The air inside the vinyl shop had shifted. It wasn’t just the usual scent of nostalgia that hung around the records anymore. Something else lingered now, subtly charged. A current had settled beneath the quiet, low and steady like a bassline, reverberating through the space. Not loud, but a sensation that could only be felt.

Levi leaned against the counter, his arms folded loosely across his chest, one foot crossed over the other. His pose was a permanent contradiction: relaxed on the surface, tightly coiled underneath. His gaze fixed on Jean as she nervously picked at the corner of a record sleeve, her fingers tracing the worn edges

She finally looked at him. Not a passing glance or a fleeting stare, but a proper look.

Taking him in.

He was lean, but possessed a wiry strength, the kind often found in dancers and those who lived life on the edge. Graceful, fluid, with an underlying sense of restless energy like hers, as if nothing could truly pin him down or hold him in one place for too long. His tattoos, she noticed, climbed the lines of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt, and a series of more intricate designs adorned both his arms, a chaotic tapestry of dark strokes. Half-art, half-defiance. He wore them like a second skin, a form of personal armour. The sort of markings that made conventional adults stare but Levi never flinched under scrutiny. He held attention like it bored him. Like he’d grown up knowing he’d always be looked at and had stopped caring.

A contradiction, wrapped in ink and late-night vinyl.

“Is there someone who’s caught your eye, then?”

Jean didn't look up from the record sleeve, her fingers still toying with the corner.

"Doubt it's you, mate. Wouldn't want to upset Renee by… well, you know."

He chuckled, low and quiet with the faintest sting hidden inside it.

“Right. And not the other admirer either, I suppose? Julian might burst into flames.”

Jean’s lips curved slightly, eyes flicking to his.

“Exactly. You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

“That’s me,” he said with a small shrug. “All insight and heartbreak.”

The smile that followed was wry, but there was something behind it. A flicker of uncertainty. Brief, but there.

“Bit of a sting, that.”

Jean met his gaze, her teasing softening.

“I’m sorry, Levi. Renee’s... too dear to me.”

There was a pause. A beat of stillness where something could have been said but wasn’t. The space between them grew tighter without either of them moving.

Then Levi stepped forward.

His hands lifted, slow and purposefully, as if giving her time to back away. When she didn’t, he touched her face, reverently. His thumbs brushing her cheekbones, the touch sending a shiver of awareness through her. 

The kiss, when it came, was nothing like before. Quiet yet deep, it carried an intensity that blurred the line between impulse and regret. No longer flirtatious, no longer cautious, it became an outlet for them.

A momentary escape, a way to forget their troubles by drowning in something they could both control. It meant nothing more, and that was precisely the point: a perfect, temporary reprieve, even if only for a few breathless seconds.

A line drawn in smoke and heat, irrevocably crossed.

Later, they sat on the floor near the back of the shop, surrounded by the towering presence of countless records, their legs folded beneath them in an arrangement that felt almost domestic. A deck of old playing cards lay scattered between them, frayed at the corners, the kind that had seen dozens of hands and a hundred lazy nights. They hadn’t touched them yet, but their presence offered a different sort of ease—a distraction, waiting in case things grew too quiet.

The air was hazy, the scent of weed curling in slow spirals around them. They passed a joint back and forth without ceremony, barely glancing at each other, letting the music pull them under. On the record player, Levi had queued up a vinyl from one of the original British indie bands of the eighties.

Jean exhaled slowly, the smoke veiling her words before they formed.

“Levi... what happened tonight—don’t go reading too much into it, yeah?”

He didn’t look surprised. Just tired, in that way people are when they understand something before it’s said. He offered her a half-smile, the kind that lifted only one side of his mouth, crooked and honest.

“I’m not daft enough to think anything real’s gonna come of this.” He met her eyes. “Especially with you being slightly underage and all.”

She nodded, grateful for his bluntness. For not needing to spell it out.

“Thanks. And... could you not say anything to Renee?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied. “She’d crucify me. I’m meant to be the grown-up here, apparently.”

Jean let out a short laugh.

“Well, I’m the one who started it. So I’m not about to let you take all the flak.”

“Oh, please do carry the can for me,” he said with a grin, clearly amused now.

Levi was a mystery she doubted she would ever unravel. His blonde hair, tied back just loosely enough to look intentionally careless in some way. Eyes a shade too blue to be real, never seemed to miss any detail. They flicked around the room as if collecting secrets, storing them in the same place he kept those hidden smirks and razor-edged comebacks.

Someone who didn’t need to speak much, because everything about him already said too much.

He leaned in again but time with less heat, more ache and kissed her—gentler now, like the end of something rather than the beginning. It was soft, barely there, a kiss that felt more like a full stop than a promise. 

A closing paragraph.

And yet... neither of them moved to leave.

Neither of them closed the book.