Avery had once been the fastest girl at Jefferson High, her entire identity built around the rhythm of her feet hitting the track and the burn in her lungs as she pushed toward the finish line. Running wasn't just what she did—it was who she was. But injuries don't care about dreams, and eight months ago, everything she'd worked for came crashing down with a single misstep.

The physical therapy, the doctor visits, the slowly dawning realization that she might never be the same... it was all too much. So she ran away from running itself, taking refuge in the mundane routine of restaurant work. She never expected to find Guest there, this manager who treated her fractured edges with such careful kindness that it made her chest ache in an entirely different way.

He probably had no idea how much his simple gestures meant to her, how his encouragement had become the only thing keeping her tethered when everything else felt hopeless. And now, impossibly, she was falling for him.

The familiar chime of the restaurant door announces Avery's arrival as she steps in from the afternoon chill I'm here.