I spend most of my days working (vacation will end soon) or writing long-form stories, but sometimes I crave something quick, a piece you can read in a breath, the way Adrian’s poetry always seems to deliver.
So today I set myself a challenge: write something short, simple, and heartfelt in one sitting. I’m sharing the result here.
If you’d like more, let me know in the comments, and I’ll keep writing these in between I’ll Do Better and City of Aten.
I’m calling the series Emma In A Rush.
The Bookshop Window
It began on a wet Thursday with the kind of rain that drifts sideways, soaking trousers and fogging up windows. The air smelled faintly of wet wool and car exhaust, a heaviness that clung to skin and seeped into bones.
She was inside a little bookshop, standing by an oak display table with her hair pinned in a messy knot and her glasses slipping down her nose until she pushed them back up again.
She was picture perfect. A book lay open in her hands, and she grinned as though the lines themselves were whispering something only she could hear, as though she carried a secret too delightful to hide.
I saw her from the pavement, gawped like a fool, stopped mid-step in a puddle, and something in my chest jolted. Rain pattered on my shoulders, soaking through, but I didn’t move. A few passers-by glanced at me, wondering why a man would stand frozen in the storm.
Wow.
The word rose in me without sound, and my heart swelled painfully, the kind of swell that comes when you know you’ve been interrupted by something that matters.
I stepped inside the bookshop mostly to escape the rain, or so I told myself. The bell over the door rang a tired jangle. Warmth and the faint musk of new leather and old paper wrapped around me like an embrace. She looked up. Our eyes met for less than a second, but it was long enough to matter.
In that instant, I knew too much. I knew how she mussed her hair that morning, rushing from her flat to the deli before stopping here. I knew why she wore a plain plaid skirt that ended at her knees and hugged her figure just enough. She didn’t want to be noticed by everyone, but she wanted to be noticeable to someone.
And in that glance, everything in my life seemed to fall into place, as if it had all been waiting for this recognition.
“Sorry.”
The word slipped out, absurd and awkward, as I brushed water from my sleeves.
She smiled. Not big, not theatrical. Just the kind of smile that lifts you a fraction above your day, that makes you believe in possibility again.
I circled the shop, pretending to browse. My fingertips trailed the spines of books without seeing their titles. I drifted toward history. She lingered in poetry. My pulse thudded in my ears louder than the rain outside, faster than a train rattling through a tunnel.
She looked like she was reading, but I couldn’t tell if she truly was or if she, too, was playing at patience. The silence between us thickened until it was heavier than the storm.
When she moved to the counter, the book in her hand was one I had read twice. My voice broke free before I could stop it.
“That’s a beautiful choice.”
She looked at the cover, then at me.
“You’ve read it?”
I nodded.
“Too many times. Every page feels like it knows something about you it shouldn’t.”
Her eyes warmed. She was perfect, hot chocolate on a cold day, iced lemonade in the heat of summer.
“That’s exactly why I’m buying it.”
“I hope you enjoy it.”
“Do you read a lot?”
“I do.”
“That’s sweet. Two strangers in a bookshop who have something in common.”
She smiled at her tease, a joke dressed up as an invitation to talk. Our exchange was small, but it cracked something open in me like glass under strain, a fracture that spread until it reached my ribs.
We walked out together, neither of us willing to part in the doorway. The rain had eased to a fine mist, which was easily endured. Our steps fell into rhythm, conversation spilling easily, books to music to family to everything, even our hopes and dreams.
My chest ached with each new revelation, as if my heart was trying to stretch fast enough to hold her. I listened to every word, hung on it, committing her tone, scent, and beauty to memory, terrified of letting any of it slip through me.
By the time we reached the river, city lights shimmered on the water. The air was cold, edged with the scent of damp stone and diesel from buses rolling past, but nothing deterred us.
I noticed the way she held her bag close, the way her laughter always came a beat late, as though she checked the world before letting herself enjoy it.
She noticed the way I kept glancing sideways, nervous, like someone afraid of frightening the moment away. When she looked coy, my heart pounded so hard I thought she must hear it, the rhythm unsteady, not drums of battle, but a rhythm only she could summon from me.
“Why are you always looking at me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t mind, it’s just that… I notice you didn’t buy a book… in the shop.”
“No. I was walking past and…”
“And?”
Her look engaged my heart, issuing a challenge. My chest locked tight, my throat parched.
The truth, man. Tell her the truth.
“I saw you.”
“And?”
“My heart guided my feet after that.”
“And you circled me while I was reading in the store.”
“Were you really reading?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps my eyes were, but my heart wasn’t.”
She giggled in that cute way I knew she would, then pulled on her bottom lip. A small gesture, half-innocent, half-erotic, and it gripped me so hard I felt my breath falter.
We paused on a small humpback bridge, leaning against cold stone slick with rain. She turned on her side, staring at me, and there was a sparkle in her eyes I had never seen before, like the shimmer of light on water.
“It’s strange.”
“What’s that?”
“How sometimes you can spend years around people and feel nothing. And then one day, you meet someone in a moment of serendipity, and…”
“And you feel everything?”
I finished the sentence for her, as though I was always supposed to, my voice raw, my throat tight. She nodded and smiled in a way that made me feel known, recognised, chosen.
The air stilled. Traffic blurred past. The city throbbed around us, but none of it touched us. My heartbeat was loud in my ears, almost painful.
I thought of leaning in. I thought of closing the gap. But something in me wanted to preserve the ache in my heart, to hold this moment unbroken, to live inside its sharp edge just a little longer.
We didn’t kiss. We didn’t need to. The touch of her hand sliding into mine was enough to undo me. It was electric, not lust, but the shock of finding home in another person’s heart.
Later, there would be kisses, lovemaking, and letters. Arguments. Laughter in kitchens. Mornings with coffee gone cold because we couldn’t stop talking. Later, there would be hard days and gentle ones, tears and promises.
But for now, there was only rain on stone, the river flowing beneath us, and the certainty that I had found something rare.
Her hand and heart were something worth holding on to.
I hope you enjoyed my inaugural ‘Emma In A Rush’. Please like, comment, and restack to support me, grow our reading community, and tell me if you liked this romantic short (or not).
yes more please
I loved this romantic short and would love more🌹