three inches — two (Patreon)

A quiet publishing assistant is forced back into Harry Styles’ life when his engagement to someone else reveals that the future he chose was built three inches away from the one he truly wanted.

Author's note: Hello my darlings 🤍 I hope you’re all doing well. I’ve missed you. I took a few days to be with my mom and haven’t had much Wi-Fi, but I’m back with TWO INCHES and INVISIBLE for you. I hope you love them. Let me know what you thinkkk. Love you lots 🤍

word count: 16k

The day you met him, London had been raining for so long that even the buildings seemed tired of it.

Not the romantic kind of rain either. Not the soft silver kind that made streets look cinematic and people fall in love under awnings. This was ugly rain. Relentless rain. Rain that crawled down the back of your collar when you bent to unlock the bookshop door and gathered in the cuffs of your jeans and turned every passing bus into a threat. It had been falling since morning in a grey, spiteful sheet, flattening hair, soaking tote bags, and making everyone who stepped inside the shop look personally betrayed by the sky.

By half past four, you had given up on the idea of dry socks.

You were twenty five, underpaid, overcaffeinated, and trying very hard to look like a woman who knew what she was doing with her life. During the week, you worked at a small independent publisher, where your official job title sounded more important than your salary suggested. Editorial assistant. Two clean words that made people imagine you sitting in bright offices with manuscripts and strong opinions, discovering the next great novelist over a cup of coffee.

In reality, you spent most of your days answering emails from authors who believed deadlines were emotional suggestions, arguing with printers about paper stock, proofreading acknowledgements pages where people thanked dogs before spouses, and carrying stacks of advance copies between rooms because nobody ever seemed to know where the trolley had gone. You loved it more than you had expected to love anything that frequently made you want to put your head down on your desk and remain there until retirement.

On Saturdays, because rent did not care about passion, you worked at Calder Books.

It was a narrow little bookshop tucked just off Lamb’s Conduit Street, squeezed between a dry cleaner and a café that sold pastries so expensive they looked almost embarrassed by themselves. The shop had been there for decades, though no one could agree how many. Its sign was hand-painted and slightly crooked. The floorboards complained under every step. The till drawer stuck when the weather changed. There was a leak in the back room that Mr Calder insisted was not a leak but “a seasonal personality trait of the building.”

You loved the shop too.

That was the inconvenient thing about your life. You were tired all the time, and your bank account made you feel personally mocked, and your fridge contained mostly eggs, spinach, and things bought with optimism before they went soft. But still, there were pieces of your days that felt like they belonged to you. Books stacked in uneven towers beside the till. The smell of paper and dust and someone’s wet coat drying too close to the radiator. Customers who came in every week asking for the same kind of story without realising it. Children sitting cross-legged in the corner with picture books spread around them like evidence.

At Calder Books, you knew where everything was, even when no one else did.

That afternoon, you were shelving returns in contemporary fiction and trying not to think about the email you had received from your landlord that morning. Rent was going up again. Not by enough to be dramatic, according to the email, which had used the word modest as if the person writing it had ever stood in a supermarket aisle calculating whether washing up liquid could wait until next week. The increase was modest in the way a knife could be modest if it was small and still sharp.

Your father had called during your lunch break, cheerful and outraged on your behalf.

“Robbery,” he had declared.

“It is not robbery if they warn you in advance.”

“That is exactly what clever robbers would say.”

You had laughed into your sandwich, which was mostly bread and regret, and told him you were fine because you had become very good at saying that before anyone could ask too carefully.

Now, hours later, you stood on the old wooden ladder with three paperbacks tucked under one arm and a pencil behind your ear, trying to remember whether Marianne Foster belonged before or after Martin Fox. Alphabetising should not have required moral strength, but by the end of a Saturday shift, everything did.

The bell over the door rang.

You glanced down automatically.

A man had stepped in from the rain.

At first, he was only a shape in the doorway, tall and dark-coated, shoulders slightly hunched against the weather. Water dripped from the ends of his curls onto the collar of his coat. He paused on the mat and shook out his umbrella with the guilty caution of someone trying not to make a mess and making one anyway. The street behind him was all wet pavement and grey light, and for a second, the shop seemed warmer simply because he had brought so much cold in with him.

Then he lifted his head.

You knew him immediately.

Of course you did.

Everyone did.

There were famous people whose faces belonged to red carpets and magazine covers and the strange glowing distance of screens, and then there were famous people whose faces had somehow entered the bloodstream of culture. Harry Styles was one of those. You had seen him on bus adverts, on posters outside tube stations, on the phones of girls standing in café queues, in articles your colleagues pretended not to read during lunch. His face was familiar in the way weather was familiar. You did not have to invite it into your day for it to arrive.

He was wearing sunglasses.

Inside.

On a rainy January afternoon in a bookshop with lighting so poor that half the poetry section lived in permanent dusk.

You looked at him for one second longer than you should have, then looked back at the shelf.

No.

Absolutely not.

If Harry Styles wanted to stand in Calder Books looking damp and famous and ridiculous, that was his business. Yours was putting Marianne Foster where she belonged and surviving until closing.

Behind the till, Priya made a small noise.

You did not look at her because looking would encourage the noise into becoming words. Priya worked alternate Saturdays and had the emotional discipline of a shaken bottle of fizzy water. She was nineteen, studying art history, and had once cried when an elderly man bought a poetry collection for his wife because “she used to like sad things.” If you acknowledged that Harry Styles had just walked into the shop, Priya would either faint or ask him if he believed in fate.

Neither option felt useful.

The man lingered near the entrance, pretending to examine a display of new releases while clearly not reading a single title. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but not the uncertainty in the rest of him. It was there in the way he touched the spine of one book, then another, without pulling either from the table. In the way he looked toward the back of the shop and then to the front again, as if hoping the thing he wanted might reveal itself out of pity.

You shelved Marianne Foster before Martin Fox and climbed down from the ladder.

Priya appeared beside you with the speed of someone who had been waiting for an excuse to cross the room.

“That is Harry Styles,” she whispered.

“I did notice.”

“What do we do?”

You looked at her. “We sell him a book.”

She stared at you as though you had suggested you were going to tax him. “You are so calm.”

“I am damp and underpaid. There is a difference.”

“He is wearing sunglasses.”

“I did notice that too.”

“Should we tell him?”

“That he is wearing sunglasses?”

“No, that we know.”

You glanced toward him. He had picked up a hardback and was now studying the author photo on the back with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb. “I think he may have gathered.”

Priya pressed both hands to her cheeks. “I cannot serve him.”

“You served that man last week who asked if we had any books written from the perspective of bread.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“He was not Harry Styles.”

“Strong point.”

“You do it.”

“I am shelving.”

“You are hiding.”

“I am professionally organising.”

“You are scared.”

You looked at her then, offended. “I am not scared.”

Priya gave you a look so smug you considered reporting her to Mr Calder for emotional insubordination. “Then go help him.”

“I will help him if he asks for help.”

“He has been standing by contemporary fiction for four minutes looking like someone abandoned him.”

You glanced over again despite yourself.

He did look abandoned.

That annoyed you most of all.

Famous men, in your opinion, should not look lost in bookshops. They should know exactly what they wanted or have assistants who knew for them. They should not stand under the weak glow of a hanging lamp, dripping rain onto the floor and turning a copy of a debut novel over in their hands like it might contain instructions for ordinary human behaviour.

You sighed and took the pencil from behind your ear.

“Fine.”

Priya made a silent victorious gesture behind you. You ignored her.

When you approached, Harry did not notice at first. He was looking at a shelf of literary fiction with his head tilted slightly to one side, sunglasses still on, one hand tucked into his coat pocket. Up close, the absurdity of him became more specific. He was handsome in a way that felt almost irritating, because it seemed careless. Like he had not arranged his face that way on purpose, which made it worse. Damp curls clung at his temples. A little rain had collected on the shoulders of his coat. He smelled faintly of cold air and something expensive and clean.

You stopped beside him with enough distance to be polite.

“Can I help you?”

He turned at the sound of your voice, and the movement brought his face fully toward yours. For a strange second, you had the unpleasant sensation that your own face might betray you. Not because you were starstruck exactly. You had never considered yourself the swooning type, and if you were, you liked to think you would swoon over something less predictable than cheekbones and a famous mouth. But there was something disarming about seeing a face you associated with screens suddenly standing in the same old bookshop where the till jammed and the back room smelled of damp cardboard.

Harry smiled.

It was small. Careful. Not the stage smile. Not the one designed to travel across thousands of people and land in the back row. This one seemed to arrive with hesitation, as if he was not sure whether it would be welcome.

“I’m looking for a book,” he said.

You waited.

He waited too, as if the rest of the sentence might come and rescue him.

“That is usually where people start in bookshops,” you said.

His smile widened.

It changed his face too much. That was unfair as well.

“Right. Yeah. Suppose it is.”

You folded your arms loosely. “Do you know the title?”

“No.”

“The author?”

He made a face. “Also no.”

“Genre?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that.”

You looked at him for a moment. “Were you expecting the books to recognise you and gather?”

He laughed.

It was not loud, but it was real. It slipped out before he seemed ready for it, and something about that made the shop feel smaller. Behind you, Priya knocked something over near the till. Neither of you turned.

“Not my finest start,” he admitted.

“No.”

“I do know some things.”

“That is encouraging.”

“It had a blue cover.”

You nodded solemnly. “Excellent. That narrows it down to only several thousand books.”

“Could have been green.”

“Even better.”

“There might have been a woman on it.”

“A woman.”

“Or a house.”

“A woman or a house.”

“Possibly both.”

