If there's one thing people notice about me, it's my smile.
I don't even try—it just happens. When I'm nervous, when I'm happy, even when I don't know what to say. Smiling has always been my way of softening the world around me.
That's how Percy noticed me.
We were assigned to work on a project together. At first, it was just that—work. Deadlines, meetings, shared documents, quiet focus. But somewhere between correcting mistakes and exchanging ideas, something shifted.
"You smile a lot," he said one afternoon, watching me instead of the screen.
I laughed. "Is that a bad thing?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "It's… nice. I like it. You have a really nice smile."
I don't know why that stayed with me. Maybe it was the way he said it—soft, like it mattered.
From then on, things became easier between us. Conversations flowed. Silence wasn't awkward. We started sharing more than just work—little stories, random thoughts, things about our lives that we didn't usually tell people.
Lunch became our time. We'd sit together, share food, argue over whose meal tasted better, laugh over things that made no sense to anyone else.
And after work… he never just left.
"I'll walk you home," he'd say casually. "Can't let anything happen to you."
"My bodyguard," I'd tease.
"Exactly," he'd grin.
On those walks, the world felt slower. Sometimes he'd play music, hand me one side of his AirPod, and we'd walk in silence, listening to the same song. It felt strangely intimate—like we were sharing something unspoken.
Weekends didn't feel like weekends anymore—they felt like extensions of us. Coffee dates, random walks, long conversations that stretched into hours without us noticing.
We became close. Too close.
People at work noticed before we did.
"You two are definitely dating," someone joked one afternoon.
"We're not," I said quickly, laughing it off.
Percy just smiled.
But the teasing didn't stop. It became a thing—our thing. People pairing us together, making comments, watching us like we were something obvious.
And maybe we were.
Because what we had—it felt real. It felt like something more than friendship, even if we never said it out loud.
What nobody knew…
What I didn't know yet…
Was that behind all the laughter, the walks, the shared music, and the quiet closeness—
There was a secret.
And it was already there, waiting.