Naomi Grant had learned a long time ago that the easiest way to be left alone in a bar was to look busy.
Not pretend busy - but actually busy. Tonight, that meant her sketchbook lay open on the polished wood in front of her, a mechanical pencil between her fingers, her head bent over an exaggerated shoulder seam she'd been struggling to perfect for two days.
The low light from the bar's hanging lamps caught the smooth brown of her skin, glinted off the thin gold hoops in her ears. Her cider sat mostly untouched at her elbow, condensation sliding down the glass. Every now and then, a laugh from another table rolled across the space, but Naomi tuned it out.
It was a Thursday night—quiet enough that the soft hum of the espresso machine behind the bar filled the lulls in conversation. She liked it that way.
Unfortunately, her peace was already under threat.
"Waiting for someone?"
She didn't look up. "No."
The voice belonged to a man whose cologne reached her before his shoes did—too sharp, too eager.
"Mind if I—"
"Yes," she said flatly, adding the final line to the sketch's sleeve curve without breaking stride.
The man hesitated, then gave a low, disbelieving chuckle before moving on. Naomi didn't bother watching him go.
She was used to this dance—the polite deflection, the dismissal, the way some men couldn't believe a woman might actually prefer her own company. It was why she usually stuck to cafés, but tonight, she'd wandered in here after her shift at the restaurant two streets over. It was the kind of place that stayed open late but still served good tea and the occasional decent cocktail.
Across the room, in a booth near the window, Issac Ward sat with two friends, his long frame stretched out against the deep green leather. He wasn't supposed to be here.
Or rather, he hadn't planned to be here.
But Malik had insisted—"You can't spend your birthday holed up in your office again, you just finalised your divorce. We're taking you out." And somehow, here he was, nursing a glass of something amber and ignoring most of the conversation.
His friends were talking about football and laughing about something from university. Issac's attention, however, kept straying to the far corner of the bar, where a woman was bent over a sketchbook, completely oblivious to him.
Not oblivious to men, apparently—he'd watched her shut down two in the last twenty minutes with barely a glance.
She didn't have the brittle edge some put on when they wanted to be left alone. She had… focus. Like her mind was in another place entirely.
"Mate, you're not even drinking," Malik said, dragging him back to the present.
"Don't need to," Issac replied, setting his glass down.
"Then why are you here?"
Issac's eyes drifted back to the corner.
"I'll be back in a minute," he said, already sliding out of the booth.
The sound of footsteps stopped at her table, followed by a shadow across her page.
Naomi looked up, brows lifting. The man in front of her was tall, dressed in a dark shirt rolled to the elbows, revealing strong forearms and a silver watch. He had the kind of presence that made the space around him seem quieter somehow.
"Interesting choice," he said.
Her pencil stilled. "Excuse me?"
He gestured—not to her drink, but to the folded napkin beside it. Three quick line sketches were scrawled across it in ink.
"You sketch on these?"
She lifted one brow. "I sketch on whatever I can afford to ruin."
A smile curved his mouth as he pulled out the chair opposite her without waiting for permission.
"Issac," he said.
"Not interested."
"In my name, or in me?"
"In conversation."
The smile deepened just slightly, as if her pushback was exactly what he'd been expecting.
"If you were mine," he said, his tone casual, "I'd fund that whole collection."
Naomi let out a short laugh—sharp, amused, and dismissive. "Good thing I'm not."
He should have left then. She'd made her stance clear.
But instead, Issac leaned back in his chair, letting the hum of the bar wrap around their little corner.
"Who are they for?" he asked after a moment, nodding to her sketchbook.
"My coursework," she said reluctantly but with pride, "for the London College of Fashion."
His gaze flicked over the designs without touching the page. "You're good."
"Thanks," she said, already reaching to close the book.
"You don't believe me?"
"It's not about belief. You don't know enough to say that."
He smiled again, slower this time. "Maybe I want to."
Naomi should have packed up right there, but somehow, she didn't.
The conversation shifted—first to fabric shops ("Berwick Street is overrated," she declared), then to street food in East London, to the music spilling softly from the bar's speakers.
Somewhere between her laughter over his failed attempt to name a Burna Boy track and his quiet admission that he'd never been to Ridley Road Market, time began to blur.
"Last orders!" the bartender called, and Naomi looked around in surprise to find the room nearly empty.
The staff were stacking chairs, the smell of cleaning spray already faint in the air.
"You're… not bad company," she said before she could stop herself.
Issac's mouth tilted at one corner. "High praise."
She pushed her sketchbook into her bag, but before she could stand, he said quietly, "Come with me tonight."
Naomi blinked. "Do you always invite strangers back to yours?"
"Only the ones I want to see again."
There was something in his tone—assured, but not arrogant—that made her hesitate. She could walk away and never see him again. Or she could see where this might lead.
"One night," she said finally. "That's all."
His smile was slow and certain. "We'll see."