You looked over your shoulder toward the rest of the shop, then back at him. “I am going to need you to understand that this is not as helpful as you think it is.”

Harry pushed his sunglasses up onto his head at last.

His eyes were very green.

You wished you had not noticed that with such embarrassing clarity.

“I’m usually better at this,” he said.

“At buying books?”

“At remembering why I came into a room.”

“Are you?”

He paused, then laughed again, softer this time. “No. Not always.”

There was a beat of quiet. Rain tapped against the front windows. Somewhere near the back, a customer coughed with the drama of someone about to ask where the biographies were despite standing under the sign that said biographies. Harry looked at you with an expression you could not quite read, amused and curious and maybe faintly relieved.

You realised then that he had expected something from you. Not a specific thing, maybe. Just one of the usual reactions. A double take. A brightening of the eyes. The careful pretend-not-to-know performance people used when they absolutely knew. You had given him none of that, and he seemed almost grateful.

That made you feel a little bad.

Then you remembered the sunglasses and felt balanced again.

“Do you remember anything about the plot?” you asked.

He looked down at the book in his hand as if hoping it might answer on his behalf. “Someone recommended it to me months ago. They said it was about grief but funny.”

“That describes more books than you would think.”

“I think there was a dog.”

“You think?”

“Or maybe the author had a dog.”

You pressed your lips together.

He caught it and looked offended in a way that was clearly for your benefit. “You’re laughing at me.”

“I am not.”

“You are internally laughing at me.”

“That is different. You cannot prove that.”

“I can tell.”

“You are very confident for someone looking for a blue or green book about grief, possibly a woman, possibly a house, possibly a dog.”

He dipped his head, smiling at the floor now. “When you say it all together, it does sound bad.”

“It sounded bad separately.”

His smile lingered. He looked around the shop, and for the first time since he had come in, he seemed to actually see it. The crowded shelves. The handwritten staff recommendation cards. The ladder you had abandoned near fiction. The display table where rain-damp customers had left fingerprints on glossy covers. His gaze slowed on the ceiling, where one old water stain had spread in the shape of a country no atlas would recognise.

“This place is nice,” he said.

“It leaks.”

“Still nice.”

“The till drawer sticks.”

“Character.”

“The owner thinks spreadsheets are a government conspiracy.”

Harry looked delighted. “Is he right?”

“About spreadsheets? Unfortunately, sometimes.”

He laughed again, and you hated how pleased you were to have caused it.

You turned toward the shelves before your face could betray you. “Come on, then. If we are solving the mystery of the possibly blue grief dog book, we should start with recent fiction.”

He followed you.

That should not have felt strange. You walked customers through the shop every Saturday. You helped them find birthday gifts for mothers they described only as “difficult.” You recommended novels to men who insisted their wives liked “nothing too sad” and then rejected anything with joy in it. You guided tourists toward books set in London and teenagers toward poetry they pretended was for school. You were used to being followed down narrow aisles.

But Harry followed quietly, hands in his coat pockets, careful not to brush the shelves with his shoulders, and you were aware of him in a way that annoyed you. His presence had a temperature. Or maybe fame did. Maybe being seen by that many people did something to the air around a person. You told yourself that was ridiculous and reached for a stack of hardbacks near the front.

“Did the person who recommended it have good taste?” you asked.

“Usually.”

“That sounded uncertain.”

“They have confident taste. Different thing.”

“Ah. Dangerous.”

“Very.”

You scanned the spines. “And you decided to track this book down months later because?”

He was quiet for a second too long.

You glanced back.

The humour had not left his face, exactly, but something behind it had shifted. He looked toward the rain streaking the front window and then down at the floorboards, where water from his shoes had made dark marks in the wood.

“I remembered wanting to read it,” he said.

It was not much of an answer.

You knew what it felt like when people gave you not much of an answer because the full one was too revealing for a stranger in a bookshop. You did it all the time. Fine. Busy. Just tired. Words people used to place a hand over the mess.

So you let him have it.

“That is a good reason,” you said, turning back to the shelf.

He looked at you then. You could feel it before you saw it. A quiet, assessing sort of attention that made the back of your neck warm.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing.”

“That was not a nothing look.”

“Do you categorise looks often?”

“When customers are suspicious, yes.”

“Am I suspicious?”

“You came in wearing sunglasses during a storm and cannot remember a single useful detail about the book you want.”

He considered that. “Fair.”

You found three possibilities and slid them from the shelf, stacking them in your arms. “This one has grief and a dog, but the cover is yellow. This one has a blue cover and a woman, but no dog. This one has grief, a house, and possibly comedy depending on your tolerance for terrible families.”

“My tolerance is high.”

“Lucky you.”

He took the top book when you offered it, his fingers brushing yours for half a second. It was nothing. Barely contact. Still, you felt it in a quick, stupid flicker and immediately resented your own hand for being dramatic.

Harry looked down at the cover.

“This isn’t it,” he said.

“You sound very certain for a man who knew nothing three minutes ago.”

“I know what it isn’t.”

“That must be comforting.”

“It is, actually.”

You handed him the second. He studied it with exaggerated seriousness, lips pressed together, brow faintly furrowed. Without the sunglasses, he looked younger than he had when he entered. Still famous, obviously. Fame did not fall off a person just because they removed eyewear. But there was something boyish in his concentration, something oddly endearing about the way he took the task seriously now that you had teased him into it.

“This one maybe,” he said.

“Maybe?”

“Strong maybe.”

“A powerful category.”

He turned the book over to read the back. You watched his eyes move across the description, slower than necessary. He had nice hands. That was another thing you did not want to notice. Long fingers, a ring on one hand, nails clean but not precious. Hands that looked like they belonged to someone who gestured when he spoke and forgot where he put things and could hold a microphone in front of a stadium without shaking.

You looked away before that thought could become anything worse.

From the front of the shop, Priya cleared her throat.

You turned.

She was standing behind the till with her eyes wide and her mouth arranged into what she probably believed was a neutral expression. Beside her, Mr Collins, one of your Saturday regulars, had appeared with two military history books tucked under his arm and the deep impatience of a man who believed no transaction should take longer than twelve seconds.

“I should help at the till,” you said.

Harry looked up. “Of course.”

“Stay here. Think blue thoughts.”

He smiled. “Will that help?”

“Probably not, but it gives you something to do.”

You walked back to the counter, aware of Priya vibrating with questions.

Mr Collins did not care about Harry Styles. This was one of the many reasons you appreciated him. He cared about military history, exact change, and whether the shop had received the naval biography he had ordered three weeks ago. If Beyoncé had entered Calder Books riding a horse, Mr Collins would have asked her to move so he could reach the discount hardbacks.

“Afternoon,” he said, placing his books on the counter.

“Afternoon, Mr Collins.”

“The rain is unacceptable.”

“I will let the weather department know.”

“You joke, but incompetence begins somewhere.”

You scanned the books while Priya stood beside you pretending to rearrange bookmarks and failing to breathe normally.

“Any news on the Armitage?” Mr Collins asked.

“Still delayed, I’m afraid. The distributor says next week.”

“They said next week last week.”

“Yes.”

“And the week before.”

“Yes.”

“So it is a philosophical next week.”

“Exactly.”

He grunted as if you had confirmed his bleakest suspicions about modern society. You gave him his total, accepted the exact coins he counted into your palm, and placed the receipt inside the top book because he hated bags on principle.

As he turned to leave, his gaze flicked toward Harry, who was still standing in fiction reading the back of the blue maybe book.

“Is that the singer?” Mr Collins asked.

Priya made a strangled sound.

You glanced over. “Yes.”

“Hm,” he said.

Then he left.

That was it.

Priya looked personally offended by his lack of drama. “Hm?”

“He is a man of restraint.”

“He said hm.”

“Profoundly restrained.”

She leaned closer to you as soon as the bell over the door stopped trembling. “What is he like?”

“A customer.”

“Y/N.”

“He does not know the title of the book he wants, which I find spiritually challenging.”

“He smiled at you.”

“People do that when they need assistance.”

“Not like that.”

You refused to look back at Harry. “You are inventing things.”

“I am observing.”

“You are projecting.”

“You are blushing.”

“I am warm from the radiator.”

“You hate the radiator. Yesterday you said it was breathing on you.”

You picked up a stack of loyalty cards and began straightening them with unnecessary aggression. “Go check the travel section.”

“There is no one in travel.”

“Then it will be easy.”

Priya grinned and drifted away, deeply pleased with herself.

When you returned to fiction, Harry had not moved much. He had the second book open now, reading the first page. You approached without speaking and stopped beside him. For almost a minute, he did not notice. Or pretended not to. His attention seemed real enough that you let the silence sit.

The rain softened against the windows. The shop had entered its late afternoon lull, that strange pocket of quiet before closing when customers either disappeared entirely or arrived all at once with urgent needs. A bus passed outside, throwing watery light across the ceiling. Harry turned a page.

“It is not the book,” he said eventually.

“You read one page.”

“I can tell.”

“Can you?”

“I’m intuitive.”

“You could not intuit the title.”

His mouth curved, but he kept looking down at the page. “You are very hard on people.”

“Only the vague ones.”

“Then I earned it.”

“You did.”

He closed the book and held it against his chest. “What would you recommend?”

The question was casual.

It did not feel casual.

You looked at him, trying to decide whether he was asking because he needed a book or because he wanted to keep standing there. It was annoying that you could not tell. It was more annoying that some part of you wanted it to be the second.

“For you?”

“For me.”

“I do not know you.”

“You know I am vague.”

“That is not enough for a recommendation. That is a warning label.”

He laughed softly. “Ask me something then.”

You raised an eyebrow. “This is not a medical intake form.”

“Could be. For books.”

