The café hummed with quiet conversations and the gentle clinking of cups, but for Jake and Hriva, the world beyond their table barely existed.
Their second meeting should have felt coincidental-two people simply running into each other. But it didn't. It felt intentional, like something had pulled them back together before they had the chance to drift too far apart.
Hriva curled her fingers around her cup, her gaze flickering between Jake and the dark liquid inside. She had told herself she wouldn't let their first meeting linger in her mind, that it had just been a passing moment, but now that she was here, sitting across from him again, she couldn't pretend anymore.
"I don't usually do this," she admitted, her voice quieter than before.
Jake raised an eyebrow. "Do what?"
"Sit down with a stranger I met once and feel like… I should be here."
The corners of his lips lifted slightly. "You think we're still strangers?"
Hriva hesitated. The logical answer was yes-they barely knew each other. And yet, when she looked at Jake, it didn't feel that way. It felt like she was talking to someone she had known for years, someone who had somehow slipped into the spaces of her life without her realizing it.
She exhaled, shaking her head. "No. And that's what makes this so strange."
Jake studied her for a moment, then leaned forward, his fingers tapping idly against his coffee cup. "Maybe some people aren't meant to be strangers. Maybe we were supposed to meet."
Hriva laughed softly, but there was no amusement in it. "You believe in things like that?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I do know that when I left that party, I couldn't stop thinking about you. And when I saw you walk in here today, I felt like… I don't know. Like something had been set right."
Hriva's heart skipped a beat. She shouldn't have wanted to hear that, but she did. Because she had felt it too.
She hesitated before asking, "So what now?"
Jake leaned back slightly, tilting his head as he studied her. "I guess that depends on you."
A silence stretched between them-not uncomfortable, but charged with something unspoken.
Hriva could feel herself standing at the edge of something dangerous. She wasn't sure what it was yet, but she knew that once she stepped forward, there would be no turning back.
"I don't know what this is," she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. "But I know I don't want to walk away from it."
Jake nodded, a knowing look in his eyes. "Then let's not."
And just like that, an unspoken understanding settled between them.
The Aftermath
Later that night, Hriva lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling.
She had thought that seeing Jake again would give her some sort of clarity, that maybe it would dull the strange longing she had been feeling since the party. But it had only made things worse.
The connection between them wasn't fading-it was growing. And it scared her.
Because she had never felt this way before.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Jake sat in his dimly lit apartment, a glass of whiskey untouched beside him.
He had told Hriva the truth-he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her. But now that he had seen her again, he knew this wasn't just fascination or fleeting curiosity.
It was something more.
And if he wasn't careful, it was going to change everything.