going to help."

 

It was not quite a question. It was the thing adjacent to a question that people ask when they already know the answer but cannot account for it.

You scrolled through your phone without looking at him.

 

"I'm in it now, aren't I."

 

The laptop was open on the counter. The update was running. He was standing in the middle of the back room of your store at one in the morning like an unresolved equation. There was no clean exit from any of this.

 

"Doesn't make sense to stop."

"I'll pay you." he said.

 

You stopped scrolling.

You glanced at him over your shoulder, slowly, with one eyebrow raised. He was watching you with that same composed expression, arms loosely crossed, as though he was discussing the terms of something he had already decided to agree to and was simply waiting for the other party to catch up.

 

"Oh, you will." you said. "And not a small amount. Trust me."

"Gold digger."

"You're a lawyer."

"And?"

"So you're rich." you said simply, and turned back to your phone.

 

A beat passed. Measured and quiet in the way that his pauses always were, like he was letting things land before responding to them.

 

"How much?" he said.

"Two hundred."

 

He exhaled through his nose. The sound of a man who had already done the calculation and found it acceptable but intended to negotiate anyway on principle.

 

"Three hundred." he said, and you heard him shift slightly against the wall. "And you order something for me as well."

 

You turned and looked at him properly.

He looked exactly the same as he had all night, unreadable and composed and precisely as much trouble as he had been from the first moment he opened his mouth. But there was something underneath the composure now that had not been visible before, or that you had not had the angle to see. Something that had made its peace with the situation. Not surrender exactly, more like a man who had looked at the available options and selected the least unreasonable one and was now committed to it without complaint.

You tilted your head slightly.

 

"Do you always do this. Just throw money at things until they cooperate."

"Yes."

"That must be a very convenient way to live."

"It's efficient."

 

You laughed, just a small sound, more air than noise.

 

"Right. Of course it is."

 

You turned your phone toward him.

 

"What do you want?"

"Anything."

 

You looked at him flatly.

 

"Helpful. Really."

"I don't have a preference."

"Everyone have preferences about everything." you said. 

 

His eyes came to yours. The look was brief and sharp, a small warning shot, the kind that told you that you had gotten closer to something true than he had intended to permit.

You held his gaze for just a moment, long enough to register that you had noticed, then turned back to your phone.

 

"Fine. I'll decide."

 

You ordered without ceremony, the closest place still open, something warm and substantial that your body had been requesting for the last three hours. You confirmed the order and set the phone face down on the counter.

 

"Twenty minutes." you said.

 

Neither of you responded to that.

The room returned to its hum, the laptop's fan a low and constant presence, the progress bar advancing across the screen with a slowness that felt almost deliberate, as though the machine understood what it was interrupting and had opinions about it.

Ten percent.

Eleven.

You leaned back against the counter with your arms crossed and watched the screen the way you might watch a pot, knowing that attention would not accelerate it and doing it anyway. He had resumed his position against the wall a few feet away, not close and not distant, arms loosely folded, eyes on the laptop but focused somewhere past it, some internal distance that had nothing to do with the room.

For the first time all night he was not pushing against anything.

Not demanding. Not arguing. Not using that precise, exhausting voice to dismantle whatever you had just said.

Just waiting.

You looked at him for a moment.

 

"You're surprisingly patient." you said. "for someone who opened with 'I'm very patient.'"

"I told you."

"I still don't believe you."

"That's your problem."

"Everything is either your problem or not your problem. You've got a very clean system."

"Most things aren't worth the energy." he said.

"And the things that are."

 

He did not answer immediately. His gaze shifted from the middle distance to the screen, then, briefly, to you.

 

"You already know the answer to that." he said.

 

You looked away first.

Twelve percent.

The fan hummed. Somewhere outside, very faintly, a siren moved through the city and faded. The takeout was twenty minutes away. The update had fifty-eight minutes remaining, give or take, and the light above you buzzed with its patient, soulless frequency, and the room held you both in its strange suspended silence like something that had not yet decided what it was going to become.

 

"You're strange." you said, not unkindly.

"You too." he answered.

 

You pressed your lips together and said nothing.

He was not wrong.

You were still here, in this back room, past one in the morning, twelve hours into a shift that had officially ended, waiting for a progress bar to move and takeout to arrive and for whatever this was to continue being whatever it was.

You exhaled quietly through your nose.

Yeah, you thought.

You really were.

 

And...it settled over you slowly, the way certain realizations do, not all at once but in layers, each one arriving before you had finished processing the last.

At first it was just the room. The back of the store had its own atmosphere past midnight, something the daytime version of the space never had. The neon from the display cases in the front bled faintly through the doorway and mixed with the harsher white above the counter, and the result was a light that did not quite belong to either register, something in between, something that made the edges of things look less certain than usual. The world outside the building felt genuinely remote. Not late, not quiet, but actually far away, like a country you had visited once and could not entirely recall.

Just the two of you.

The low, patient hum of the machine doing its work.

But it was not just the setting.

The silence had a quality to it that you could not account for. It was not the silence of two people who had nothing to say. It was the other kind, the kind with something in it, something unspoken and charged that had nothing to do with corrupted boot files or unreasonable demands made at closing time. You were aware of it the way you were aware of a change in barometric pressure, not seeing it exactly but feeling it in your chest.

You shifted your weight against the counter. And then you felt his eyes.

You did not have to look to know. The quality of his attention was specific enough that it registered on the skin. He was not glancing. He was watching, with that same calm, unhurried focus he brought to everything, and it landed differently now than it had an hour ago.

You pushed yourself upright slightly, more to break the moment than because you needed to move.

 

"What's your name ?" you said.

 

A pause.

 

"Why do you want to know ?"

"So I know which lawyer to avoid."

"You couldn't afford me."

 

You let out a short, dry sound.

 

"You're a fucking knob."

"Yeah." he said, entirely unbothered. "Still. We're stuck here."

 

The progress bar moved.

Twenty-three percent.

You tilted your head toward the screen for a moment, then glanced back at him.

 

"Why do you need the computer so much ?"

 

His gaze did not shift or soften.

 

"You're too curious."

"I should be at a party right now." you lied. "So you could at least be cooperative."

 

Something changed in his voice, small and barely there.

 

"A party."

"Yes."

"A nerd who parties."

"We're not all friendless." you said.

 

And then it happened.

A smirk. Small and quick, gone almost before it arrived, but real, genuinely real, and it hit you somewhere in the sternum in a way that was entirely disproportionate and completely unwelcome.

 

"I have friends." you added, a half second too fast.

"I pity them."

"Honestly, so do I."

 

That pulled something out of him, not quite a laugh but the breath that precedes one, a small involuntary release, and you found yourself stepping slightly closer to the counter without meaning to.

 

"Your name." you said again.

 

Another pause. Longer this time.

 

"Levi."

 

You blinked once.

 

It fit. That was the irritating thing about it. Sharp and clean and economical, no syllable wasted, exactly the kind of name a person like him would have.

 

"It's hot." you said.

 

The words arrived in the room before your brain had finished forming them. You heard yourself say them and could not retrieve them.

A beat passed.