“A literary triage.”

“Exactly.”

You considered him. “Fine. Do you want something you will enjoy or something that will be good for you?”

He looked delighted by the distinction. “Those are different?”

“Frequently.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“For customers? Enjoy. For myself? I pretend to prefer good for me, then read whatever ruins my life.”

“That sounds honest.”

“It is too late in the shift to lie.”

Harry leaned one shoulder lightly against the shelf, then seemed to remember his coat was wet and straightened at once. “Something honest, then.”

You looked at him more carefully.

It was a dangerous request, whether he meant it to be or not. People often asked for honesty when what they wanted was beauty with manageable teeth. A book that hurt but only in the places they expected. A story that made them feel deep without forcing them to look too long at themselves. You had learned that in publishing. Readers could be braver than anyone and cowards in the same breath.

Harry waited.

For the first time since he walked in, he was not smiling.

You turned and walked toward the poetry shelf near the back.

He followed.

The poetry section at Calder Books was small but stubborn. Mr Calder insisted it stayed near the old armchair because people bought more poetry when they were allowed to sit with their sadness first. The shelf was tucked under a wall lamp that flickered when the rain was heavy. You crouched slightly, scanning the spines until you found the copy you wanted.

It was secondhand. Soft around the edges. The cover had faded from cream to something closer to old bone. You had been meaning to buy it yourself for weeks, but every Saturday some new necessity had interrupted. Toothpaste. A bus pass. The electricity bill. You touched the spine for a second before pulling it free.

“Here,” you said.

Harry took it from you with surprising care. “Poetry?”

“You asked for honest.”

“I did.”

“Poetry is what people write when lying takes too much energy.”

He looked up from the book.

Something in his expression shifted again, and this time you knew you had said too much. Not in a catastrophic way. Only in the way strangers sometimes opened small windows without meaning to and then had to decide whether to close them quickly.

You reached for the book again. “Actually, maybe not that one.”

Harry moved it out of reach, not rudely, but with enough playfulness that your hand stopped in the air between you.

“No, I want this one.”

“You have not read the back.”

“Maybe I’m intuitive.”

“You are misusing that word now.”

“Almost certainly.”

He opened the book near the middle. His eyes dropped to the page. The shop was quiet enough that you could hear the faint rustle of paper as he turned it. You should have gone back to the counter. You should have checked the time, cleared the display table, done any of the small closing tasks waiting for you. Instead, you stood beside him and watched his face as he read.

It was strange, watching someone famous read.

That sounded ridiculous even in your own mind, but there it was. You were used to seeing famous people perform attention. Watching Harry give real attention to something, quietly and without an audience, felt oddly intimate. The line between public and private blurred for a second. He was not singing. Not posing. Not charming a camera. He was standing under a flickering lamp with rain in his hair, reading a poem in a shop that could barely afford to fix its ceiling.

He looked up after a while.

“Do you like this one?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

You almost laughed. “That is a large question.”

“I have time.”

“You do?”

“Do I look busy?”

You glanced at his coat, his rings, the sunglasses still pushed into his damp curls. “You look like someone who is usually busy.”

His face changed, not dramatically, but enough that you noticed. The small ease went out of him for half a second. Then he looked down at the book again.

“Not right now,” he said.

There it was again. The not much of an answer.

You were beginning to suspect Harry had many of those.

You leaned against the edge of the shelf opposite him, arms folded. “I like it because it does not try to make pain pretty.”

He looked up.

“A lot of writing does that,” you continued, surprising yourself by answering honestly. “It polishes things too much. Makes grief elegant. Makes loneliness meaningful. Sometimes things are just awful. Sometimes you are sad in your kitchen wearing ugly socks, and nothing about it is profound.”

His mouth softened at the corner. “Ugly socks?”

“Very ugly.”

“How ugly?”

“None of your business.”

“That ugly?”

“Worse.”

He laughed under his breath and looked back at the page. “I like that.”

“My ugly socks?”

“The other thing.”

“That sadness is not always profound?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed one thumb lightly over the edge of the book. “Think people want it to be. Makes it easier if it means something.”

“Sometimes it does.”

“And when it doesn’t?”

“Then you make tea and go to work anyway.”

Harry looked at you for a long moment.

You felt, suddenly and uncomfortably, seen.

Not exposed. Not yet. But noticed in a way that moved past the usual surface of a first conversation. You did not know him, and he did not know you, but for one second you had the sense that both of you had arrived at the same small, unglamorous truth from different sides of the world.

Then Priya called from the counter, “Y/N, do we have any more gift bags?”

You blinked first.

The moment broke.

“In the drawer under the till,” you called back.

“No, the nice ones.”

“We are not a luxury department store.”

Harry smiled down at the book.

You pushed away from the shelf, grateful for the interruption. “Right. Are you buying that or having a moment with it?”

“Can’t I do both?”

“Only if you do one of them near the till. We close in twenty minutes.”

He closed the book and held it against his chest. “Then I’m buying it.”

“Good choice.”

“High praise.”

“Do not let it change you.”

“I’ll try to remain humble.”

“You came in wearing sunglasses indoors. I fear that ship has sailed.”

He laughed properly this time, head dipping, shoulders shaking once. It was warmer than it should have been. You turned away before you could like it too much.

At the till, Priya had miraculously remembered how to behave like a human employee, though her eyes remained too bright. You moved behind the counter and took the poetry collection from Harry when he handed it over. There was a pencil note on the inside cover from the previous owner, a tiny half moon next to one of the poems. You paused when you saw it.

“Secondhand,” you said. “Is that all right?”

“Better, isn’t it?”

You glanced up. “Some people hate marked books.”

“I like knowing someone was there before me.”

There was no reason for that sentence to do anything to you.

It did anyway.

You looked back down and scanned the book. “Twelve pounds.”

Harry reached into his coat pocket. “That seems too low for literary honesty.”

“Do not say that near Mr Calder. He will raise everything by morning.”

He placed a card on the counter. You took it, processed the payment, and pretended not to notice Priya pretending not to stare at his name on the receipt. The till drawer stuck, because the building had apparently chosen that exact moment to embarrass you.

You tugged it once.

Nothing.

Harry watched with open amusement.

You tugged again.

“Need help?”

“No.”

“It looks stuck.”

“It likes attention.”

“Don’t we all?”

You looked up sharply.

He smiled, but there was something under it. A challenge, maybe. Or a question. You could not tell which, and that made your stomach do something deeply inconvenient.

You yanked the drawer a third time. It opened with a violent clatter that made Priya jump.

“There,” you said.

“Impressive.”

“Years of training.”

You placed the receipt inside the book and handed it back to him. His fingers touched the cover first, then yours, not enough to be accidental and not enough to be anything else. The contact lasted only a second. Still, it seemed to stretch.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You are welcome.”

He did not move.

Neither did you.

Priya turned away with the subtlety of someone hiding behind a glass door.

Harry looked toward the front windows, where the rain had thickened again. “Do you think it’ll stop?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even look.”

“It is London.”

“Fair.”

He looked back at you. “Are you here every Saturday?”

There it was.

The question sat between you plainly enough that pretending not to understand it would have been insulting to both of you. You felt Priya freeze several feet away. You felt your own pulse answer before your mouth could.

You could have said yes.

You could have said no.

You could have asked why.

Instead, because you were tired and damp and had just sold Harry Styles a secondhand poetry collection after insulting his sunglasses, you said, “That depends who is asking.”

His smile returned slowly. “A customer.”

“Then yes. Usually.”

“And if it is not a customer?”

Your heart did something foolish.

You leaned your hands on the counter, close enough to look direct but not close enough to become reckless. “Then I suppose he would have to buy another book.”

Harry looked at you for a second. Then he laughed, soft and delighted, like he had not expected you to say that and was terribly pleased that you had.

“All right,” he said.

“All right.”

He tucked the poetry collection inside his coat to protect it from the rain. The gesture was oddly careful and, for reasons you refused to examine, charming.

“I should let you close.”

“That would be considerate.”

“I’m occasionally that.”

“Congratulations.”

His eyes lingered on your face. “Do I get your name, or is that only with the second purchase?”

You should not have smiled.

You did.

“Y/N.”

He repeated it once, quietly, not in a strange way, but like he was making sure he had heard it properly. You wished you did not like the sound of it in his voice.

“Harry,” he said.

You looked at him.

His mouth twitched. “Thought I should say it.”

“Helpful.”

“You already knew.”

“I had suspicions.”

“Strong ones?”

“Reasonable ones.”

He nodded, amused. “Nice meeting you, Y/N.”

“You too, Harry.”

The bell rang when he left.

Cold air swept in, touched your cheeks, and disappeared with him. Through the window, you watched him pause outside beneath the awning to open his umbrella. For a moment, he stood there with the book protected against his chest and his sunglasses still pushed into his hair, looking nothing like the posters and exactly like himself.

Then he turned his head slightly, as if he could feel you watching.

You stepped back from the window so quickly that Priya snorted.

“Do not,” you said.

“I have said nothing.”

“You are breathing smugly.”

“I did not know that was possible.”

“You are managing.”

Priya came to stand beside you, abandoning all pretence of work. “He asked if you are here every Saturday.”

“He wanted to know when the shop is open.”

“He asked if you are here.”

“Because I gave him a recommendation.”

“Because he wants another one.”

“Exactly.”

“Y/N.”

You began collecting receipts from the counter. “What?”

“You know.”

“I know nothing.”

“You know everything. That is your worst quality.”

“My worst quality is that I keep agreeing to cover your breaks.”

“No, your worst quality is that you pretend exciting things are inconvenient because it makes you feel in control.”

You stopped.

