Knockout Devotion

The bells above the door chimed, and Pria Chavinsky felt the headache bloom behind her left eye before she even looked up from the stack of invoices.

She knew that rhythm. The heavy tread, the slight drag of sneakers on her worn floorboards, the way the light shifted as someone too large for her shop filled the doorway. She didn't need to see him. She could smell him. Cheap soap and sweat and something else, something warm that she refused to name.

“Asher,” she said, not looking up.

“Miss Chavinsky.” His voice was a grin. She could hear the smile in it, that stupid, perfect, infuriating smile that had been following her around for three years now. “You remembered my footsteps. I'm touched.”

“I remember the footsteps of everyone who wastes my time.” She set her pen down and finally raised her eyes. There he was. Taller than her doorframe, built like someone had drawn a man and then decided to add more muscle just for fun. Black hair still wet from a shower, curling at his temples. A fresh cut above his eyebrow, pink and angry. Green eyes that sparkled like he knew a joke she wasn't in on.

He was holding flowers. Daisies. Her favorite.

She hated that he knew that.

“The shop is closed,” she said.

“The sign says open until six.”

“It's five fifty-eight.”

“Two minutes.” He walked toward the counter, and the shop felt smaller. His presence did that. It filled every room he entered, pushed against the walls, demanded space. He set the daisies on the counter between them. “These are for you.”

“I don't accept gifts from former students.”

“I'm not your student anymore. Haven't been for years.” He leaned on the counter, and she caught the full force of his grin. White teeth. That dimple in his left cheek. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners. He knew exactly what he looked like. He used it like a weapon. “Come on, Pria. One date. Dinner. Coffee. A walk in the park. I'll hold your hand and everything.”

“No.”

“One hour.”

“No.”

“Thirty minutes.”

“Asher.”

“Twenty minutes. I'll time it. You can set the alarm on your phone.”

She picked up her pen again. “I'm busy.”

“You're counting invoices.”

“I'm counting invoices,” she confirmed, and wrote a number in the margin. “Which requires focus. Something you've never understood.”

He laughed. The sound bounced off her shelves, disturbed the quiet she had spent five years cultivating. Her bookshop was supposed to be a sanctuary. A place where books sat in alphabetical order, where the only sounds were pages turning and the occasional creak of the floorboards. Not this. Not him.

“You know what I love about you?” he said.

“I don't want to know.”

“You never let me finish a sentence.”

She pressed her lips together to stop the smile. Almost got her. Almost.

He circled the counter, and she stood up straight. He didn't touch her. He never touched her, not without permission, and she had never given it. But he got close. Close enough that she could see the dusting of freckles across his nose she had memorized during detention duty three years ago. Close enough that she could smell the clean soap beneath the rest of him.

“Asher,” she said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt, “you need to leave.”

“I will. After you say yes.”

“I will never say yes.”

“That's what you said last week.”

“And the week before that.” She set her pen down again, harder this time. “And the week before that. And the month before that. And the year before that. How many times do I have to say no before you hear it?”

His smile didn't waver. It was the most irritating thing about him. That smile. That relentless, golden, puppy-dog smile that had made every teacher at Westbrook High secretly adore him even when he was driving them insane. He had been the star of everything. Football, boxing, student council. Homecoming king. Prom king. Most likely to succeed. Most likely to charm his way out of a speeding ticket.

And he had spent his entire senior year making her life complicated.

She had been twenty-eight. He had been eighteen. She had been his English teacher. And he had looked at her across a classroom of annotated poems and said, “Miss Chavinsky, I think I'm in love with you.”

She had laughed. She had thought it was a joke, a phase, a teenage crush that would evaporate the moment he met someone his own age.

He had graduated. He had not evaporated.

“I hear you,” he said now, and his voice dropped. The playfulness faded. What remained was something quieter, something that made her stomach tighten. “I hear you saying no. I just don't believe you mean it.”

“That's not how consent works.”

“I know how consent works.” He stepped back. Gave her space. He was good at that, she had to admit. He knew exactly when to push and when to pull. It was instinct. He had been born with it. “But I also know you. I know when you're lying.”