Then another.

And then you were laughing, shaking your head at yourself with the specific embarrassment of someone who has just done something completely stupid in front of someone they did not want to appear stupid in front of.

 

"Okay. That was..."

"Idiot." he muttered.

 

But he had gone very still. Just slightly, just for a moment, and you noticed, because you had been noticing everything about him all night without meaning to.

You tilted your head, the laugh still at the edges of your mouth.

 

"Why are hot, rich men always like this."

 

His eyes came back to yours, sharper than before.

 

"Stop calling me that."

"Which part bothered you ?"

 

Silence.

Your phone buzzed against the counter, loud in the quiet room.

You both looked at it at the same time. The small, instinctive synchrony of it was strange, two people who had been arguing an hour ago now sharing reflexes.

 

"Food's here." you whispered, reaching for your jacket.

 

You paused for just a moment at the doorway and looked back at him over your shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

 

"Try not to break anything while I'm gone, Levi."

 

A beat.

 

"No promises." he deadpanned.

 

You pushed through the door with your shoulder and the night air slipped in briefly behind you before the door swung shut again, cold and clean for just a second before it was gone. The delivery bag was warm through the plastic and smelled of sesame and salt and the specific comfort of food that someone else had cooked, and you stood on the pavement for a moment longer than necessary before going back inside.

When you returned he had moved.

He was sitting now in the old metal chair beside the counter, the one that had been there since before your time and would likely outlast the store itself. His legs were slightly apart, arms loosely crossed, posture that did not read as relaxed exactly but as something more deliberate than tension. Contained, was the word. The word that kept coming back to you.

You stopped for half a second in the doorway.

Then made yourself keep walking.

You set the bags down with slightly more noise than was strictly necessary.

 

"Pad thai." you exclaimed, handing him the box.

 

He took it without ceremony.

 

"Fancy."

"You only ever complain."

"Yeah." he said, already opening it. "Because this isn't how I pictured my night going."

 

You snorted, leaning back against the counter with your own box.

 

"What, sharing pad thai with a stranger in a back room at one in the morning. Shocking."

 

He glanced at you. A brief, flat flick of his eyes. Then he started eating.

The silence that settled this time was different from any of the silences that had come before it. It did not press. It did not have that tight, coiled quality that characterized the first half of the night. It was something softer than that, something that did not need to be filled, and you sat in it for a moment without feeling the need to dismantle it.

You watched the progress bar out of habit.

Thirty-four percent.

 

"You always this..." you asked, gesturing without real meaning, not really expecting a useful answer.

 

He did not look up.

 

"No."

"Liar."

 

That got you a glance. Quick and sharp but without hostility in it, which felt like a small and significant development.

 

"Only when I have to be." he said.

 

You hummed, turning noodles around your fork.

 

"Sounds exhausting."

"It's efficient."

"You love that word."

"It works."

 

You watched him for a moment. The way he ate was like everything else about him, clean and precise, no movement that was not doing something useful. Even that felt intentional. Like he had at some point made a decision about how to exist in space and had committed to it completely.

And yet here he was.

 

"You didn't have anything better to do ?" you said.

"Yes."

"Wow. Okay."

He swallowed and then, after a beat, added "This was just more important."

 

There it was again. That quality underneath the sharpness, the thing that was not attitude and was not ego and was harder to name than either of those things. You leaned your head back slightly against the wall.

 

"You're not going to tell me what's on that computer."

"No."

"Figured."

 

You took another bite and then looked at him again, not bothering to hide it this time. His sleeves were pushed up and the light caught the pale skin of his forearms, the faint suggestion of veins. His grip on the chopsticks was steady. Everything about him was steady. Everything was held.

You exhaled quietly.

 

"You're weirdly calm for someone who stormed in here an hour ago."

"I got what I needed."

"You don't have it yet."

"I will."

"God, you're confident."

"I'm right."

 

You laughed under your breath.

 

"That's somehow worse."

A pause. And then, in a quieter register, without looking at you, he said, "You're still helping."

 

You looked at him.

He was focused on his food.

You shrugged, keeping your voice easy.

 

"Don't read into it."

"I'm not."

"Good."

 

The silence returned. But it did not feel like distance anymore. It felt like proximity, which was a different thing entirely and considerably more difficult to manage.

The computer hummed steadily beside him.

You both looked at it at the same moment.

 

Forty-two percent.

 

You sighed.

 

"This had better be worth it."

 

Levi set his chopsticks down and leaned back in the chair slightly, the first time you had seen him make a movement that was not in direct service of something.

 

"It is." he said.

 

You met his eyes.

And you believed him, which surprised you, because you had not believed much of anything he had said tonight without requiring evidence first.

You shifted against the counter, your box still in hand.

 

"What's it like being a lawyer ?"

 

He did not hesitate.

 

"Exhausting. It pays well."

"I bet."

 

A moment passed.

 

"Where did you study." you asked.

"Manhattan."

 

You let out a low sound.

 

"Rich rich."

 

His eyes came up to yours, sharp but not offended.

 

"I'm from the Bronx." he snorted. "Scholarship."

 

You went quiet for a second.

That was not what you had constructed. The version of him you had been building in your head all night did not quite account for that, and you felt the small structural adjustment required to make room for it.

 

"Smart one then." you said.

 

He did not react. Just returned to his food as though the information had no particular weight, which made you think it had rather a lot.

 

"And you ?" he said after a moment. "Why are you working here ?"

"English literature. Summer job."

 

He looked at you properly then, the way he had not quite looked at you since the front of the store.

 

"How old are you ?"

"Twenty-eight."

 

A beat.

 

"Still a student."

"I'm doing a PhD." you said flatly. "Asshole."

"You're a brat."

"And you're old. What, forty? Fifty?"

 

Something moved in his face. Not quite offense.

 

"Fuck you."

"Fifty then." you said, with confidence.

"Thirty-nine."

 

You paused with your fork halfway to your mouth. Lowered it slowly. Tilted your head at him with great deliberateness.

 

"Tell me about Napoleon."

 

That did it.

The smirk came back, and this time it stayed a beat longer, and it was sharper than the first one and more dangerous and your stomach did something completely unreasonable in response.

 

"You're not well-behaved." he said, settling back in the chair with his arms crossing over his chest again.

"I'm confident."

"You don't like being told otherwise."

 

It was not a question. It landed in a way that made you go briefly still before you could stop yourself, a half second of reaction that you covered with a scoff and a look away.

 

"You're being intrusive." you said.

 

The silence that followed was different from the others. It had more texture to it. You focused on your food but you could feel him still, that specific quality of his attention that you had been aware of all night and had been pretending not to be.

 

"Don't psychoanalyze me." 

"I'm not."

"Good."

A beat. And then, quietly, "You deflect a lot."

 

You went still.

Just for a moment. Then you forced a short laugh and shook your head.

 

"And you suddenly talk too much."

"I thought I was rude and silent."

"You're still rude."

 

Another pause, softer than the others.

 

"Why literature ?" he asked.

 

You glanced at him. He was not smirking now. He was not pushing. He was just asking, with that same directness he brought to everything, but without the edge in it.