Priya winced. “That sounded wiser than I meant it to.”

You looked down at the receipts in your hand.

Outside, Harry had disappeared into the rain. The shop seemed suddenly too warm, the air thick with radiator heat and old paper and whatever had just happened. You told yourself nothing had happened. A famous man had bought a book. That was all. He had been charming because charming was probably his natural survival mechanism. He had asked your name because people did that. He had asked when you worked because customers returned to shops.

It did not mean anything.

That was what you told yourself while you cashed up the till. It was what you told yourself while Priya hummed something suspiciously romantic near the travel section. It was what you told yourself as you locked the door at closing and stepped into rain that had softened to a mist.

It did not mean anything.

Still, when you got home that night, after eating toast over the sink and sending your father a message that said alive, solvent-ish, emotionally neutral, you found yourself thinking about the secondhand poetry collection you had sold him.

You had meant to buy it for yourself.

That annoyed you more than Harry did.

Famous men, in your opinion, should not look lost in bookshops. They should know exactly what they wanted or have assistants who knew for them. They should not stand under the weak glow of a hanging lamp, dripping rain onto the floor and turning a copy of a debut novel over in their hands like it might contain instructions for ordinary human behaviour.

You sighed and took the pencil from behind your ear.

“Fine.”

Priya made a silent victorious gesture behind you. You ignored her.

When you approached, Harry did not notice at first. He was looking at a shelf of literary fiction with his head tilted slightly to one side, sunglasses still on, one hand tucked into his coat pocket. Up close, the absurdity of him became more specific. He was handsome in a way that felt almost irritating, because it seemed careless. Like he had not arranged his face that way on purpose, which made it worse. Damp curls clung at his temples. A little rain had collected on the shoulders of his coat. He smelled faintly of cold air and something expensive and clean.

You stopped beside him with enough distance to be polite.

“Can I help you?”

He turned at the sound of your voice, and the movement brought his face fully toward yours. For a strange second, you had the unpleasant sensation that your own face might betray you. Not because you were starstruck exactly. You had never considered yourself the swooning type, and if you were, you liked to think you would swoon over something less predictable than cheekbones and a famous mouth. But there was something disarming about seeing a face you associated with screens suddenly standing in the same old bookshop where the till jammed and the back room smelled of damp cardboard.

Harry smiled.

It was small. Careful. Not the stage smile. Not the one designed to travel across thousands of people and land in the back row. This one seemed to arrive with hesitation, as if he was not sure whether it would be welcome.

“I’m looking for a book,” he said.

You waited.

He waited too, as if the rest of the sentence might come and rescue him.

“That is usually where people start in bookshops,” you said.

His smile widened.

It changed his face too much. That was unfair as well.

“Right. Yeah. Suppose it is.”

You folded your arms loosely. “Do you know the title?”

“No.”

“The author?”

He made a face. “Also no.”

“Genre?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that.”

You looked at him for a moment. “Were you expecting the books to recognise you and gather?”

He laughed.

It was not loud, but it was real. It slipped out before he seemed ready for it, and something about that made the shop feel smaller. Behind you, Priya knocked something over near the till. Neither of you turned.

“Not my finest start,” he admitted.

“No.”

“I do know some things.”

“That is encouraging.”

“It had a blue cover.”

You nodded solemnly. “Excellent. That narrows it down to only several thousand books.”

“Could have been green.”

“Even better.”

“There might have been a woman on it.”

“A woman.”

“Or a house.”

“A woman or a house.”

“Possibly both.”

You looked over your shoulder toward the rest of the shop, then back at him. “I am going to need you to understand that this is not as helpful as you think it is.”

Harry pushed his sunglasses up onto his head at last.

His eyes were very green.

You wished you had not noticed that with such embarrassing clarity.

“I’m usually better at this,” he said.

“At buying books?”

“At remembering why I came into a room.”

“Are you?”

He paused, then laughed again, softer this time. “No. Not always.”

There was a beat of quiet. Rain tapped against the front windows. Somewhere near the back, a customer coughed with the drama of someone about to ask where the biographies were despite standing under the sign that said biographies. Harry looked at you with an expression you could not quite read, amused and curious and maybe faintly relieved.

You realised then that he had expected something from you. Not a specific thing, maybe. Just one of the usual reactions. A double take. A brightening of the eyes. The careful pretend-not-to-know performance people used when they absolutely knew. You had given him none of that, and he seemed almost grateful.

That made you feel a little bad.

Then you remembered the sunglasses and felt balanced again.

“Do you remember anything about the plot?” you asked.

He looked down at the book in his hand as if hoping it might answer on his behalf. “Someone recommended it to me months ago. They said it was about grief but funny.”

“That describes more books than you would think.”

“I think there was a dog.”

“You think?”

“Or maybe the author had a dog.”

You pressed your lips together.

He caught it and looked offended in a way that was clearly for your benefit. “You’re laughing at me.”

“I am not.”

“You are internally laughing at me.”

“That is different. You cannot prove that.”

“I can tell.”

“You are very confident for someone looking for a blue or green book about grief, possibly a woman, possibly a house, possibly a dog.”

He dipped his head, smiling at the floor now. “When you say it all together, it does sound bad.”

“It sounded bad separately.”

His smile lingered. He looked around the shop, and for the first time since he had come in, he seemed to actually see it. The crowded shelves. The handwritten staff recommendation cards. The ladder you had abandoned near fiction. The display table where rain-damp customers had left fingerprints on glossy covers. His gaze slowed on the ceiling, where one old water stain had spread in the shape of a country no atlas would recognise.

“This place is nice,” he said.

“It leaks.”

“Still nice.”

“The till drawer sticks.”

“Character.”

“The owner thinks spreadsheets are a government conspiracy.”

Harry looked delighted. “Is he right?”

“About spreadsheets? Unfortunately, sometimes.”

He laughed again, and you hated how pleased you were to have caused it.

You turned toward the shelves before your face could betray you. “Come on, then. If we are solving the mystery of the possibly blue grief dog book, we should start with recent fiction.”

He followed you.

That should not have felt strange. You walked customers through the shop every Saturday. You helped them find birthday gifts for mothers they described only as “difficult.” You recommended novels to men who insisted their wives liked “nothing too sad” and then rejected anything with joy in it. You guided tourists toward books set in London and teenagers toward poetry they pretended was for school. You were used to being followed down narrow aisles.

But Harry followed quietly, hands in his coat pockets, careful not to brush the shelves with his shoulders, and you were aware of him in a way that annoyed you. His presence had a temperature. Or maybe fame did. Maybe being seen by that many people did something to the air around a person. You told yourself that was ridiculous and reached for a stack of hardbacks near the front.

“Did the person who recommended it have good taste?” you asked.

“Usually.”

“That sounded uncertain.”

“They have confident taste. Different thing.”

“Ah. Dangerous.”

“Very.”

You scanned the spines. “And you decided to track this book down months later because?”

He was quiet for a second too long.

You glanced back.

The humour had not left his face, exactly, but something behind it had shifted. He looked toward the rain streaking the front window and then down at the floorboards, where water from his shoes had made dark marks in the wood.

“I remembered wanting to read it,” he said.

It was not much of an answer.

You knew what it felt like when people gave you not much of an answer because the full one was too revealing for a stranger in a bookshop. You did it all the time. Fine. Busy. Just tired. Words people used to place a hand over the mess.

So you let him have it.

“That is a good reason,” you said, turning back to the shelf.

He looked at you then. You could feel it before you saw it. A quiet, assessing sort of attention that made the back of your neck warm.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing.”

“That was not a nothing look.”

“Do you categorise looks often?”

“When customers are suspicious, yes.”

“Am I suspicious?”

“You came in wearing sunglasses during a storm and cannot remember a single useful detail about the book you want.”

He considered that. “Fair.”

You found three possibilities and slid them from the shelf, stacking them in your arms. “This one has grief and a dog, but the cover is yellow. This one has a blue cover and a woman, but no dog. This one has grief, a house, and possibly comedy depending on your tolerance for terrible families.”

“My tolerance is high.”

“Lucky you.”

He took the top book when you offered it, his fingers brushing yours for half a second. It was nothing. Barely contact. Still, you felt it in a quick, stupid flicker and immediately resented your own hand for being dramatic.

Harry looked down at the cover.

“This isn’t it,” he said.

“You sound very certain for a man who knew nothing three minutes ago.”

“I know what it isn’t.”

“That must be comforting.”

“It is, actually.”

You handed him the second. He studied it with exaggerated seriousness, lips pressed together, brow faintly furrowed. Without the sunglasses, he looked younger than he had when he entered. Still famous, obviously. Fame did not fall off a person just because they removed eyewear. But there was something boyish in his concentration, something oddly endearing about the way he took the task seriously now that you had teased him into it.

“This one maybe,” he said.

“Maybe?”

“Strong maybe.”

“A powerful category.”

He turned the book over to read the back. You watched his eyes move across the description, slower than necessary. He had nice hands. That was another thing you did not want to notice. Long fingers, a ring on one hand, nails clean but not precious. Hands that looked like they belonged to someone who gestured when he spoke and forgot where he put things and could hold a microphone in front of a stadium without shaking.

You looked away before that thought could become anything worse.

From the front of the shop, Priya cleared her throat.

You turned.

She was standing behind the till with her eyes wide and her mouth arranged into what she probably believed was a neutral expression. Beside her, Mr Collins, one of your Saturday regulars, had appeared with two military history books tucked under his arm and the deep impatience of a man who believed no transaction should take longer than twelve seconds.

“I should help at the till,” you said.

Harry looked up. “Of course.”

“Stay here. Think blue thoughts.”

He smiled. “Will that help?”

