The world was a roaring vacuum, sucking all the sound from the room until the only thing left was the frantic thumping of my own heart. I stared at the dark, blooming stain on his chest, a monument to my own catastrophic clumsiness. My career, my dignity, my immediate future—it all seemed to be dissolving in that Rorschach blot of steaming coffee. I braced for the explosion, for the shouting, for the well-deserved fury of a man who looked like he could snap me in half without breaking a sweat.
But it never came.
He didn't even look down at the stain again. His stormy grey eyes remained locked on mine, and instead of rage, I saw a flicker of something else. Something wild and intense. Confusion. Recognition. Possessiveness.
He took a step closer.
My breath hitched. My survival instincts, which had been screaming at me to run since he walked in, went into overdrive.
"I am so sorry," the words tumbled out of my mouth in a panicked rush. "Oh my god. I'll pay for the dry cleaning. I'll buy you a new shirt. I'll do anything. Please don't sue me. This is the only job I have."
A muscle in his jaw twitched, the only sign of any reaction. "The shirt is irrelevant," he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate in my bones. He took another step, closing the distance between us until only the counter separated us. He smelled of rain and cold night air, an impossible scent in the middle of a warm, coffee-scented café. "Are you hurt?"
The question was so unexpected it short-circuited my brain. "What?"
"You fell," he stated, his gaze dropping to my hands, which were now bright red from the heat of the coffee I'd been holding. "Did you burn yourself?"
Before I could answer, Maria was there, a whirlwind of apologies and frantic energy. "Sir, I am so, so sorry! She's new. We'll cover everything, of course. Let me get you some club soda, some towels—"
He held up a hand, and Maria fell silent instantly, his sheer presence demanding obedience. He never broke eye contact with me. It felt like he was trying to peel back my skin and read the secrets written on my soul. The primary one, the one flashing in neon letters in my mind, was impossible, impossible, impossible.
A man with no string.
It defied every law of nature I knew. It was like looking at a person with no shadow, no reflection. A hole in the fabric of the world.
This was my chance. While his attention was momentarily divided, I scrambled backward, my legs shaking. "I... I need to get some ice for my hand," I lied, my voice trembling.
I turned and fled, pushing through the swinging door into the blessedly empty stockroom. I leaned against a shelf of vanilla syrup bottles, my chest heaving as I dragged in shaky breaths. The room was cool and dark, but it did nothing to calm the frantic terror thrumming through my veins.
What was he? Why was he looking at me like that? And why, dear god, why did he not have a string?
I could hear Maria's muffled, apologetic tones from the front, but I couldn't hear his voice anymore. I pressed my ear to the door, my heart pounding. After a minute that stretched for an eternity, I heard the bell on the front door jingle. He was gone.
A wave of relief so powerful it made my knees weak washed over me. I stayed hidden in the stockroom for another five minutes, just to be sure, before finally inching the door open. The café had returned to its normal, buzzing state. Maria was behind the counter, looking stressed.
"Is he gone?" I whispered.
She jumped, pressing a hand to her chest. "Sera! You scared me. Yes, he's gone. Are you okay?"
"I think so. Did he... was he angry? Is he going to sue the café?"
Maria shook her head, a strange look on her face. "That's the weirdest part. He wasn't angry at all. He just... left." She paused, frowning. "He did say something odd, though. He told me to tell you not to worry, and that he'd be seeing you again."
A cold dread trickled down my spine. "He said that?"
"Yeah. And he called you Seraphina."
The blood drained from my face. My name tag, clipped to my apron, read 'Sera'. I had never told him my full name.
The rest of my shift passed in a blur of anxiety. Every time the bell on the door chimed, my body went rigid, expecting to see him walk back in. The image of his face was burned into my memory—the sharp line of his jaw, the intensity in his stormy eyes, and the terrifying, unnatural void where his string of fate should have been.
By the time I clocked out, dusk had painted the sky in shades of bruised purple and orange. I slung my worn messenger bag over my shoulder, the meager tips I'd earned jingling in my pocket. Normally, the walk home was my time to decompress, but tonight, every shadow seemed to lengthen and twist into a tall, menacing shape. The familiar city streets felt alien, hostile.
I clutched my keys in my fist, the metal teeth digging into my palm. The feeling of being watched was a physical weight on my shoulders. It was probably just paranoia, my mind playing tricks on me after the weirdest, most stressful encounter of my life.
But as I turned onto my quiet residential street, I couldn't shake the feeling that my world had been fundamentally altered. The man with no string knew my name.
And he had promised he would see me again.