You hesitated.

 

"Because it's the only thing I don't get bored of." you explained.

 

He held your gaze for a moment longer than necessary.

 

"Figures." he deadpanned.

"What does that mean."

"You talk like someone who thinks too much."

"And you talk like someone who thinks he's always right."

"Usually am."

"God, you're insufferable."

"And yet..." he said, his gaze moving briefly to the screen and then back to you, "you're still here, helping me."

 

You opened your mouth.

Closed it.

He was not wrong, and the fact that he was not wrong was significantly more annoying than if he had been.

You exhaled slowly and leaned your head back against the wall.

 

"Yeah." you muttered.

 

Seventy-eight percent.

 

You both finished eating without talking. The boxes sat open on the counter, chopsticks abandoned, the smell of the food fading slowly into the background smell of the room. The silence came back and it was heavier than it had been but not in a bad way. In a full way. The kind of silence that exists between people who have said enough things to each other that they no longer need to fill the space.

You watched the screen.

 

Eighty-five percent.

 

Almost done. Almost time for him to go, for you to lock up and go home and sleep and wake up and return to the version of your life that did not include strange, controlled, insufferable men eating pad thai in the back room while you repaired their computers at one in the morning.

And yet.

A thought arrived that you did not ask for: if this was the first and last time, if he walked out in ten minutes and you never saw him again, what would you do with that.

Your jaw tightened slightly.

You did not like where that was going.

 

"What's your favorite book? "

 

You blinked. Looked at him.

 

"1984." you said.

 

He drew a breath.

 

"Common." you cut in before he could finish. "Yes, I know. Because I study literature I have to say something obscure and niche."

"I didn't say anything."

"I'm preempting. Everyone always says something."

 

He tilted his head very slightly.

 

"Do I look like everyone." He didn't questionned, he stated. 

 

You looked at him.

The sharpness, the restraint, the quiet and constant intensity of him. The scholarship from the Bronx. The thing on the computer he could not afford to lose and would not explain.

 

"No." you said, and your voice came out a little quieter than you meant it to. "No, you really don't."

 

A small silence.

 

"My favorite book is the law code." he said.

 

You stared at him.

 

"I'm sorry ?"

"It makes sense." he said simply. "It's consistent. It soothes me."

 

You shook your head slowly.

 

"Nothing makes sense in what we call justice."

"Exactly." he said. "Because humans aren't capable of judgment."

"What do you mean." You frowned. 

 

He settled back slightly, arms crossing again, gaze steady.

 

"We're flawed. We're instinctive. We make decisions based on feeling."

"Not everyone."

"Everyone." he said, and there was no arrogance in it, just the flatness of someone reporting an observation they have made too many times to find it interesting anymore. "I've seen enough of it."

 

You considered that.

 

"So everything is wrong by design."

"In a way. Laws exist to contain it."

"Or to control it."

"Same thing."

 

You pushed yourself slightly off the counter, not thinking about the movement until you had already made it and were now closer to him than you had been.

 

"Or maybe..." you said, "instinct doesn't have to be destructive."

 

His eyes settled on you. Not moving.

 

"People can follow things that don't hurt anyone." you said.

Your voice had dropped slightly without you deciding to drop it.

 

"Their own needs. Their own..."

 

You held his gaze.

 

"Attraction."

 

The word sat in the room.

His expression did not change. But the air did. You felt it the way you feel a pressure change, something shifting without anything visibly moving, the room somehow tighter and warmer and significantly more complicated than it had been thirty seconds ago.

 

"What-"

 

One hundred percent complete. Please enter key password.

 

The laptop's voice arrived in the room like something thrown through glass. Clean and abrupt and entirely indifferent to what it had interrupted.

You both went still.

Then the moment dissolved, not slowly but all at once, like something that had only existed because no one had acknowledged it out loud.

You looked at the screen. Your breath was not entirely steady and you were aware of that and doing your best to make it less obvious.

 

"Well." you said. "Good timing."

 

Levi did not move immediately.

He was still looking at you. Still there, in the way he had been there for the last several minutes, which was differently than he had been there for the rest of the night.

Then his gaze moved to the screen.

"Password," you said, forcing your voice back to something approximating normal.

A pause.

He stood.

He was close. Closer than the chair had made him seem, and the fact of him standing brought him into range in a way that was not entirely comfortable and not entirely uncomfortable and was mostly just something you had to remain very still about.

 

"Yeah." he said.

 

And his voice, for the first time since he had walked through the door twelve minutes past midnight demanding things he had no right to demand, was not entirely steady either.

He typed the password without hesitation, the keystrokes quick and certain, and then there was a moment of nothing, a held breath that belonged to both of you equally, the cursor blinking in the silence with the patience of something that did not understand what was at stake.

Then the screen opened.

The desktop loaded, icons arranging themselves in their grid, the machine exhaling through its fans as it settled into itself, and just like that it was done, it was working, it was real.

You both felt the shift. It moved through the room like a change in pressure, something that had been wound very tightly for a very long time releasing all at once.

Levi exhaled. It was a sharp, audible sound, not controlled, not measured, just the body doing what the body does when something that has been held finally does not have to be held anymore. He said "move" without looking at you, not harshly, not unkindly, just immediately, the way someone speaks when they have been waiting hours to do the thing they are now about to do.

You stepped aside without a word.

He sat down and his fingers were already moving before the chair had finished settling under him. You watched his hands on the keyboard, the same precision he brought to everything, no hesitation, no second-guessing, just the clean efficient movement of someone who had already run this sequence in his head a hundred times tonight. He opened the inbox. Composed a new message. Attached the file. The cursor hovered over the send button for perhaps half a second, the only pause in the entire sequence, and then he pressed it.

And that was it.

The thing was done.

The change that moved through him after was total and immediate and unlike anything you had seen from him all night. His shoulders came down from where they had been, not dramatically, not in a way he seemed to notice himself, but visibly, the tension that had been living in them for hours dissolving all at once. His back found the chair. His head tilted back and his eyes closed and he let out a long, slow breath that sounded, for the first time since he had walked through the door twelve minutes past midnight with his jaw set and his presence coiled like something ready to snap, like a person. Just a tired person who had needed something badly and had gotten it and was now on the other side of that.

You did not move.

You stood with your arms loosely at your sides and watched him and did not say anything, because for once the silence felt like the right response.

 

"I had to send evidence to the judge." he mumbled.

 

His voice was quieter than it had been all night. Not softer exactly, just lower, like something that had been turned down.

 

"Before seven in the morning. Before the trial starts."

 

You waited.

 

"There's a girl." he said.

 

His eyes were still closed, his head still tilted back, his throat exposed in a way that felt like a small and unconscious act of trust from someone who did not seem accustomed to those.

 

"She was murdered."

 

The words settled into the room and the room changed around them.

 

"The document on this computer" he continued "is the only copy of certain evidence. Evidence that could determine the outcome of the mother's case."

 

A pause, brief and heavy.

 

"I only had it here."

 

You stood very still.

The fluorescent light buzzed above you. The laptop's fan ran quietly. Outside, somewhere distant, a car passed, and then there was silence again, the complete silence of a city past one in the morning when even the streets have given up for the night.