“Probably not, but it gives you something to do.”

You walked back to the counter, aware of Priya vibrating with questions.

Mr Collins did not care about Harry Styles. This was one of the many reasons you appreciated him. He cared about military history, exact change, and whether the shop had received the naval biography he had ordered three weeks ago. If Beyoncé had entered Calder Books riding a horse, Mr Collins would have asked her to move so he could reach the discount hardbacks.

“Afternoon,” he said, placing his books on the counter.

“Afternoon, Mr Collins.”

“The rain is unacceptable.”

“I will let the weather department know.”

“You joke, but incompetence begins somewhere.”

You scanned the books while Priya stood beside you pretending to rearrange bookmarks and failing to breathe normally.

“Any news on the Armitage?” Mr Collins asked.

“Still delayed, I’m afraid. The distributor says next week.”

“They said next week last week.”

“Yes.”

“And the week before.”

“Yes.”

“So it is a philosophical next week.”

“Exactly.”

He grunted as if you had confirmed his bleakest suspicions about modern society. You gave him his total, accepted the exact coins he counted into your palm, and placed the receipt inside the top book because he hated bags on principle.

As he turned to leave, his gaze flicked toward Harry, who was still standing in fiction reading the back of the blue maybe book.

“Is that the singer?” Mr Collins asked.

Priya made a strangled sound.

You glanced over. “Yes.”

“Hm,” he said.

Then he left.

That was it.

Priya looked personally offended by his lack of drama. “Hm?”

“He is a man of restraint.”

“He said hm.”

“Profoundly restrained.”

She leaned closer to you as soon as the bell over the door stopped trembling. “What is he like?”

“A customer.”

“Y/N.”

“He does not know the title of the book he wants, which I find spiritually challenging.”

“He smiled at you.”

“People do that when they need assistance.”

“Not like that.”

You refused to look back at Harry. “You are inventing things.”

“I am observing.”

“You are projecting.”

“You are blushing.”

“I am warm from the radiator.”

“You hate the radiator. Yesterday you said it was breathing on you.”

You picked up a stack of loyalty cards and began straightening them with unnecessary aggression. “Go check the travel section.”

“There is no one in travel.”

“Then it will be easy.”

Priya grinned and drifted away, deeply pleased with herself.

When you returned to fiction, Harry had not moved much. He had the second book open now, reading the first page. You approached without speaking and stopped beside him. For almost a minute, he did not notice. Or pretended not to. His attention seemed real enough that you let the silence sit.

The rain softened against the windows. The shop had entered its late afternoon lull, that strange pocket of quiet before closing when customers either disappeared entirely or arrived all at once with urgent needs. A bus passed outside, throwing watery light across the ceiling. Harry turned a page.

“It is not the book,” he said eventually.

“You read one page.”

“I can tell.”

“Can you?”

“I’m intuitive.”

“You could not intuit the title.”

His mouth curved, but he kept looking down at the page. “You are very hard on people.”

“Only the vague ones.”

“Then I earned it.”

“You did.”

He closed the book and held it against his chest. “What would you recommend?”

The question was casual.

It did not feel casual.

You looked at him, trying to decide whether he was asking because he needed a book or because he wanted to keep standing there. It was annoying that you could not tell. It was more annoying that some part of you wanted it to be the second.

“For you?”

“For me.”

“I do not know you.”

“You know I am vague.”

“That is not enough for a recommendation. That is a warning label.”

He laughed softly. “Ask me something then.”

You raised an eyebrow. “This is not a medical intake form.”

“Could be. For books.”

“A literary triage.”

“Exactly.”

You considered him. “Fine. Do you want something you will enjoy or something that will be good for you?”

He looked delighted by the distinction. “Those are different?”

“Frequently.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“For customers? Enjoy. For myself? I pretend to prefer good for me, then read whatever ruins my life.”

“That sounds honest.”

“It is too late in the shift to lie.”

Harry leaned one shoulder lightly against the shelf, then seemed to remember his coat was wet and straightened at once. “Something honest, then.”

You looked at him more carefully.

It was a dangerous request, whether he meant it to be or not. People often asked for honesty when what they wanted was beauty with manageable teeth. A book that hurt but only in the places they expected. A story that made them feel deep without forcing them to look too long at themselves. You had learned that in publishing. Readers could be braver than anyone and cowards in the same breath.

Harry waited.

For the first time since he walked in, he was not smiling.

You turned and walked toward the poetry shelf near the back.

He followed.

The poetry section at Calder Books was small but stubborn. Mr Calder insisted it stayed near the old armchair because people bought more poetry when they were allowed to sit with their sadness first. The shelf was tucked under a wall lamp that flickered when the rain was heavy. You crouched slightly, scanning the spines until you found the copy you wanted.

It was secondhand. Soft around the edges. The cover had faded from cream to something closer to old bone. You had been meaning to buy it yourself for weeks, but every Saturday some new necessity had interrupted. Toothpaste. A bus pass. The electricity bill. You touched the spine for a second before pulling it free.

“Here,” you said.

Harry took it from you with surprising care. “Poetry?”

“You asked for honest.”

“I did.”

“Poetry is what people write when lying takes too much energy.”

He looked up from the book.

Something in his expression shifted again, and this time you knew you had said too much. Not in a catastrophic way. Only in the way strangers sometimes opened small windows without meaning to and then had to decide whether to close them quickly.

You reached for the book again. “Actually, maybe not that one.”

Harry moved it out of reach, not rudely, but with enough playfulness that your hand stopped in the air between you.

“No, I want this one.”

“You have not read the back.”

“Maybe I’m intuitive.”

“You are misusing that word now.”

“Almost certainly.”

He opened the book near the middle. His eyes dropped to the page. The shop was quiet enough that you could hear the faint rustle of paper as he turned it. You should have gone back to the counter. You should have checked the time, cleared the display table, done any of the small closing tasks waiting for you. Instead, you stood beside him and watched his face as he read.

It was strange, watching someone famous read.

That sounded ridiculous even in your own mind, but there it was. You were used to seeing famous people perform attention. Watching Harry give real attention to something, quietly and without an audience, felt oddly intimate. The line between public and private blurred for a second. He was not singing. Not posing. Not charming a camera. He was standing under a flickering lamp with rain in his hair, reading a poem in a shop that could barely afford to fix its ceiling.

He looked up after a while.

“Do you like this one?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

You almost laughed. “That is a large question.”

“I have time.”

“You do?”

“Do I look busy?”

You glanced at his coat, his rings, the sunglasses still pushed into his damp curls. “You look like someone who is usually busy.”

His face changed, not dramatically, but enough that you noticed. The small ease went out of him for half a second. Then he looked down at the book again.

“Not right now,” he said.

There it was again. The not much of an answer.

You were beginning to suspect Harry had many of those.

You leaned against the edge of the shelf opposite him, arms folded. “I like it because it does not try to make pain pretty.”

He looked up.

“A lot of writing does that,” you continued, surprising yourself by answering honestly. “It polishes things too much. Makes grief elegant. Makes loneliness meaningful. Sometimes things are just awful. Sometimes you are sad in your kitchen wearing ugly socks, and nothing about it is profound.”

His mouth softened at the corner. “Ugly socks?”

“Very ugly.”

“How ugly?”

“None of your business.”

“That ugly?”

“Worse.”

He laughed under his breath and looked back at the page. “I like that.”

“My ugly socks?”

“The other thing.”

“That sadness is not always profound?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed one thumb lightly over the edge of the book. “Think people want it to be. Makes it easier if it means something.”

“Sometimes it does.”

“And when it doesn’t?”

“Then you make tea and go to work anyway.”

Harry looked at you for a long moment.

You felt, suddenly and uncomfortably, seen.

Not exposed. Not yet. But noticed in a way that moved past the usual surface of a first conversation. You did not know him, and he did not know you, but for one second you had the sense that both of you had arrived at the same small, unglamorous truth from different sides of the world.

Then Priya called from the counter, “Y/N, do we have any more gift bags?”

You blinked first.

The moment broke.

“In the drawer under the till,” you called back.

“No, the nice ones.”

“We are not a luxury department store.”

Harry smiled down at the book.

You pushed away from the shelf, grateful for the interruption. “Right. Are you buying that or having a moment with it?”

“Can’t I do both?”

“Only if you do one of them near the till. We close in twenty minutes.”

He closed the book and held it against his chest. “Then I’m buying it.”

“Good choice.”

“High praise.”

“Do not let it change you.”

“I’ll try to remain humble.”

“You came in wearing sunglasses indoors. I fear that ship has sailed.”

He laughed properly this time, head dipping, shoulders shaking once. It was warmer than it should have been. You turned away before you could like it too much.

At the till, Priya had miraculously remembered how to behave like a human employee, though her eyes remained too bright. You moved behind the counter and took the poetry collection from Harry when he handed it over. There was a pencil note on the inside cover from the previous owner, a tiny half moon next to one of the poems. You paused when you saw it.

“Secondhand,” you said. “Is that all right?”

“Better, isn’t it?”

You glanced up. “Some people hate marked books.”

“I like knowing someone was there before me.”

There was no reason for that sentence to do anything to you.

It did anyway.

You looked back down and scanned the book. “Twelve pounds.”

Harry reached into his coat pocket. “That seems too low for literary honesty.”

“Do not say that near Mr Calder. He will raise everything by morning.”

He placed a card on the counter. You took it, processed the payment, and pretended not to notice Priya pretending not to stare at his name on the receipt. The till drawer stuck, because the building had apparently chosen that exact moment to embarrass you.

You tugged it once.

Nothing.

Harry watched with open amusement.

You tugged again.

“Need help?”

“No.”

