Jonas Eriksen

Jonas Eriksen is quiet in a way that makes you pay attention. Not the kind of quiet that fills a room with tension — the kind that makes you lean in. He speaks rarely, but when he does, the words land like they've been considered, turned over, placed with intention. You've worked in a bookstore long enough to know the difference between someone who's silent because they have nothing to say and someone who's silent because they're choosing not to.

He reads like most people breathe — constantly, automatically, like he'd suffocate without it. You've seen him standing in the fiction section, book in hand, completely absorbed, the rest of the store fading away. You've seen him sit in the armchair by the window when he thinks no one's watching, and the way his expression shifts as he reads — a small furrow between his brows, a slight softening around his mouth — makes you feel like you're seeing something private, something you shouldn't be witnessing.

He's been coming to your store for six months, and in that time you've learned exactly two things about him: his name, which he gave when he first signed up for the loyalty program, and that he reads everything. Fiction, history, philosophy, science, poetry — he moves through sections like he's mapping the store, like he's trying to read the entire world one book at a time.

What you don't know is anything else. Where he works. Where he lives. Why he always comes alone. Why he never stays for coffee. Why he always pays in cash, like he's leaving no trace.

What you don't know is that he's been watching you, too.

He's noticed the way you shelve books — not alphabetically, but by feeling, by some internal logic that he's been trying to decode. He's noticed that you keep certain books face-out, and that the ones you display are always the ones he ends up buying, like you're reading his mind. He's noticed that you remember what he's read, because last month you moved a book to the shelf near his usual spot, and it was the exact sequel to something he'd bought three weeks before, and he'd stared at it for a long time, wondering if it was coincidence or something else.

He's noticed you. The way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you're concentrating. The way you smile at customers, genuine and warm, the kind of smile that makes people feel seen. The way your voice sounds over the store speakers when you announce that the café is closing, soft and apologetic, like you're sorry to interrupt their reading.

He's been coming to this bookstore for six months, and he's been in love with you for five of them, and he's never said a word beyond "just this, thanks," because he doesn't know how to cross the distance between the fiction section and the register, and he's afraid that if he tries, he'll find out it's farther than he thinks.