 

"Why didn't you tell me that ?" you said. Your voice came out quietly, not accusing, just genuine.

 

He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

 

"People don't perform well under pressure." he said. "They panic. They make mistakes. They drop things." He paused. "I needed you calm and focused, not feeling the weight of it."

 

You looked at him. Something in that landed strangely, not because it was wrong, but because it was so completely him, that precise and somewhat exhausting way of thinking through every variable, accounting for every failure point, including you.

 

"I..." you started.

 

He turned his head.

He looked at you.

Still leaning back in the chair, still carrying that exhaustion in every line of him, the collar of his shirt open, his sleeves pushed up, everything slightly undone in a way that the version of him who had walked in an hour ago would not have permitted. But his eyes were exactly the same. Sharp and direct and seeing more than you ever entirely wanted them to see.

There was something else in them now too.

Something quieter. Something that had not been there before, or that had been there but buried under everything else, and was only now, in the aftermath of all that tension finally releasing, visible.

 

"I thought you should know." he said. "what you did. What it amounted to."

 

Your chest tightened in a way you had not expected and could not immediately account for.

You had helped plenty of customers. Hundreds. Thousands, over the accumulated hours of this job and the jobs before it. None of them had ever said anything like that, and certainly not like this, not in this voice, not with this particular quality of attention.

Your mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

The silence stretched between you, warm and strange, and then he let his gaze hold yours for another moment and the corners of his mouth shifted, barely, just fractionally, and his voice dropped into something slower and heavier than it had been, something that had an entirely different quality than the exhaustion.

 

"So." he said. "What were you saying. Before."

 

The air changed again.

You felt it move through you from the top of your spine down, that specific and unwelcome recognition of something you could not pretend was not happening.

 

"That people should follow their instincts." you murmured. Your voice was quieter than before. Not shy, you did not do shy, but quieter. More careful.

 

He had not looked away from you.

 

"And what do yours tell you." he said, "right now."

 

It was not a tease. It had no lightness in it, no mockery, no deflection. It was a direct question asked in a direct voice that expected a direct answer, and the straightforwardness of it was somehow more unsettling than anything coy would have been.

You held his gaze across the small distance between you.

You swallowed once.

 

"That I don't want to go home yet." you said.

 

The silence after that was not empty. It was never empty with him. It had density and warmth and it pressed gently against every surface of the room.

He studied you with that same unhurried focus he brought to everything important, and you had the sensation of being read carefully, of every small thing you had said and done in the last hour being referenced and assessed, and rather than being uncomfortable you found that you did not particularly mind.

Then he leaned forward.

Elbows to his knees, the movement slow and deliberate, closing the distance between you by a degree that was not touching but was no longer the neutral territory of the last hour either. Close enough that you were aware of the warmth of him. Close enough to be a decision.

 

"That's not an instinct." he said. His voice was very low now. "That's a choice."

 

Something stubborn rose in your chest, the familiar contrary thing that had been talking back to him all night, and this time you let it.

 

"Then maybe I'm choosing to listen to them for once." you said.

 

Something moved in his eyes. Not much, just a small internal shift, the way a light changes quality when a cloud moves. Interest, and underneath it something darker and more considered.

He stood up.

The chair did not scrape. He simply rose, smoothly and without ceremony, and suddenly there was no distance left between you to speak of, just the fact of him, solid and close and utterly still, looking at you with those eyes that had been taking you apart all night.

 

"You don't know me." he said.

"No." you agreed. "I don't."

"People with good judgment don't stay in situations like this."

 

You tilted your head slightly.

 

"I thought you said people weren't rational."

 

A pause.

Something in him shifted, something very small and very significant, and then his hand moved. Not to touch you. Just upward, into the space between you, fingers almost grazing your jaw without completing the motion, hovering at the threshold of contact like something waiting for permission or perhaps testing what it felt like to be that close.

 

"Are you rational ?" he said, barely above a murmur.

 

Your breath caught. You felt it happen and could not stop it and did not try to pretend it had not. Then your breathing steadied, deliberately, evenly, and you held his gaze with everything you had.

 

"No." you said.

 

The word fell between you and that was the thing that finally did it.

Something in his face changed, completely and all at once, in a way that none of the other small changes had. The control did not disappear exactly but it stepped aside, made room for something that had not been permitted out all night, something that was real and present and looking at you with an openness that felt, coming from him, almost startlingly intimate.

 

"Good." he said quietly.

 

And the distance that had been there, the careful maintained space between two people who had been circling something they had not yet named, closed.

Neither of you moved away.

His mouth was exactly what you might have predicted if you had been the kind of person who let yourself predict things like that, which you were not, or had not been, until approximately now.

Certain. That was the word. He kissed you the way he did everything else, with that same quality of having already decided, no hesitation in it, no tentativeness, just the clean fact of it arriving and then being there, his hand finally completing the motion it had been considering for the last several minutes and coming to rest against your jaw with a steadiness that made something in you go very quiet.

You kissed him back.

Of course you did. You had been arguing with him for the better part of an hour and a half and this felt like a continuation of that, the same energy routed somewhere more honest, and you brought the same stubbornness to it that you had brought to everything else tonight, your hand finding the front of his shirt without a great deal of ceremony.

He made a small sound against your mouth. Not quite surprise. More like confirmation.

When he pulled back it was only by a few centimeters, just enough to put air between you, and he stayed there, close enough that you could feel him breathing, his thumb tracing a slow line along your jaw as though he was taking inventory of something.

You looked at him.

Up close he looked different. Not softer exactly, the sharpness was still there, it was structural, it was just how his face was arranged, but there was nothing guarded in his expression now. He was simply looking at you, with those grey eyes that had been dissecting you since the moment he walked in, and looking back at you in a way that was so direct and so present that it required a small effort to hold.

You held it anyway.

 

"Well. That was inevitable." you said.

 

Something shifted at the corner of his mouth.

 

"From the minute I told you to stop staring."

"You were staring too."

"Yes." he said simply, as though this required no defense.

 

You exhaled, a quiet sound, and his thumb traced that slow line again and you were aware, in a distant and somewhat academic way, that you were in the back room of your store at nearly half past one in the morning, that you had a twelve hour shift behind you and no clear end to this night in front of you, and that none of that felt like the problem it probably should have.

 

"You're still insufferable." you said.

"You're still here."

"You keep saying that."

"It keeps being true."

 

You looked at him for a moment. The exhaustion was still in his face, real and visible now in a way he was no longer bothering to manage, but underneath it was something else, something that had nothing to do with the trial or the evidence or the hours he had spent in controlled tension before walking through your door. Something that was here, in this room, with you specifically.

It sat strangely in your chest. Not unpleasantly.

 

"The update is done. Your computer works." you said.

"I know."

"It means you have no reason to stay now."

 

He held your gaze.

 

"I know that too."

 

You searched his face for something, you were not entirely sure what, some indication of what category this fell into for him. He looked back at you with that infuriating steadiness and did not offer you anything you had not already found yourself, which was both consistent with everything you knew about him and deeply unhelpful.