“It looks stuck.”

“It likes attention.”

“Don’t we all?”

You looked up sharply.

He smiled, but there was something under it. A challenge, maybe. Or a question. You could not tell which, and that made your stomach do something deeply inconvenient.

You yanked the drawer a third time. It opened with a violent clatter that made Priya jump.

“There,” you said.

“Impressive.”

“Years of training.”

You placed the receipt inside the book and handed it back to him. His fingers touched the cover first, then yours, not enough to be accidental and not enough to be anything else. The contact lasted only a second. Still, it seemed to stretch.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You are welcome.”

He did not move.

Neither did you.

Priya turned away with the subtlety of someone hiding behind a glass door.

Harry looked toward the front windows, where the rain had thickened again. “Do you think it’ll stop?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even look.”

“It is London.”

“Fair.”

He looked back at you. “Are you here every Saturday?”

There it was.

The question sat between you plainly enough that pretending not to understand it would have been insulting to both of you. You felt Priya freeze several feet away. You felt your own pulse answer before your mouth could.

You could have said yes.

You could have said no.

You could have asked why.

Instead, because you were tired and damp and had just sold Harry Styles a secondhand poetry collection after insulting his sunglasses, you said, “That depends who is asking.”

His smile returned slowly. “A customer.”

“Then yes. Usually.”

“And if it is not a customer?”

Your heart did something foolish.

You leaned your hands on the counter, close enough to look direct but not close enough to become reckless. “Then I suppose he would have to buy another book.”

Harry looked at you for a second. Then he laughed, soft and delighted, like he had not expected you to say that and was terribly pleased that you had.

“All right,” he said.

“All right.”

He tucked the poetry collection inside his coat to protect it from the rain. The gesture was oddly careful and, for reasons you refused to examine, charming.

“I should let you close.”

“That would be considerate.”

“I’m occasionally that.”

“Congratulations.”

His eyes lingered on your face. “Do I get your name, or is that only with the second purchase?”

You should not have smiled.

You did.

“Y/N.”

He repeated it once, quietly, not in a strange way, but like he was making sure he had heard it properly. You wished you did not like the sound of it in his voice.

“Harry,” he said.

You looked at him.

His mouth twitched. “Thought I should say it.”

“Helpful.”

“You already knew.”

“I had suspicions.”

“Strong ones?”

“Reasonable ones.”

He nodded, amused. “Nice meeting you, Y/N.”

“You too, Harry.”

The bell rang when he left.

Cold air swept in, touched your cheeks, and disappeared with him. Through the window, you watched him pause outside beneath the awning to open his umbrella. For a moment, he stood there with the book protected against his chest and his sunglasses still pushed into his hair, looking nothing like the posters and exactly like himself.

Then he turned his head slightly, as if he could feel you watching.

You stepped back from the window so quickly that Priya snorted.

“Do not,” you said.

“I have said nothing.”

“You are breathing smugly.”

“I did not know that was possible.”

“You are managing.”

Priya came to stand beside you, abandoning all pretence of work. “He asked if you are here every Saturday.”

“He wanted to know when the shop is open.”

“He asked if you are here.”

“Because I gave him a recommendation.”

“Because he wants another one.”

“Exactly.”

“Y/N.”

You began collecting receipts from the counter. “What?”

“You know.”

“I know nothing.”

“You know everything. That is your worst quality.”

“My worst quality is that I keep agreeing to cover your breaks.”

“No, your worst quality is that you pretend exciting things are inconvenient because it makes you feel in control.”

You stopped.

Priya winced. “That sounded wiser than I meant it to.”

You looked down at the receipts in your hand.

Outside, Harry had disappeared into the rain. The shop seemed suddenly too warm, the air thick with radiator heat and old paper and whatever had just happened. You told yourself nothing had happened. A famous man had bought a book. That was all. He had been charming because charming was probably his natural survival mechanism. He had asked your name because people did that. He had asked when you worked because customers returned to shops.

It did not mean anything.

That was what you told yourself while you cashed up the till. It was what you told yourself while Priya hummed something suspiciously romantic near the travel section. It was what you told yourself as you locked the door at closing and stepped into rain that had softened to a mist.

It did not mean anything.

Still, when you got home that night, after eating toast over the sink and sending your father a message that said alive, solvent-ish, emotionally neutral, you found yourself thinking about the secondhand poetry collection you had sold him.

You had meant to buy it for yourself.

That annoyed you more than Harry did.

The next Saturday, the rain had stopped.

You noticed that first.

The morning came pale and cold, with a thin winter sun hanging over the buildings like someone had put it there out of obligation. You arrived at Calder Books with a coffee in one hand and a tote full of manuscripts in the other, your breath fogging in front of you as you unlocked the door. Mr Calder had left a note taped to the till reminding you to dust the philosophy shelf because, in his words, “neglecting philosophy invites moral decay.”

You read the note twice and decided moral decay could wait until after coffee.

For most of the morning, the shop behaved normally. A woman bought three cookbooks and admitted she hated cooking. A teenage boy spent forty minutes in poetry, left, came back, and bought a collection without making eye contact. Mr Collins arrived to ask whether the Armitage had come in, and when you told him no, he said, “Naturally,” as if the failure confirmed everything he believed about the country.

You did not think about Harry.

Not constantly.

Only when the bell rang.

Which was often enough to become annoying.

By three, you had almost convinced yourself that he would not come back. That was good. Sensible. A relief. Famous men did not return to small bookshops because a tired editorial assistant insulted their sunglasses and sold them poetry. They went back to whatever lives famous men had. Hotels. Cars. Rooms full of fruit no one ate. People who answered their phones for them. You shelved new releases with more force than necessary and told yourself you were not disappointed.

At ten past four, the bell rang.

You were kneeling near the children’s section with a stack of picture books when Priya made the same small noise she had made the week before.

You closed your eyes.

No.

You looked up.

Harry stood just inside the door, holding two takeaway coffees and wearing no sunglasses.

That detail irritated you immediately.

It meant he had learned.

It meant he had listened.

It meant you were pleased.

He saw you on the floor and smiled as if the sight of you there had confirmed something.

“Hello,” he said.

You stayed kneeling because standing too quickly would have looked like you cared. “Hello.”

“I brought coffee.”

“I can see that.”

“One is for you.”

“That is presumptuous.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. You do not know how I take coffee.”

His smile widened. “No. But I remember you said the shop coffee tastes like wet cardboard, and I thought even wrong coffee might be an improvement.”

You stared at him.

He remembered that.

You had said it near closing last week while making a face at the old machine in the back, not to him exactly, but in the general area of him and Priya and the failing radiator. He had remembered.

That was inconvenient.

Priya appeared from behind the travel shelf with the expression of a woman witnessing divine intervention. You ignored her with the discipline of a saint.

“You might have poisoned it,” you said.

Harry looked at the cup in his hand, then back at you. “That would be a strange amount of effort after buying poetry.”

“People are complex.”

“They are.”

The way he said it was too warm.

You stood, brushing dust from your jeans. “What kind is it?”

“Americano. Milk on the side because I panicked.”

“You panicked?”

“There were choices.”

“And you survived?”

“Barely.”

You took the coffee despite yourself. It was warm against your cold fingers, and when you lifted the lid carefully, it smelled miles better than anything produced by the machine in the back room.

“Thank you,” you said.

The words came out softer than you intended.

Harry noticed. Of course he did. His smile shifted into something less triumphant and more pleased, which was worse.

“You’re welcome.”

You took a sip. It was good. Annoyingly good.

“Well?” he asked.

“I have decided not to accuse you of poisoning me.”

“High praise again.”

“I am generous.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

He laughed, and Priya dropped a bookmark display.

You both looked at her this time.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, crouching to gather them. “Everything is fine. Books fall. Gravity is normal.”

Harry’s mouth twitched.

You turned back to him. “Did you come in for another book, or only to challenge my caffeine standards?”

“I read it.”

You blinked.

“The poetry,” he said, lifting his own coffee slightly. “I read it.”

“All of it?”

“Most of it.”

“That is not all of it.”

“I reread some pages. Surely that counts for extra.”

You tried not to smile and failed a little. “Did you like it?”

Harry looked down at his coffee for a moment, and the easy humour slipped aside again. You were beginning to recognise that shift. He did not become less charming exactly, but the charm stopped doing all the work. His face quieted. His eyes moved away from yours as if honesty required a smaller audience.

“Yes,” he said. “I did.”

Something in your chest softened.

You did not want it to.

“Good,” you said.

“Though I think you might have given me the saddest book in the shop.”

“You asked for honest.”

“I did.”

“People should be careful what they ask booksellers for.”

He looked back at you then. “Are you a bookseller?”

“On Saturdays.”

“And the rest of the time?”

There was nothing invasive in the question. Nothing entitled. Still, you felt yourself hesitate, because answering meant becoming more than the woman behind the counter, and you were not sure that was wise.

“I work in publishing.”

His interest sharpened. “Do you?”

“Small press. Editorial.”

“That sounds impressive.”

“It sounds impressive when I do not explain it.”

“Explain it.”

You looked at him. “Why?”

“Because I asked.”

“That does not usually work on me.”

“Good to know.”

You walked toward the counter because standing in the middle of the children’s section with Harry Styles and two coffees felt like the beginning of a rumour. He followed, as he had last week, and again you were too aware of the fact that he did. Priya found a reason to disappear into the back room, which was both obvious and appreciated.

You set your coffee beside the till. “I read submissions, proof pages, write reports, answer emails, and occasionally stop grown adults from using the word luminous seven times in a blurb.”

Harry leaned against the counter. “Luminous is a good word.”

“Not seven times.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What about six?”