“You don't know me.”

“I know you drink black coffee with a spoonful of honey. I know you underline passages in books instead of highlighting them because you hate the feel of marker on paper. I know you close your eyes when you're really listening to someone. I know you smile when you read the last page of a good book, even if it's sad.”

She said nothing.

“I know you haven't been on a date in two years,” he continued, and her jaw tightened. “I know you spend Friday nights in this shop with a glass of wine and a biography of someone dead. I know you're lonely, Pria. And I know you feel something when you look at me.”

“You don't know anything.”

“I know you kissed me.”

The words hung between them. She remembered it. Every humiliating second. The end of his senior year. The last day of classes. He had come to her classroom after everyone else had left. He had said goodbye. She had felt something crack open in her chest, something she had been holding shut for months. And she had kissed him. Just once. Just a second. Then she had pulled back and told him it was a mistake.

It was the stupidest thing she had ever done.

“That was a moment of weakness,” she said.

“It was a moment of honesty.”

“It was three years ago, Asher. I was your teacher. I am ten years older than you. Ten years.” She stepped out from behind the counter, and he moved with her, matching her pace. She stopped. He stopped. “Do you understand how that looks? How that feels? I was supposed to guide you. I was supposed to teach you. Not...”

“Not what?”

“Not this.” She gestured between them. “This is inappropriate. It has always been inappropriate. And I need you to stop.”

He was quiet for a long moment. The bells above the door stayed silent. The shop held its breath.

“I can't,” he said.

“You can.”

“I've tried.” His voice was rough now. The grin was gone. This was the other Asher, the one she saw sometimes in the gaps between his jokes. The one who fought in a ring for a living. The one who had something dark and hungry living in his chest. “I've tried to move on. I've dated other people. I've focused on training. I've told myself you're right, that this is crazy, that I should let it go.”

“So let it go.”

“I can't.” He stepped closer. She stepped back. Her spine hit a shelf. “I've tried everything. And every time I close my eyes, I see you. Every time I win a fight, I want to call you. Every time I lose, I want to show up at your door and let you tell me it's going to be okay.”

“Asher.”

“I'm not asking for forever.” His hand came up, and he stopped it inches from her face. He didn't touch her. He just held it there, like he was asking permission. “I'm asking for one date. One chance. Let me show you that this isn't some teenage crush. Let me show you that I'm serious.”

She looked at his hand. At the calluses on his knuckles. At the fresh bruise blooming across his wrist. He was beautiful. He was infuriating. He was everything she had spent the last three years trying to resist.

“No,” she said.

His hand dropped.

“I'm going to call your parents,” she said, and his eyebrows shot up. “I'm serious, Asher. I have their number. I will call them and tell them their son is harassing his former teacher.”

He stared at her for a beat.

Then he laughed.

Not a polite laugh. Not a surprised laugh. A full, genuine, head-back laugh that echoed off her shelves and rattled her windows. He laughed until his eyes watered. He laughed until she wanted to throw a book at his head.

“You're going to call my parents,” he repeated, wiping his eyes. “My parents. Who love you. Who have been asking me for years if I've finally convinced you to go out with me.”

She went still.

“My mom,” he said, grinning again, “has a whole Pinterest board for our wedding.”

“That's not true.”

“It's absolutely true. She calls you her future daughter-in-law. My dad thinks you're too good for me. Which you are. Which I know.” He stepped back, spreading his hands. “So go ahead. Call them. They'll probably thank you for giving me an excuse to visit.”

Pria closed her eyes.

She counted to ten.

When she opened them, he was still there. Still smiling. Still impossible.

“Get out of my shop,” she said.

“Same time tomorrow?”

“I will call the police.”

“You won't.” He walked to the door, and the bells chimed as he pushed it open. He turned back, and the evening light caught his face, made his eyes glow green. “I'll bring coffee. Black with honey. And a book you haven't read yet.”

“Asher.”

“See you tomorrow, Pria.”

He left.

The door swung shut. The bells fell silent. The shop was quiet again, full of dust and paper and the fading warmth of his presence.

She looked down at the counter.

He had left the daisies.