 

"So." you said.

"So." he said.

A beat passed.

 

Then his hand, which had been resting against your jaw, moved slightly, fingers sliding back into your hair with a deliberateness that made your breath do something involuntary, and he tilted your head up by a fraction and kissed you again, slower this time, less like a decision being made and more like one being lived in, and you felt the specific and somewhat inconvenient recognition that this was considerably worse than the first one in terms of its likely effect on your ability to think clearly afterward.

You pulled back first this time.

He let you, his hand staying where it was, his eyes opening to find yours.

 

"I don't do this. Hook up with strangers." you said. Your voice was even. You were proud of that.

"Neither do I." he said.

 

You studied him.

 

"That should be more reassuring than it is."

"Probably."

 

You looked at the screen over his shoulder. The computer had turn to saving mode. 

 

"I don't even like you." you said, which was the kind of thing that sounded true when you started saying it and became less certain by the time you reached the end.

 

Levi looked at you steadily.

 

"You like me enough."

 

You opened your mouth.

Closed it.

The worst thing about him, you were finding, was not that he was arrogant, though he was, or that he was difficult, though he was that too, it was that he had this specific and relentless habit of being correct, and he delivered it without any of the smugness that might have made it easier to dismiss.

You looked away first, which you seemed to keep doing, and you were keeping score in some peripheral part of your brain and you were not winning.

 

"You're going to be terrible to know." you said, to the middle distance.

 

He said nothing for a moment.

Then, quietly, with something in his voice that you had not heard from him before, something that required a small amount of care to produce and that he offered without making a production of it, he said,

"Probably."

And then, after a pause that had a different texture than his other pauses,

"You could find out."

 

You looked back at him.

He was watching you with that same directness, but there was something underneath it now, something that was neither the controlled sharpness of the man who had walked in demanding things nor the exhausted relief of the man who had sent his email and finally breathed, but something else, something that sat quietly in his expression and waited without pressure.

You reached up and straightened the collar of his shirt, a small and slightly unnecessary gesture, your fingers brushing the side of his neck in the process. He went very still under your hands, the particular stillness of someone allowing something rather than simply tolerating it.

 

"I work Thursday through Sunday." you said. "In case you need something else repaired."

 

Something moved at the corner of his mouth. Slow and certain, that same quality as everything else about him.

 

"I'll keep that in mind."

"I'm expensive." you added.

"I know." he said. "You told me."

"Three hundred was a starting point."

"I'm aware." he said.

 

And this time the thing at the corner of his mouth completed itself, and the smile that arrived was small and sharp and genuine and considerably more dangerous than any expression he had worn all night, and you felt it land somewhere in your chest and stay there with the comfortable permanence of something that intended to be inconvenient for a long time.

You dropped your hand from his collar and leaned back against the counter.

He stayed where he was, close but not pressing, and the silence that settled around you both was the warmest one of the night, the kind that did not need anything from either of you, that simply existed as evidence of where the last two hours had taken you both without either of you particularly planning for it to go there.

Outside, the city was quiet. Inside, the machine hummed.

You thought about Thursday.

You did not say so.

But you thought about it anyway, and from the quality of the silence beside you, you suspected, without looking at him, that he was doing something similar.

 

 

 

"Good luck," you said. "For the trial."

 

He looked at you for a moment in the doorway, the laptop bag over his shoulder, the city dark and quiet behind him through the front glass.

 

"Yeah." he said. "Thanks."

 

The word landed simply, without ceremony, but coming from him it had a different weight than it would have from anyone else. He had not thanked you once in two hours of you helping him. This was the first time, and it was quiet and genuine and cost him something small, and you felt it accordingly.

He smirked then, just slightly, that small sharp thing that had been doing unreasonable damage to your concentration all night, and turned to go.

You let him get three steps.

 

"Levi."

 

He stopped.

Not slowly, not gradually, but immediately, the way he did everything, the full stop of a person whose name in your mouth had landed somewhere it had not expected to land. He did not turn around. He simply stood in the middle of your store at two in the morning and waited, with that particular quality of his that made waiting look like the most deliberate act in the world.

 

"I'm alone." you said. "Friday night."

 

The silence that followed was brief and total.

Then he walked out without a word, the front door closing behind him with its soft electronic chirp, and you watched through the glass as he crossed to a black car parked at the curb, expensive and clean in the orange streetlight, and got in without looking back.

You stood behind the counter and watched the taillights disappear.

You did not know what that meant.

You were fairly sure you were going to find out.

 

Friday arrived and was busy in the way Fridays always were, loud and demanding until it suddenly was not, the evening crowd thinning all at once after eleven as though someone had given a signal, and then there was just the store and the fluorescent hum and the particular quality of quiet that existed in retail spaces after the last customer had gone.

Eleven fifty.

You were at the back counter with a stack of inventory papers, pen moving down the columns, doing the kind of work that required just enough attention to keep your hands occupied and not enough to stop you from thinking about other things. You had been doing that all week. Thinking about other things. About a certain quality of silence, a certain way of sitting in a chair, a certain smirk that arrived rarely and hit with disproportionate force.

The bell above the front door rang.

You did not raise your head.

The store settled around the sound of footsteps, steady and unhurried, the particular rhythm of someone who did not adjust their pace for spaces or situations, who moved through the world at exactly the speed they had decided to move through it and no other. You recognized it before you could have explained how. The same way you recognized, a moment later, the quality of his breathing, controlled and even, the breathing of someone who did not permit much to disturb the surface of things.

 

"We're closed." you said, without looking up.

 

A pause that lasted precisely as long as he decided it should last.

 

"Is that so ?"

 

You set down your pen.

You looked up.

He was standing on the other side of the counter in a white shirt ironed to a degree that suggested either genuine care or someone who considered imprecision in any form a personal failing. Sleeves rolled to the forearm. His hair was slightly less perfect than it had been on Tuesday, one or two degrees of disorder that on him read less as carelessness and more as the end of a long week that had nevertheless been handled. His eyes were steady and certain and the neon from the display cases caught in them and turned them a blue that was not quite the color they were under other lights.

He looked at you the way he had looked at you all night last time, like you were something he had already assessed and reached conclusions about and was now simply verifying.

 

"Yes sir." you teased.

 

Something moved at the corner of his mouth.

 

"It says midnight on your website."

"Too bad." You held his gaze with everything you had. "I hope you're not a lawyer."

"Funny how things align sometimes." he said, glancing around the store with an air of complete nonchalance, as though he were considering the display arrangements on their own merits, as though he had not been in your thoughts every single day since Tuesday in a way that had been genuinely inconvenient for your ability to focus on anything requiring sustained concentration.

 

You had thought about him more than you intended to admit. Had turned the night over in your mind at odd hours, in the morning before you were fully awake and at night when you were trying to be, reassembling the details of it with a thoroughness that you would not have been proud of in front of witnesses. The particular way he had looked at you when he said I thought you should know. The weight of his hand against your jaw. The way your name had sounded in his mouth, once, quietly, placed somewhere careful.

You had thought about Thursday with a frequency that was embarrassing.

Thursday had come and gone.