“Still unforgivable.”

“Five?”

“Are you the grown adult?”

“Not professionally.”

You smiled into your coffee before you could stop yourself.

He watched it happen.

That felt like a mistake.

“So you work with books all week and then come here to work with more books,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Do you ever get tired of them?”

You looked around the shop.

The shelves were crowded and slightly uneven. The front table still bore the damp marks of last week’s weather. A pile of new stock sat by the counter waiting to be priced. Near the window, an older woman was reading the first page of a novel with the solemnity of someone deciding whether to let a stranger into her house.

“Yes,” you said honestly. “But not in the way you mean.”

Harry tilted his head.

“I get tired of bad sentences,” you said. “And blurbs that lie. And authors who think punctuation is censorship. And customers who say they want something uplifting when what they mean is they do not want to feel anything inconvenient. But books themselves? No. Not really.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“What?” you asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“Nothing.”

“You did the nothing look again.”

“I like listening to people talk about things they care about.”

You looked away first.

That was annoying too. That he said things like that. Simple things. Not grand, not flirtatious enough to dismiss, but direct enough to land where they should not.

You reached beneath the counter for the stack of books waiting to be priced. “Then you must be very patient.”

“Sometimes.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

You laughed.

He looked pleased with himself.

For the next twenty minutes, Harry lingered near the counter while you worked. It should have been awkward, but it was not. He did not demand your attention. He looked through the books on display, asked the occasional question, and drank his coffee slowly. When customers came up to pay, he stepped aside without making it a performance. Some recognised him. You saw it happen in small flashes. A young woman by the classics shelf going still. A man near the front doing a double take. Two teenagers whispering too loudly behind a stack of cookbooks.

Harry noticed too.

Of course he did.

You saw the way his shoulders changed, not much, just enough. A faint bracing. A small retreat behind the eyes. He remained polite when one of the teenagers asked for a photo, smiling gently and saying, “Not today, love, I’m sorry,” with such practised kindness that it made your chest ache unexpectedly. The girls looked disappointed but not offended. They bought a romance novel after he told them he liked the cover, which made Priya nearly combust behind the till.

When the shop settled again, you found Harry standing by the front window, looking out at the street.

You went over with a stack of newly priced paperbacks.

“You all right?”

He turned slightly. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“You do not have to apologise for standing near a window.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He smiled faintly. “Sometimes.”

You began arranging the paperbacks on the table. He watched you for a while, then reached for one and moved it slightly to align with the others.

You glanced at him. “Careful. We charge for labour.”

“I brought coffee.”

“That covered emotional damages, not table display.”

“Put it on my tab.”

“You do not have a tab.”

“Could I?”

“No.”

“Strict.”

“Responsible.”

He smiled, but it faded again as his gaze moved back to the window. Outside, two people were standing across the street under the café awning, looking into the shop too intently to be casual.

You saw them.

Harry saw you see them.

A strange discomfort passed between you. Not fear exactly. Not even surprise. More like the sudden awareness that the world he carried with him had pressed its face to the glass.

“I can go,” he said quietly.

You looked at him.

He sounded like he meant it.

That did something to you, though you were not ready to name it. He was giving you the choice. Not assuming he could stay. Not pretending nothing had changed because that would make it easier for him.

You placed the last paperback on the table. “You bought coffee and read poetry. It would be rude to make you leave before recommending you something worse.”

His eyes returned to yours.

The gratitude in them was brief, but unmistakable.

“Worse?”

“Much worse.”

“How comforting.”

“I specialise in literary discomfort.”

“I’m beginning to see that.”

You picked up a novel from the table and handed it to him. “Here.”

He took it. “Will this ruin my life?”

“Moderately.”

“Only moderately?”

“I do not know you well enough to ruin it completely.”

Harry looked at you over the book.

There were moments in life when a sentence left your mouth and you realised too late that it had opened more doors than intended. This was one of them. His gaze did not turn smug. That would have been easier. Instead, it warmed, slow and interested and much too direct.

“Not yet,” he said.

You felt your face heat.

Priya, from somewhere behind you, made a noise that might have been a cough or an attempt to swallow her own fist.

You took the book back from Harry and walked toward the till. “That was a customer service statement, not an invitation.”

“Was it?”

“Yes.”

“Shame.”

You should have told him not to flirt.

You should have reminded yourself that men like Harry probably flirted with baristas, flight attendants, interviewers, friends’ mothers, and reflective surfaces without meaning to. Charm at that level was less a personality trait and more a public safety hazard.

Instead, you rang up the book and said, “Twelve ninety nine.”

Harry placed his card on the counter.

The till drawer stuck again.

This time, when you tugged it open, he laughed so warmly that you almost forgot to be annoyed.

Almost.

When he left twenty minutes later, he did not ask for your number. You told yourself that was good. Sensible. A relief. He only lifted the new book slightly and said, “See you next Saturday, maybe,” as if the maybe belonged to you.

You liked that.

You should not have, but you did.

After the door closed behind him, Priya came to stand beside you in silence.

You looked at her. “Say nothing.”

She nodded.

For nearly ten seconds, she said nothing.

Then she whispered, “He brought you coffee.”

You picked up the loyalty cards and began straightening them again. “I am aware.”

“He remembered the wet cardboard thing.”

“I was there.”

“He bought another book.”

“This is a bookshop.”

“He said not yet.”

You dropped the cards.

Priya smiled like Christmas had arrived early.

You pointed toward the back. “Travel section.”

“There is still no one in travel.”

“Then go spiritually.”

She laughed and went.

You spent the rest of the shift pretending not to think about next Saturday.

You failed.

The third time Harry came in, he was late.

Not that you were waiting.

Waiting implied expectation. Expectation implied hope. Hope implied the kind of foolishness that got women into trouble with men who smiled too easily and remembered too much. You were not waiting. You were merely aware, in a detached and scholarly way, that the bell over the door had rung thirteen times since three o’clock and none of the people who entered had been him.

That was not waiting.

That was counting.

Different thing.

At five, the sky outside was already dark. Winter had a way of making the afternoon feel like it had given up halfway through. Rain threatened but had not fallen yet, leaving the air sharp and metallic. The shop was busy in uneven bursts. Christmas had passed, but people were still exchanging unwanted gifts and buying books with the strange guilt that followed a new year. You moved between shelves, counter, back room, and display table until your feet hurt.

By six, you were irritated enough to be grateful that he had not come.

By six fifteen, you were irritated because he had not come.

The bell rang at six twenty three.

You were crouched behind the counter looking for receipt rolls when Priya said, with infuriating calm, “Your customer is here.”

You hit your head on the underside of the counter.

“Not my customer,” you muttered, rubbing the sore spot as you stood.

Then you saw him and forgot, briefly, what irritation was doing on your face.

Harry stood near the entrance, slightly out of breath, cheeks pink from the cold, curls windblown beneath a beanie. He was holding a paper bag in one hand and a book in the other, the one you had recommended last week. No sunglasses again. No performance. Just Harry, looking around the shop until his eyes found you.

His whole face changed when they did.

That was the problem.

Not that he smiled. Lots of people smiled. It was the relief that came with it, small and unguarded, like arriving somewhere he had not been sure he would reach. Like seeing you behind the counter mattered in a way you had not agreed to.

You looked down at the receipt rolls.

“Hello,” he said, approaching.

“You are late.”

The words came out before you could stop them.

His smile widened slowly. “Was I expected?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then late to what?”

You hated him.

“Closing,” you said. “We close in thirty seven minutes.”

“Very exact.”

“I value precision.”

“I’m sorry.” He lifted the paper bag. “I brought compensation.”

“If that is coffee at six twenty three in the evening, you are trying to kill me.”

“It is not coffee.”

“What is it?”

“A pastry.”

You narrowed your eyes. “From the expensive café?”

He looked toward the window, as if the café might confirm or deny. “Maybe.”

“You have been robbed.”

“I suspected.”

“They charge four pounds for something with air in the middle.”

“That does sound like London.”

“You cannot bring me four pound air.”

“It has almonds.”

“That is not a defence.”

He placed the bag on the counter, entirely too pleased with himself. “It is now.”

Priya leaned in from the side. “I like almonds.”

You gave her a look.

She vanished.

Harry laughed softly, then placed the book beside the paper bag. “I finished this.”

You forgot the pastry.

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

“And?”

He made a face.

“Oh no,” you said.

“I have thoughts.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I liked parts.”

“Parts?”

“Some parts more than others.”

“You hated it.”

“I did not hate it.”

“You hated it.”

He leaned both hands on the counter, lowering his voice as if confessing something dangerous. “I respected it.”

You stared at him.

“That is what people say when they hated it.”

“I did not hate it.”

“Harry.”

He smiled when you said his name, which made you wish you had not.

“I liked the beginning,” he said. “And the bit with the brother. And the ending, actually.”

“So the book.”

“Not the middle.”

“The middle is where the book lives.”

“The middle annoyed me.”

“Because it required patience?”

“Because everyone kept not saying what they meant.”

You looked at him.

He seemed to realise what he had said at the same time you did. The amusement slipped a little. Behind him, the shop moved on, ordinary and unaware. A customer browsed the nature table. Priya restocked bookmarks. The radiator knocked in the wall. But the space between you tightened with the quiet force of something recognised too early.

“People do that,” you said.

Harry held your gaze. “Do they?”

“All the time.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

He looked surprised by the honesty.

You looked surprised too.

Then you reached for the paper bag because you needed something to do. “I am going to inspect this allegedly almond air.”

He let the subject go. That was another thing you noticed. Harry pushed sometimes, flirted often, asked questions with an openness that made people answer before they had decided to. But when something real appeared too sharply, he did not force it. He stepped back. Not away, exactly. Just enough to let you breathe.

