He didn’t plan to walk into the bookshop. Martin usually ordered books online — efficient, detached, safe. But that winter afternoon, with snow falling like whispered forgiveness, he wanted to slow down.

Among the scent of paper and coffee, between jazz and lamplight, he saw her. He didn’t know her name yet — Zuzana — but he felt as if he had been waiting for her gaze far longer than he’d been alive.

They reached for words, not knowing they were reaching for each other. A book about Tuscany. A conversation about light. A smile that stayed too long. Her fingers touched her hair; his imagination caught fire.

They shared tea and silence. The kind that speaks. Outside, snow clung to the glass, refusing to fall away. When she left, she looked back — just once — and the look said everything that words couldn’t.

That night, Marti ...