And now it was Friday, eleven fifty-two, and he was standing in your store, and you found that all the thinking you had done had not particularly prepared you for the fact of him, which was larger and more specific than memory had managed to preserve.

He began walking.

Not toward the door. Around the end of the counter, unhurried, with the calm certainty of someone who had already decided where they were going and found the question of permission interesting but not binding.

You noticed, in the peripheral way you were noticing everything about him that your direct attention could not be trusted with, that the closed sign on the front door had been turned.

He had done it on his way in.

You had not seen him do it. You had been looking at your papers. But it was turned, the word CLOSED facing out into the empty street, and he had done it without mentioning it and without breaking stride and was now standing behind your counter in the blue-white light looking at you with those eyes that had not changed at all since the last time and showed no sign of changing.

You stayed where you were.

Your pen was on the counter. Your papers were in front of you. The store was empty and locked and the city outside was quiet and he was close enough that you were already aware of the warmth of him, that same quality of contained presence that had been rearranging your spatial awareness since the first night, the way a room reconfigures itself around something that has enough gravity.

You looked up at him.

 

"You're late." you said. "It was supposed to be Thursday."

"I was in court." he said. "All day."

"And."

"We won." he said. Simply and quietly, the way he said things that mattered, without decoration.

 

Something moved through you that was not yours exactly, or was yours in a way that surprised you, a warmth that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. You thought about the girl. The mother. The document on the computer that had been the only copy of certain evidence. You thought about him at one in the morning with his head tilted back and his eyes closed, the first time all night that he had looked like a person who was tired.

 

"Good." you said.

 

And you meant it in a way that went considerably past the single syllable.

He looked at you for a moment with that same steady regard.

 

Then he said, "You said Friday."

"I said I was alone Friday." you said. "I didn't invite you precisely on friday."

"No." he agreed. "You didn't."

 

He was still there.

You were still looking at him.

The neon hummed. Outside, a car moved through the empty street and was gone. The inventory papers sat in front of you with their columns half-filled, the pen beside them, all the small evidence of the ordinary Friday night this had been until eleven fifty and the bell above the door.

 

"You came anyway." you said.

"Yes." he said.

 

Just that. The single word with no apology attached to it and no explanation offered, because he had decided to come and he had come and that was the complete account of the matter as far as he was concerned.

Then you picked up the inventory papers and put them in the drawer and closed it.

The small click of it was the only sound in the room for a moment, and then that sound was gone too and there was just the neon hum and his breathing and the fact of him standing behind your counter at eleven fifty-three on a Friday night having driven here in his expensive black car without being invited (not really) and turned the closed sign on his way in as though the question of whether he was welcome had already been settled to his satisfaction.

You looked at him.

He looked back at you.

The distance between you was approximately two feet and had been approximately two feet for the last several minutes and showed no sign of resolving itself without someone making a decision, and you were both, apparently, content to stand in it for a moment longer, the way you might stand at the edge of something before stepping off, not from hesitation exactly but from the specific desire to be present for the last second before everything changes.

You moved first.

Or he did.

Afterward you would not have been able to say with any confidence which of you closed the distance first because it happened the way certain things happen, not as a sequence of individual actions but as a single fact, and then he was kissing you and you were kissing him and the counter was at your back and his hands were on your face, both of them this time, cupping your jaw with that same steadiness he brought to everything, and it was nothing like a question.

It was nothing like the last time either, or it was everything like the last time but more so, with so many days of thinking about it behind it and the specific weight of Friday night and the closed sign and him standing in your store without apology because he had decided to be there and that had been sufficient reason. There was something different in it. Something that had had time to develop in the space between then and now and had arrived tonight with considerably more certainty than it had left with.

You kissed him back with both hands in his shirt and you felt him exhale through his nose, slow and controlled, the specific exhale of a person allowing themselves something they have been thinking about for several days, and his thumbs traced slow lines along your jaw and the counter edge pressed into your lower back and none of that was a problem.

When you broke apart his forehead came to rest against yours, just briefly, the small unguarded gesture of it landing in a way you had not prepared for, and you stayed there for a moment in the narrow space between you, both breathing, the neon humming its patient hum.

 

"I waited." you said quietly.

"I was in court." he said.

"You said that."

"It's still true."

 

You pulled back enough to look at him. His hands had dropped to your waist and stayed there, resting at your sides with that particular quality of his, present without pressing, certain without demanding. His hair was slightly disheveled now in ways it had not been when he walked in and you had done that and felt no particular remorse about it.

His eyes were very dark in the neon light.

 

"The backroom." you said.

 

Not a question. Not an invitation exactly, more the stating of a direction that you had already decided on and were simply making available to him to confirm or redirect.

Something moved in his expression, that small internal shift you had catalogued, the one that meant interest shading into something darker and more considered. His hands tightened slightly at your waist, barely perceptible, the fraction of a degree that was its own kind of answer.

 

"Lead the way." he said.

 

You held his gaze for just a moment, this man who had been impossible and had remained impossible in all the days since in a way that had colonized your concentration without asking, and then you turned and walked through the doorway into the back room and he followed and the door swung shut behind him.

The light in the back was the harsh clinical white you had been working under the last time, and for a moment you were both just standing in it, and then he crossed the room without hesitation, the same two or three steps that put him close enough that the warmth of him was immediately apparent, and his hand came up to your jaw again with that steadiness, that specific unhurried certainty, and you thought that you could probably spend a significant amount of time learning the particular quality of his hands and not exhaust the subject.

He kissed you again and this one had less restraint in it than the ones before, or the restraint was there but it was thinner, the way ice gets in warmer weather, still present but not something you would trust your weight to, and you felt the difference immediately and leaned into it in a way that seemed to communicate itself clearly because he made a low sound against your mouth and his other hand found your waist and walked you back two steps until your shoulders met the shelving unit behind you.

It rattled slightly. A box shifted somewhere on an upper shelf.

Neither of you addressed this.

His mouth moved to your jaw, your neck, the specific unhurried thoroughness of someone who has thought about this and is now conducting the reality of it with appropriate attention to detail, and you tipped your head back against the shelving and looked at the ceiling and the buzzing fluorescent light above you and thought, with the small portion of your brain still capable of sequential reasoning, that the ceiling of the back room of your store was not a ceiling you had ever expected to be looking at under these particular circumstances.

 

"Levi." you said.

"Mm," he said, against your neck, which was not a word but communicated his position on interruptions clearly enough.

"The light." you said.

 

A pause.

He lifted his head. Looked at you. Looked at the harsh white overhead light that was doing nobody any favors.

He reached past you without comment and found the switch on the wall behind the shelving unit and the overhead went off and the room dropped into the softer secondary light, the ambient glow that came through the doorway from the neon displays in the front of the store, blue and low and considerably less clinical.

He looked at you in it.

You looked back at him, his shirt collar open, his hair genuinely undone now, his expression carrying that quality you had first seen the past night when he had tilted his head back in the chair and let out a long breath and become, for the first time, something other than controlled. He looked like a person. A specific and complicated and thoroughly unreasonable person, standing in the blue half-dark of your back room on a Friday night having driven here because you had said you were alone and that had apparently been all the invitation he required.

