"He didn't touch me. But I left the room feeling wrecked by something invisible."
The café always smelled like someone's memory.
Cinnamon. Espresso. Old books and heartbreak.
As if every person who'd ever walked in had left a piece of themselves behind.
Isla came there every Friday. Same corner seat, third from the back. Same black journal. Same chipped mug. Six weeks now. Six readings. Six times standing on that dim little stage, peeling herself open in front of strangers.
Tonight should've been the same. But it wasn't.
There was something humming in the air. A tension. Like a violin string stretched to its limit.
The crowd was fuller tonight—twenty-somethings in thrift store denim, a few older souls who always sat alone and nodded slowly at the good poems. Lights hung from the rafters like crooked stars. And somewhere in all of it, he was already there.
Isla didn't see him at first. Not until she turned toward the stage and felt it—a presence.
Not cold. Not fear.
A weight on her spine.
She glanced back.
He was there.
Near the back. Alone.
One leg crossed, fingers wrapped around a ceramic cup he hadn't touched.
Shirt black. Jeans black. Boots black. Hair slightly messy, like he'd run his hand through it just once and left it that way.
And his eyes—calm, hungry, fixed on her.
Isla looked away, fast. Too fast. Like she'd been caught in the middle of a thought she wasn't supposed to have. Her hands felt colder than before. She opened her journal, even though she already knew tonight's poem by heart.
The mic hissed. Someone finished reading. Isla's name was called.
She stood. Walked up. Four steps onto the stage that barely fit her shadow.
The lights warmed her skin. The crowd blurred. And yet—she still felt him. That steady, unblinking gaze from the back of the room.
Her lips parted. She read.
"This is for the girls who laugh too loudly at 3 p.m.
And cry too quietly at 3 a.m.
Who rewrite their heartbreaks like poems—
Until the pain fits into stanzas and silence."
Her voice didn't shake. Not tonight. Tonight wasn't about letting the audience in.
It was about holding onto those eyes in the crowd—the ones that weren't there to applaud or to judge. The ones that saw right through.
She paused for breath. Finished:
"Still."
The room held still. Then the soft sound of fingers snapping. A murmur of "mm." Someone whispered, "Beautiful."
But none of it mattered.
Because he didn't clap.
Didn't move.
Just tilted his head slightly, like he was memorizing her.
Isla stepped off stage with her knees looser than they should've been. Her heart felt too big for her ribs. She moved past the bar, through the narrow hallway, to the cool quiet by the restrooms. The music was softer there. Jazz echoing faintly overhead.
She leaned against the wall. Closed her eyes.
Not to rest.
To feel.
That was when she heard it:
"You write about fire like it never kissed you back."
Her breath caught. She turned.
There he was.
Leaning against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets, voice like dusk made solid.
He stepped forward. Slowly. Like he already knew exactly what he was doing to her.
"You're not afraid of burning,"
he said quietly.
"You're afraid no one will stay to watch."
Isla couldn't find words. Her lips parted, but nothing came.
"Do you always say things like that to strangers?"
she managed.
A slow curve touched his mouth. Almost a smile. Almost.
"You're not a stranger, Isla."
Her name in his mouth. It felt like being branded.
"How do you—"
"I've seen you before."
Another step closer. Close enough now she could smell him. Cedar. Ink. Leather and midnight.
"Every Friday,"
he said.
"You walk in like you don't want to be noticed. But you're always the loudest silence in the room."
Her throat tightened.
"Give me your hand."
He didn't rush her. He just waited.
Isla lifted her hand. Slowly. Like something sacred.
He took it gently. Turned it over. Brushed his thumb across her palm—like he was reading her.
Goosebumps broke out across her skin.
Then, without a word, he lowered his head and kissed the inside of her wrist.
Slow. Hot. Possessive. The kind of kiss that wasn't a greeting. It was a claim.
Isla gasped—quiet, but he heard it. Felt it.
When he pulled back, his eyes didn't leave hers.
"I'm Kieran."
"Isla,"
she breathed.
He said her name again. Slower this time. Like it meant something. Then he dropped her hand, turned, and walked away down the hallway.
No number. No last look.
But Isla's wrist burned where his mouth had been.
And she knew—this wasn't a beginning.
This was something unfinished finally picking up where it left off.
That night, she walked home with her coat pulled tight, her heart making sounds it hadn't made in years.
Lying in bed, her hand curled beneath her pillow, wrist facing up like a silent invitation.
She dreamed of fire. Of dusk. Of a man who watched her burn.