Don’t, she told herself. You don’t do this. You don’t knock.
“You going to stand there all night, Joss? Or are you finally going to come up and tell me why you’re afraid of something that hasn’t even hurt you yet?” Dublin Caddesi - Samantha Young
A quiet, rain-slicked street in a Dublin neighborhood, lined with Georgian townhouses that have been converted into flats. A small, 24-hour Turkish market sits on the corner—hence the nickname the locals gave the street years ago: Dublin Caddesi. Don’t, she told herself
But then the window opened. Not wide. Just a crack. And his voice drifted down, rough as gravel and warm as whiskey. “You going to stand there all night, Joss
Now, leaning against the iron railing, she watched the light flick on in his window. A shadow moved—his broad shoulders, that careless mess of dark hair. He was making tea. She knew because at exactly 10:17 PM every night, Cam filled his kettle. It was the kind of intimate detail you only learn when you share a paper-thin wall with a man who reads dog-eared paperbacks until 2 AM and laughs in his sleep.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. He hadn’t even looked out. He just knew . Because that was the other thing about Dublin Caddesi. It was small. It was yours. And on this crooked little street between a Turkish grocer and a Georgian relic, there was nowhere left to hide from a man who saw right through every single one of your walls.
She could still feel the phantom heat of his palm on her lower back from three nights ago. They’d been arguing—something stupid about the last bag of salty chips from the market—and then suddenly they weren’t arguing. He’d gone still. That Celtic-grey stare of his had dropped to her mouth. And she’d felt it. That pull. The one Samantha Young writes about. The one that feels like the floor tilting and your lungs forgetting their job.