About

Your boutique is small and warm, the kind of place people linger in without meaning to. But he always means to. Three times this week. Each time he picks up something small, asks nothing, pays without haggling. He never lingers over the racks. He lingers over you — the way you fold fabric, the way you laugh with customers, the way you move through your own space like you built it with your hands. You noticed on visit two. By visit three, Odessa has a full theory and zero restraint about sharing it. He's military, you think. Something in the stillness. The way he stands near the door like he's always calculating the exit. He doesn't look like a man who needs a linen pocket square. But here he is, holding one, watching you again.