The pull
931 Words
The morning rush faded slowly, leaving the shop quiet again. Ava stacked a fresh crate of oranges behind the counter, her motions unhurried, her thoughts drifting.
The bell chimed.
Without looking up, she called, “Good morning,” wiping her hands on her apron.
When she finally lifted her gaze, her breath stilled.
It was him.
The man from the street, the one whose eyes had met hers for barely a second yet felt like more. Now, standing only a few feet away, he seemed even more striking. Tall. Composed. Dark hair combed neatly back. His features were sharp, almost sculpted. But it was his eyes that held her attention intensely, searching, as though they’d seen too much and were still looking for something.
He didn’t speak at first. He simply looked at her, stunned not by surprise, but by recognition he couldn’t explain.
Ava forced her voice steady.
“Hi… can I help you?”
He blinked, as if returning from somewhere deep.
“Yes.” His voice was low, controlled. “Coffee. Black.”
His tone carried the faint edge of someone used to giving instructions, not requests.
Ava nodded and turned to the machine. She felt his gaze on her, warm and unyielding. It unsettled her. Or stirred something she didn’t have a name for. When she handed him the cup, she said, “Three dollars.”
He placed a twenty on the counter and didn’t wait for change.
“You don’t want—”
“Keep it.”
Ava frowned. “That’s too much—”
He was already glancing around the shop, distracted yet strangely present.
“A nice place,” he murmured.
She raised a brow. “No one’s ever called my shop elegant before.”
The hint of a smile touched his lips, small, brief, but unmistakably real.
He lifted the cup, watching her over the rim. Her pulse jumped, unsteady.
There was something about him not dangerous, but powerful. A stillness beneath his composure, restless and intense.
“Have we met before?” he asked suddenly.
Ava blinked. “No. I don’t think so.”
He studied her, not rudely, but deeply searching for something only he seemed to know.
“Right,” he said at last, though he didn’t sound convinced.
He set the cup down gently.
“I’ll return.”
No further explanation. He simply turned and walked out.
The bell chimed softly behind him.
Ava stood frozen, wondering why a stranger’s gaze could feel like a memory she’d never lived.
Xander didn’t remember the drive back. Manhattan streets blurred past his window, irrelevant. His mind was still inside a small grocery shop with warm light, citrus-scented air, and a woman whose presence filled him with an impossible sense of familiarity.
Ava.
He whispered her name under his breath, testing its weight. He didn’t know why he asked if they’d met. The question came from a place deeper than logic.
Ethan glanced up when Xander strode into the executive floor of Leon Enterprises.
“You vanished for two hours,” Ethan said. “Did you go fight a dragon?”
Xander didn’t respond. He slipped into his chair, fingers tapping restlessly against the desk.
Ethan stared.
“Oh no. That face. What happened?”
Xander exhaled slowly.
“I saw her.”
Ethan froze.
“You mean…”
“Yes.”
Ethan lowered himself into a chair.
“The girl from your dreams?”
Xander nodded once.
For five years he’d sketched her—first blurred, then slowly clearer until she felt more real in his drawings than anyone he’d ever known. But she wasn’t a dream. She was real, alive, breathing.
“And?” Ethan pressed carefully.
“I bought coffee,” Xander said flatly. “Watched her. Left.”
Ethan blinked.
“You left?”
Xander scowled.
“What was I supposed to do? Tell her I’ve been drawing her face since I was twenty-seven because I keep seeing her in my dreams?”
“…Fair point.”
Xander leaned back. He remembered the way she’d looked at him startled, curious, like she’d felt something too. Her voice had been soft. Her eyes… familiar in a way that made his chest tighten. Without thinking, he opened his private sketchbook drawer. Page after page revealed her likeness. The same soft eyes. The same quiet mouth.
Ava.
Ethan exhaled.
“So, what now?”
Xander closed the sketchbook.
“I need to know who she is.”
“Because of the dreams?”
Because of everything, he thought.
But he only said,
“Yes.”
Ethan nodded slowly.
“Then we start with her shop.”
Xander said nothing, but he was already reaching for his coat.
He wasn’t done. Not even close.
Ava spent the rest of the day trying to steady herself.
She tried reading. Failed.
She tried organizing shelves. Failed.
She tried convincing herself it was nothing. Failed.
His eyes lingered in her mind unshakably, as though imprinted.
Who was he?
Why did he seem familiar?
Why did his presence feel like the beginning of something she couldn’t define?
Camilla would tell her she was overthinking, but Ava knew better.
Some moments didn’t just happen. Some people didn’t just appear.
That night, she stood at the window of her apartment, staring at the street below. The world felt unchanged… and yet, not.
A quiet shift.
A tilt in the familiar.
She didn’t know what it meant. Only that something inside her had begun to stir.
And nothing, not even the city lights could lull it back to sleep.
- Writer
