AnnabelleHaven
Lena didn't notice the exact moment things changed.
It wasn't sudden enough for that.
It started with small adjustments-the kind that didn't ask permission. A shelf above the kitchen window. A presence that didn't announce itself but stopped leaving. A man who spoke in certainty instead of explanation.
Tate didn't fit into her life so much as he worked his way through it, as if space was something you could measure, build into, and quietly occupy without disrupting what was already there.
At first, Lena kept watching for the moment it would feel wrong.
For the moment she would need to step back.
But the moment never came.
Instead, there were mornings where his tools stayed out longer than expected. Evenings where silence felt less like absence and more like company. Conversations that didn't circle toward meaning because meaning was already understood.
Nothing about it demanded definition.
And that was what unsettled her most.
Because people weren't supposed to stay like that. Not without explanation. Not without effort. Not without being asked.
Tate never asked.
He just came in-and didn't leave.
And somewhere between routine and recognition, Lena stopped trying to decide what this was becoming.
Because it already had.
Not loudly.
Not all at once.
Just the way things do when they're allowed to remain.
*This is book 1 that will be part of a 3 book series.