You reached up and took his collar in both hands.

 

"Stop thinking." you said.

 

He raised an eyebrow by a fraction of a degree.

 

"I'm not thinking."

"You have a face that thinks."

"You have a face that talks." he said, and kissed you again before you could answer, which was, you were finding, a recurring pattern with him, the use of the most direct available solution to whatever the immediate problem was, and you decided, against the shelving unit in the blue neon light of the back room of your closed store at midnight on a Friday, that you did not actually object to this as a methodology.

 

Your lanyard ended up on the counter. These things happened with the same quality as everything that had happened between you, not dramatically but with inevitability, each small concession following naturally from the last, the logic of the thing carrying you forward the way a current carries something that has stopped swimming against it.

Outside, the street was quiet.

Inside, the neon hummed.

And suddenly, you were slammed back against the cold concrete wall of the backroom, the chill seeping through your skin even in the height of summer. His body pinned you there, heavy and unyielding, like he owned every inch of you. That strong, expensive cologne hit you first, musky and commanding, mixed with the clean scent of soap that made you inhale deeply, greedily. He caught it, that desperate breath, and his lips curled into a smirk, dark eyes locking onto yours with predatory intent.

His right hand gripped the hem of your corporate tech black t-shirt, bunching it up roughly before yanking it over your head in one brutal tug. The fabric scraped against your skin as it ripped free, leaving you exposed to the freezing air. Goosebumps erupted across your bare torso (you never wore a bra in your damn life since you realized you didn't need one), nipples hardening instantly from the cold and the thrill. He didn't give you a second to adjust, his gaze raked over you like you were his prize, and you felt small.

Noticing your shiver, he dropped to his knees with deliberate slowness, his face level with your stomach. His fingers traced the curve of your waist, grazing lightly at first, teasing the sensitive skin until it burned under his touch. Then he leaned in, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along your abdomen, his breath warm against the chill. Both hands clamped onto the backs of your thighs, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, holding you in place as if you might try to escape.

A moan escaped your lips, unbidden, and you tilted your head back against the wall, arching your body toward him instinctively. Your fingers tangled in his hair, soft, clean strands of straight dark locks that you gripped tightly, pulling just enough to feel him respond.

 

"Never thought you'd by the guy to drop to your knees like this." you muttered, voice husky from his kisses trailing lower.

"I know when to take control." he growled back, his voice low and rough, vibrating against your skin. His hands slid up, finding the zipper of your jeans with urgent precision.

 

He dragged it down slowly at first, savoring the sound, then hooked his fingers into the waistband and shoved the Levi's down your legs in a rough yank, the denim scraping your thighs like it was nothing more than an obstacle. They pooled at your ankles, forgotten. You thanked whatever impulse had made you wear those cute panties today, lacy and barely there, hugging your hips teasingly. He let out a satisfied grunt, eyes darkening as he stared at the thin fabric clinging to your mound.

Without warning, his right hand shot forward, fingers pressing against your pussy through the panties. He rubbed in slow, deliberate circles, teasing your clit until the fabric grew damp. You bucked against his touch, but he pinned you harder with his other hand on your thigh, nails biting into flesh.

 

"Stay still." he commanded, voice edged with dominance. "For once just behave."

 

The roughness in his tone sent heat pooling between your legs. He hooked a finger under the edge of your panties, pulling them aside roughly, exposing your slick folds to the cold air. His thumb found your entrance, circling it before pushing in just the tip, edging you mercilessly. You whimpered, hips jerking forward, but he held you firm, his free hand sliding up to grip your ass, squeezing hard.

 

"Beg for it." he murmured, his mouth brushing your inner thigh as he nipped at the skin, teeth grazing sharp enough to sting. His finger delved deeper now, thrusting in rough, shallow strokes that made your walls clench around him. The cologne-scented heat of him contrasted with the icy wall at your back, every sensation amplified.

"Please... Levi." you gasped, fingers tightening in his hair, pulling him closer. He chuckled darkly, withdrawing his finger just as you started to build toward release, leaving you aching.

"I thought you were patient?" He mumbled. 

 

Then, standing abruptly, he towered over you again, his hands rough as they yanked your panties down your legs, tearing the lace in his haste. Naked now from the waist down, the cold bit at your exposed pussy, but his body pressed close, trapping you. He grabbed your wrists, pinning them above your head against the wall with one large hand, his grip ironclad.

His other hand roamed freely, palming your breast roughly, thumb flicking your nipple until it pebbled under his assault. Leaning in, he captured your mouth in a bruising kiss, tongue invading like he was claiming territory. You melted into it, submissive and pliant, moaning into his mouth as his hips ground against yours, the hard bulge of his cock pressing insistently through his pants.

Breaking the kiss, he trailed bites down your neck, sucking hard enough to mark you.

 

"Spread your legs." he ordered, releasing your wrists just long enough to shove your thighs apart with his knee. 

 

You obeyed instantly. His fingers returned to your pussy, two now plunging in deep and rough, curling to hit that spot that made stars burst behind your eyes.

He fucked you with his hand relentlessly, thumb grinding your clit in time with each thrust. The wet sounds echoed in the cold room, mixing with your gasps and his heavy breaths.

 

"That's it, take it like a good girl." he rasped, his free hand fisting your hair to tilt your head back, exposing your throat for more bites.

 

The pressure built fast, too fast, your body trembling on the edge. He felt it, slowed just enough to edge you again, drawing a frustrated whine from your lips.

 

"Not without permission." he warned, voice gravelly with his own arousal. But he didn't stop, pumping harder, faster, until you were sobbing with need.

"Come for me." he finally growled, and you shattered, pussy clenching around his fingers as waves of pleasure crashed over you. He didn't let up, drawing it out roughly until you sagged against the wall, spent and quivering.

 

But he wasn't done. Straightening, he unbuckled his belt with a sharp clink, eyes never leaving yours.

 

"Now, on your knees."

 

Your legs trembled as you slid down the wall, the rough concrete scraping your back until you hit the cold floor on your knees. The chill bit into your bare skin, but the heat radiating from him drowned it out. He stood over you, belt unbuckled, the metallic clink still echoing in your ears. His dark eyes bored into yours, commanding obedience without a word. You reached up, fingers fumbling with the button of his pants, heart pounding from the orgasm he’d wrung out of you and the promise of more.

 

"Hurry up." he snapped, voice rough like gravel, one hand tangling in your hair to yank your head back slightly, forcing you to look up at him.

 

The pull stung your scalp, sending a fresh wave of submission through you. You obeyed, popping the button and dragging the zipper down with your teeth for good measure, earning a low growl of approval. His cock sprang free as you shoved his pants and boxers down his thighs, thick, veined, and already leaking pre-cum from the tip. It bobbed heavily in front of your face, the musky scent of his arousal mixing with that intoxicating cologne.

 

"Open your mouth." he ordered, gripping the base of his shaft, making your pussy clench with need.

 

You parted your lips, tongue darting out instinctively, but he held back, teasing you by rubbing the head over your lips, smearing pre-cum like gloss.

