Emily Whitmore was always in a hurry.
That November afternoon, she dashed down Goldsmith Street, her coat half-open and a folder of documents threatening to spill with every step. The drizzle had begun as a whisper, but within seconds, it thickened into a curtain that blurred the pavements. She cursed under her breath. Her plan was simple: get home, shower, and finish her presentation for the next day. But the downpour left no choiceshe needed shelter.
She pushed open the door of a tiny bookshop-café, the kind that seemed plucked from another time, with worn wooden furniture and the scent of freshly ground coffee. Shaking the rain from her hair, she approached the counter.
“A black tea, please,” she said, barely glancing up.
“Not a coffee drinker?” came a mans voice, amused and curious.
She looked up. Behind the counter stood a tall man in his thirties, with dark brown hair and a two-day stubble, watching her with a smile that felt oddly familiar.
“Not when I need to think,” Emily replied, slightly defensive. “Coffee makes me jittery.”
“Black tea it is, then. But fair warningmost people at this table lose the battle to coffee eventually,” he said, nodding at the nearly empty shop.
For the first time all day, she smiled. “And you are?”
“Oliver Hartley,” he answered, reaching a hand across the counter. “Owner, barista, and hopeless bookworm.”
Emily introduced herself, took her tea, and settled at a table by the window. The rain lashed against the glass as if trying to get in. As she tried to focus on her notes, Oliver appeared with a book in hand.
“If you dont mind I think youd like this.” It was an old novel, its cover blue with gold lettering.
“How do you know what Id like?” she asked.
“I dont. But when someone runs in out of the rain, orders tea, and has that look of not wanting to talk to anyone they usually need a good story more than anything else.”
She accepted it, surprised. The sound of rain and the aroma of coffee from other tables blended into a cozy hum.
“Do you always work here?” she asked after a while.
“Only when it rains,” he said, enigmatic.
She laughed, thinking it a joke. It wasnt.
The next few days, the city returned to its usual pace, and Emily to her frantic routine. But on a Tuesday, another storm drove her back into the bookshop. Oliver was there, as if hed been waiting.
“You again,” he said, pouring her tea before she could ask.
“You again,” she echoed.
That day, they talked more. Emily learned Oliver had inherited the shop from his grandfatherit had been just a bookshop before he added the café, “to give people excuses to stay longer.” Oliver, in turn, discovered Emily was an architect at a demanding firm where twelve-hour days were normal.
“Sounds exhausting,” he remarked.
“It is,” she admitted. “But I dont know how to do anything but rush.”
Oliver looked at her with a calm that disarmed her. “Sometimes you have to let life catch up to you,” he said.
From then on, rain became their accomplice. Every time the first drops fell, Emily found a reason to walk down Goldsmith Street. Sometimes she read in silence while Oliver tended to customers; other times, they talked about books, films, or travels neither had taken.
One December evening, Oliver made an offer: “Were closing early this Saturday. Some musicians are coming to play jazz here. Fancy it?”
Emily hesitatedshe wasnt used to spontaneous plans. But she said yes.
That night, the shop glowed with candlelight, bookshelves casting long shadows. Oliver saved her a seat in the front row. During the concert, their knees brushedaccidentally, or maybe not.
Afterwards, he poured her a glass of wine and sat beside her. “Ive seen you run in here so many times, escaping the rain,” he said. “But I think you were running from something else.”
Emily fell quiet, startled by his insight. “Maybe,” she admitted. “And maybe here, I forget what.”
When they stepped outside, the rain had returned. Oliver walked her to the door.
“I dont have an umbrella,” she said.
“Neither do I. But if we run, well reach the corner before were soaked.”
They didnt run. They crossed the street slowly, laughing as the water soaked their hair and clothes. At the corner, before saying goodbye, Oliver murmured, “Dont wait for the rain to come back.”
Emily smiled. “Ill try.”
She didnt return the next day, or the one after. But on Sunday, under a cloudless sky, she walked into the bookshop.
Oliver feigned surprise. “Wheres the rain?”
“Today I brought it with me.”
There was no tea that day, no coffee. Just a long, unhurried conversation, with comfortable silences and glances that spoke louder than words. As night fell, Oliver showed her a corner of the shop he never shared with customersa small room with a window overlooking the river.
“My grandfather used to read here when it rained,” he explained. “He said the sound of water reminded him everything keeps flowing.”
Emily pressed her forehead to the glass. “Maybe thats what I love about this place it reminds me I can stop.”
Oliver stepped closer, so slowly she felt his breath before she saw him beside her. “You can stop and stay.”
She turned to face him. Just then, rain began to tap against the window, as if waiting for its cue.
“Seems the skys on our side,” he whispered.
“Seems so,” she replied, before kissing himsoft, warm, tasting of coffee and black tea. A kiss in no hurry at all.
After that, every rain brought them back together. But it didnt matter if it stormed or shonethe bookshop on Goldsmith Street became their place. In that corner by the river, between books and steaming cups, Emily Whitmore and Oliver Hartley learned that sometimes love doesnt arrive with the sun
But when the rain makes you stay a little longer.