You opened the bag.

Inside was an almond croissant dusted with icing sugar.

Your stomach made a noise so loud you considered leaving the country.

Harry looked delighted. “That sounded positive.”

“I have not eaten since noon.”

“Why not?”

“Because I enjoy suffering.”

His amusement softened into concern. “Y/N.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Do not say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you are about to become involved in my blood sugar.”

“I might.”

“You will not.”

“You should eat.”

“I will.”

“Now.”

“You are very bossy for someone who hated the middle of a novel about emotional repression.”

“I respected it.”

“You disrespected it with your face.”

He laughed. You tore off a piece of croissant mostly to stop yourself from smiling. It was buttery and sweet and annoyingly perfect. You closed your eyes for half a second.

When you opened them, Harry was watching you.

Not in a smug way.

In a quiet way that made you feel as if the shop had emptied around you.

“What?” you asked, mouth still half full.

“Nothing.”

“You have got to find another answer.”

“I like watching people enjoy things.”

“That is a strange thing to say to a woman eating pastry at work.”

“It sounded less strange in my head.”

“Most things do.”

His smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You are very quick.”

“You are very easy.”

That landed.

For one second, neither of you moved.

Then Harry’s eyebrows lifted slightly, and your entire body realised what you had said.

“I meant easy to tease,” you said quickly.

“I know.”

“Do not look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you are enjoying this.”

“I am.”

You looked down at the croissant, cheeks warm. “You are impossible.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“I am sure you have.”

There was no bitterness in your voice, but something in his face changed anyway. A faint closing. Not anger. Not hurt exactly. More like recognition of the thing that always stood behind him, even when no one said it directly.

You knew then that you had accidentally touched the edge of his fame.

Not Harry the man in the bookshop. Harry Styles, impossible and adored and used to being wanted in ways that had very little to do with him. The shift made you feel strangely sorry, though you had done nothing wrong.

You tore another piece of croissant and held it out.

He looked at it, then at you.

“A peace offering,” you said.

His expression opened again.

Slowly, he took it from your fingers. He was careful not to touch your hand. Somehow that made it worse.

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

He ate the piece and nodded with great seriousness. “You are right. It is mostly air.”

“Expensive air.”

“With almonds.”

“With almonds,” you conceded.

He stayed until closing that night.

Not in a way that felt intrusive. Not in a way that made you wonder how to get rid of him. He browsed while you finished with customers, listened while Priya told him a long story about accidentally joining a university society because they had free biscuits, and helped you carry a box of new stock from the back room after you told him very firmly that he did not need to and he did it anyway.

“You are not dressed for manual labour,” you said, watching him lift the box.

“I’ll survive.”

“That coat probably costs more than my rent.”

He looked down at it. “Does that mean it can’t carry books?”

“It means I would enjoy seeing it humbled.”

He laughed and shifted the box against his hip. “Where to?”

“Front table.”

He carried it there with no complaint, and something about the sight of him moving through the shop with a cardboard box of paperbacks made the world feel briefly, dangerously normal.

That was the first time you understood the real danger of him.

Not the fame. Not the face. Not even the charm, though God knew that was bad enough. It was the way he could stand in an ordinary room and seem grateful for it. The way he did not make your life feel small by comparison, at least not then. He made it feel noticed. Like the cracked tiles and sticking till and overpriced pastries and Saturday exhaustion were not things to escape, but things worth entering carefully.

At closing, Priya left first with a grin so theatrical you nearly threw a receipt roll at her.

You locked the door behind the last customer, leaving Harry inside while you counted the till. That should have felt strange. It did not. He stood near the front table, hands in his pockets, reading the staff recommendation cards one by one.

“You wrote these,” he said.

You looked up. “Some of them.”

“How can I tell which?”

“The meaner ones are mine.”

He laughed. “This one says, ‘For anyone who likes beautiful sentences and terrible decisions.’”

“That one is mine.”

“I thought so.”

You slid the cash drawer shut. “Is that insulting?”

“No.” He looked at the card again. “It sounds like you.”

“You have known me for three Saturdays.”

“And yet.”

You did not answer because you did not trust yourself to.

The shop was quiet around you. Closing light was different from opening light. Softer, somehow. The lamps made small golden pools along the shelves, leaving the corners shadowed. Outside, the street had thinned, people moving past in scarves and dark coats, their reflections sliding across the glass. Calder Books looked best like this, half lit and empty, as if all the stories had finally been left alone to breathe.

Harry seemed to feel it too.

He looked around slowly. “Do you like being here after closing?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“No customers.”

He smiled. “Apart from me.”

“You are barely a customer at this point.”

“What am I?”

The question was too simple.

You busied yourself with the receipt tape. “A recurring problem.”

Harry’s laugh was quiet.

You thought he might let it become another joke. Instead, after a moment, he said, “I like it here.”

You glanced up.

He was looking at the shelves, not at you. That made the admission feel safer somehow. Less like flirtation, more like truth.

“Here specifically?” you asked.

“Bookshops. But this one, yes.”

“Because of the leak?”

“Especially the leak.”

“The leak gives the place emotional range.”

“Exactly.”

You smiled.

Then Harry looked at you. “People mostly leave me alone in bookshops.”

The smile faded from your face.

Outside, someone passed too close to the window and looked in. Harry noticed but did not turn away this time. His gaze stayed on you, and for the first time, you heard the tiredness beneath the easy voice.

“Is that why you came in the first time?” you asked.

“No.”

You waited.

He pushed one hand through his hair, messing the curls further. “Maybe. I don’t know. It was raining, and I had time, and there were people outside the place I was supposed to be. I saw the shop and thought...” He stopped, as if embarrassed by the simplicity of it.

“What?”

“That it looked quiet.”

You leaned back against the counter.

People did not really disappear. They just found quieter rooms.

You had not said that yet, not in those words. But the thought came to you fully formed as you looked at him standing under the warm shop lights, famous enough to be followed through rain, tired enough to walk into a bookshop because it looked like a place where the world might lower its voice.

“It is quiet,” you said.

“Usually.”

“Except when the till drawer is expressing itself.”

He smiled, grateful for the small kindness of humour. “Except then.”

You came around from behind the counter and began straightening the front table because if you did not move, the conversation might become too honest. Harry helped without being asked, aligning stacks and turning covers outward after watching how you did it. You noticed that too. How carefully he learned the rules of a room.

When the table was done, there was nothing left to fix.

You both looked at the door.

“I should let you go,” he said.

“You should.”

Neither of you moved.

The air between you changed again, not suddenly, but with the slow inevitability of water rising. You were aware of the locked door, the empty shop, the rain waiting outside. You were aware of Harry’s coat, the dark green of it, the tired softness around his mouth, the way he looked at you as though he was trying not to ask for too much at once.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the poetry collection from the first week.

“You carry it around?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

His smile was a little shy. That was devastating and deeply inconvenient. “Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“I like it.”

“You bought it. I assumed.”

“I like that you gave it to me.”

Oh.

The words landed softly, which somehow made them worse.

You looked down at the book in his hand. The secondhand cream cover. The worn edges. The thing you had wanted for yourself and had somehow given to him before you knew giving him anything might matter.

“That was a professional recommendation.”

“Was it?”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“It was.”

Harry’s eyes warmed. “Okay.”

You hated the gentleness of his disbelief. You hated that it made you want to laugh and cry and ask him what he was doing here with you, in this tiny shop, after closing, with a poetry collection in his hand like it meant something.

Instead, you took your coat from the hook behind the counter.

“I need to lock up.”

Harry nodded at once. “Of course.”

You turned off the lamps one by one, leaving only the front light on. The shop changed as the shadows gathered. Harry waited near the door without rushing you. When you finally stepped outside together, the cold hit your face and cleared some of the warmth from your head.

The street was wet again.

You had not noticed it had started raining.

Harry opened his umbrella and, after the smallest hesitation, held it high enough to cover both of you.

You looked at him. “I have my own.”

“You haven’t opened it.”

“I was going to.”

“Were you?”

“I dislike you.”

“No, you don’t.”

The confidence of that should have annoyed you.

It did.

It also made you smile.

You locked the door, tugged once to make sure it held, then turned to find Harry still beside you under the umbrella. He was close enough that your sleeve brushed his coat. Not too close. Just enough to make the rain around you feel like a curtain.

“Which way?” he asked.

“Tube.”

“I’ll walk you.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

He looked down at you, amused but not offended. “Why?”

“Because you are Harry Styles.”

“I had noticed.”

“And I am not interested in becoming a blurry photograph on someone’s Twitter account because you decided to be chivalrous outside a bookshop.”

His amusement faded. Not completely. Enough.

“That is fair,” he said.

You had expected him to argue. The fact that he did not made you soften when you had no intention of softening.

“I appreciate the umbrella,” you added.

His mouth lifted slightly. “You are welcome.”

For a second, neither of you moved. Rain tapped against the umbrella above you, a small private sound. People passed on the pavement, glancing once, then moving on. The shop window behind you reflected the two of you together, dark shapes under black fabric and yellow light.

Harry looked like he wanted to say something.

You looked like you wanted him to.

That was dangerous.

So you stepped out from under the umbrella and opened your own.

“See you next Saturday, maybe,” you said.

Harry smiled, but there was something careful in it now. “Maybe.”

You walked away before he could turn the maybe into anything else.

At the corner, you looked back.

He was still standing outside the bookshop in the rain, umbrella lowered slightly, watching you go with the poetry collection tucked under one arm.

You told yourself, all the way to the tube, that it did not mean anything.

By the time you reached the platform, you knew you were lying.

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