 

"Wider."

 

You complied, clasping your hands at the small of your back, the position thrusting your chest forward, breasts jiggling slightly from the cold. He didn’t wait, thrusting forward roughly, his cock sliding past your lips and over your tongue in one deep push. The salty taste flooded your mouth as he hit the back of your throat, making you gag softly. He didn’t pull back; instead, he held your head steady with both hands now, fingers knotted in your hair, and started fucking your mouth with short, brutal strokes.

 

"That’s it..." he grunted, hips snapping forward, the head of his cock battering your throat.

 

Saliva dripped from your chin, mixing with tears pricking your eyes from the roughness, but the degradation only made you wetter, your thighs slick as you rubbed them together subtly. He noticed, smirking down at you. 

 

"You like being used like this, don’t you?"

 

The words hit like a spark, igniting your core. You moaned around his length, the vibration drawing a hiss from him. He picked up the pace, thrusting deeper, faster, until your nose brushed his trimmed pubic hair with each plunge. His balls slapped against your chin rhythmically, the sound obscene in the freezing backroom. One hand released your hair to reach down, pinching your nipple hard enough to make you yelp, muffled by his cock, before twisting it, sending jolts of pain-pleasure straight to your clit.

He pulled out abruptly, strings of spit connecting your lips to his glistening shaft. You gasped for air, coughing lightly, but he didn’t give you time to recover.

 

"Lick it." he commanded, fisting his cock and angling it upward. You leaned in eagerly, tongue lapping at the heavy sac, sucking one ball into your mouth gently at first, then harder as he groaned. The skin was taut, salty, and you rolled it on your tongue while your eyes stayed locked on his, seeking approval.

"Good girl." he rasped, the praise making you hum in response.

 

But the gentleness didn’t last, he grabbed your jaw, forcing your mouth back to his cock.

 

"Now suck it properly."

 

You hollowed your cheeks, bobbing your head with desperate enthusiasm, taking him as deep as you could without his guidance. Your hands itched to touch yourself, but you kept them locked behind you, the restraint heightening every sensation. He fucked your face relentlessly, grunts growing louder, hips stuttering as he neared the edge. Suddenly, he buried himself to the hilt, holding you there as his cock pulsed, hot spurts of cum flooding your throat. You swallowed greedily, milking him with your mouth until he softened slightly, pulling out with a wet pop.

Cum and saliva dribbled from your lips as he wiped his cock on your cheek, marking you.

 

"Swallow every drop." he said, watching intently as you did, licking your lips clean.

 

The act felt filthy. He hauled you up by your armpits, your body limp and buzzing, and spun you around to face the wall.

 

"Hands on the concrete, love."

 

You braced yourself, palms flat against the icy surface, arching your back to present your ass to him. The cold wall made your nipples ache, but the anticipation burned hotter. He kicked your legs wider with his foot, the rough sole scraping your calf. His hands gripped your hips, nails digging in as he lined up his still-hard cock at your entrance. No teasing this time, he slammed in with one brutal thrust, stretching your pussy around his girth, bottoming out against your cervix.

You cried out, the mix of pain and fullness overwhelming.

 

"Fuck, so tight." he growled, not giving you a moment to adjust before pulling back and pounding in again, setting a punishing rhythm.

 

Each slap of his hips against your ass echoed loudly, his balls smacking your clit with every drive. The roughness bordered on brutal, his grip bruising your hips as he used you like a fucktoy, angling to hit your g-spot relentlessly.

 

"Good girl." he said, one hand sliding up your spine to press your face against the wall, cheek smooshed on the cold concrete.

 

The other snaked around to rub your clit in rough circles, matching his thrusts. Your body jolted with each impact, breasts bouncing, moans turning to screams as pleasure coiled tight in your belly.

He leaned over you, chest to your back, biting your shoulder hard enough to draw a gasp.

 

"Wanted to fuck you since the first time you opened that bratty mouth." he whispered harshly in your ear, teeth grazing the lobe before nipping it.

 

His pace faltered, thrusts erratic as he chased his release, but he didn’t forget you, fingers pinching your clit, making you clench around him.

 

"Cum with me." he ordered, and you shattered again, pussy spasming as waves crashed over you. He followed seconds later, burying deep and flooding your walls with his second load, hot and thick.

 

You both panted, bodies slick with sweat despite the chill, his cock twitching inside you as he rode out the aftershocks.

Finally, he pulled out, cum leaking down your thighs. He turned you to face him, cupping your chin roughly.

 

"God." You both said, breathless.  

 

Your words hung in the air, a teasing threat that sent a final shiver through your spent body. But as the intensity faded, so did the edge in his voice. He released your chin gently, his touch shifting from possessive to tender. The dominant mask cracked, revealing the sweet guy beneath, the one who'd suggested this role play in the first place, knowing it would push your boundaries just right.

 

"Hey." he murmured, voice softening like warm honey, his dark eyes searching yours for any sign of discomfort.

 

He stepped back, giving you space, and tugged his pants up quickly, buckling the belt with efficient movements. The cold backroom felt less oppressive now, the summer chill a stark contrast to the heat you'd both generated.

You nodded, still catching your breath, legs shaky as you straightened up from the wall. 

He knelt down again, this time with care, picking up your torn panties from the floor and setting them aside regretfully.

 

"Sorry about those." he said with a sheepish grin.

 

His hands were gentle as he helped you step back into your jeans, zipping them up slowly, fingers brushing your skin in soothing strokes. He fetched your black t-shirt next, shaking off the dust from the concrete before sliding it over your head, careful not to snag your hair.

Once you were somewhat decent, he stood and pulled you into his chest, arms wrapping around you securely. His straight dark hair tickled your forehead as he pressed a soft kiss there.

 

"You okay? That was intense." His heartbeat was steady against your ear, grounding you, and he rubbed slow circles on your back, easing the lingering aches from the rough play.

"Yeah." you whispered, melting into him, the role play dissolving into the comfort of reality. "It was perfect. You're perfect." 

 

He chuckled lowly, the sound vibrating through you.

 

"Yeah, whatever you say, brat." He grabbed your hand, lacing fingers with yours, and led you toward the door, pausing to snag a water bottle from a nearby shelf, he must've stashed it earlier, ever thoughtful. He uncapped it and handed it over, watching as you took a sip.

 

Outside the backroom, after you closed the shop quickly, the summer air felt balmy, a welcome change. He hailed a cab with a wave, so you gathered he didn't came with his own car, and once inside, he pulled you close again, letting you rest your head on his shoulder for the ride home.

 

"Next time, we can switch it up if you want." he said softly, thumb tracing your knuckles. "Or keep it just like this. Whatever makes you happy."

 

By the time you reached his place, the adrenaline had fully ebbed, leaving a warm glow. He carried you over the threshold, playful, not forceful, and ran a bath. As you soaked, he sat on the edge, washing your hair with gentle fingers, massaging your scalp until you sighed in bliss.

 

"That's my girl." he whispered, leaning down for a real kiss, sweet and unhurried. 

 

And you silently thanked God for that computer issue less than a week ago, because you had no intention of letting this man walk out of your life now.