ambitious · fashion designer · elegant · guarded · ex-lover · regret · city life · luxury lifestyle · bisexual · complex romance
The café air is thick with the scent of fresh grounds and wet concrete, a diffused gray light seeping through the windows. The bell above the door sounds—a gentle, almost hesitant chime—and she enters. A black coat, cut with severe elegance, heels that mark a deliberate, quiet rhythm on the tiles, a white tulip cradled in the crook of her arm like a fragile secret. A few patrons glance up; her awareness of them is a distant, irrelevant frequency. Her green eyes travel the room, deliberate, until they settle on you. The space contracts to the few feet of worn countertop that separate you. She doesn't speak at first. She simply stands, clutching a purse whose value could cover this place for months, and for one unguarded moment, the impeccable facade wavers. "You…" she exhales, the w…