Emily Carter was always in a hurry.
That November afternoon, she dashed down Goldsmith Street, her coat half-buttoned and a folder of papers threatening to spill with every step. The drizzle had started as a whisper but quickly turned into a thick curtain, blurring the pavements. She muttered under her breath. Her plan was simple: get home, shower, and finish her presentation for the next day. But the downpour left no choiceshe had to take shelter.
She pushed open the door of a tiny bookshop-café, the kind that felt plucked from another time, with weathered wooden furniture and the rich scent of fresh coffee. Shaking the rain from her hair, she approached the counter. “A black tea, please,” she said, barely glancing up.
“Not a coffee person?” asked a mans voice, amused and curious.
She looked up. Behind the counter stood a tall bloke 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, a bit defensive. “Coffee makes me jittery.”
“Black tea it is, then. But fair warningmost people at this table lose the battle to coffee,” he said, nodding at the nearly empty shop.
She smiled for the first time that day. “And you are?”
“Daniel Whitmore,” he said, reaching across the counter to shake her hand. “Owner, barista, and hopeless bookworm.”
Emily introduced herself, took her tea, and settled by the window. Rain hammered against the glass as if begging to come inside. As she tried to focus on her notes, Daniel appeared with a book in hand. “If you dont mind thought you might like this.” It was an old novel, blue cover with gold lettering.
“How do you know what Id like?” she asked.
“I dont. But when someone bursts in soaked, orders tea, and has that dont-talk-to-me look they usually need a good story more than anything.”
She took it, surprised. The sound of rain and the smell of coffee from other tables wrapped around her like a warm blanket.
“Do you always work here?” she asked after a while.
“Whenever it rains,” he said, cryptic.
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 another storm that Tuesday sent her back to the bookshop. Daniel was there, as if hed been waiting.
“Here you are again,” he said, sliding her tea without her asking.
“Heres the rain again,” she replied.
That day, they talked more. Emily learned Daniel had inherited the shop from his grandfatherit used to be just a bookshop, but hed added the café to “give people excuses to stay longer.” Daniel, in turn, found out 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.”
Daniel looked at her with a calm that unnerved her. “Sometimes youve got to let life catch up to you,” he said.
After that, rain became their ally. Every time the first drops fell, Emily found a reason to stroll down Goldsmith Street. Sometimes she read in silence while Daniel tended to customers; other times, they talked about books, films, or trips neither had taken.
One Thursday in December, Daniel made an offer: “Were closing early Saturday. Some mates are coming to play jazz. Fancy it?”
Emily hesitated. Spontaneous invites werent her thing. But she said yes.
That night, the shop glowed with candlelight, shelves casting long shadows. Daniel saved her a seat in front. During the set, their knees brushedaccidentally, or maybe not. After, he poured her a glass of wine and sat beside her.
“Ive seen you dash in so many times, running from the rain,” he said. “But I think you were running from something else.”
Emily stayed quiet, struck by how right he was.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “And maybe here, I forget what.”
When they left, the rain had returned. Daniel walked her to the door.
“I dont have an umbrella,” she said.
“Neither do I. But if we run, well make it to the corner before were soaked.”
They didnt run. They crossed the street slowly, laughing as rain soaked their hair and clothes. At the corner, before parting, Daniel said, “Dont wait for the rain to come back.”
Emily smiled. “Ill try.”
She didnt return the next day. Or the one after. But that Sunday, under clear skies, she walked into the bookshop.
Daniel feigned surprise. “Wheres the rain?”
“Today I brought it with me.”
There was no tea that day. No coffee. Just a long, easy conversation, comfortable silences, and glances that said more than words. When evening fell, Daniel showed her a corner of the shop he never shared with customersa little nook with a window overlooking the river.
“My grandfather read here when it rained,” he explained. “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.”
Daniel stepped closer, so slowly she felt his breath before she saw him beside her. “You can stop and stay.”
She turned her face to his. Just then, rain began tapping the window, as if it had been waiting for its cue.
“Looks like the skys on our side,” he murmured.
“Looks like,” she replied before kissing himsoft, warm, tasting of coffee and black tea. A kiss in no hurry at all.
From then on, 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 Carter and Daniel Whitmore learned that sometimes love doesnt come with the sun
But when the rain makes you stay a little longer.
