The park was settling into that heavy, quiet stillness that comes just before dusk. Ava followed the winding path, her sneakers crunching softly on the gravel.
The sun was a bruised purple and gold behind the treeline, casting long, dramatic shadows across the grass. She’d come out to shake off the lingering hum of a restless day the kind where your own apartment feels a little too small and your thoughts a little too loud. Her yoga pants felt like a second skin, and a thin tank top clung to her lower back, damp from the humid evening air.
She wasn’t looking for anyone. She just wanted to feel the air. But then she saw him.
He was propped up on a weathered wooden bench near the lake’s edge, right where the trees thinned out.
He was built broad shoulders that seemed to eat up the spac
