On Monday morning, I was back at Kelly's bar serving a customer, when the bell on the door rang out. I tensed as usual, but this time the feeling of anticipation didn't dissipate when I looked at who had walked in.

"Book boy is back," Emma said happily as she bounced towards the counter. Her long blonde ponytail shimmered as it swung. She hadn't leered at him as much as Callum, but that didn't mean she wasn't equally as interested. It was hard to miss the way she lingered near his table in the hope he'd make an order.

"Atticus," I offered as he settled into his usual position. He was nothing if not a creature of habit.

"He lives upstairs," I said in answer to Emma's raised eyebrow.

"He's the freaky silent neighbour?" Callum exclaimed as he finished warming up a customer's toastie and handed it across the counter.

"Yeah, him and some girl according to Gina."

"Do you think they're together?" Emma queried, the disappointment evident in her voice.

I shrugged. I should be disappointed too, except his good looks didn't send my heart fluttering in my chest. Instead they rose alarm bells, the result of an emotional warning system I installed when I was sixteen.

"Is she that attractive too? Or is he one of those pretty people that puts brains before beauty?" Callum probed salaciously as he pretended to polish the counter beside us.

"No idea."

"If they're not together, whose team do you think he's on?" he pushed with an eager glint in his eye.

"Team?" Emma asked as she settled herself on a stool and twirled her silky blonde hair through her fingers.

"You know, if he had to pick a fruit, do you think he'd prefer a banana, a pair of tangerines, or maybe a full fruit salad?"

I laughed at Callum's analogy.

A crease formed on Emma's brow, pushing her eyebrows down below the level of her fringe. "You've lost me."

"Men or women, Em. Cal's asking if I think he's gay or straight."

"Or all of the above," Callum added, the caramel colour in his hazel eyes twinkling impishly.

I watched Book Boy as I talked, "I have no idea. He doesn't really give off those kinds of vibes."

Callum sighed and propped himself on the counter, dropping all pretence of cleaning. "The lucky few who look like him don't have to. They just exist and the fruit just falls into their hands," he said wistfully, his eyes glued to Book Boy.

"Speak for yourself, no one touches my tangerines without putting some effort in," I said with an indignant smirk.

"Sweetie, your tangerines are superglued to the highest point of the tallest tree in an orangery guarded by the devil himself. They'll wither and shrivel before you let anybody anywhere near them," Callum drawled while he fixed me with that look that was quintessentially Callum. A perfectly groomed raised eyebrow, an audacious stare daring you to disagree, a playful smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth.

I swatted him with the cloth he'd discarded, the fabric lightly hitting him with a satisfying thwack. "Less sass, more scrubbing."

"I think they're more cantaloupes than tangerines," Emma said innocently as she stared at my chest.

"Emma!" I gasped with a smile, wrapping my arms around my torso.

I took a fleeting look at the bar, making sure the other customers hadn't somehow heard our conversation. It was unlikely given the din of chatter.

As my eyes briefly flashed across the room, I caught Book Boy watching us with a grin at the far side of the bar. The second our eyes met, he dropped his gaze back to the black book in front of him. If it wasn't for the fact there was no way he could hear us from that side of the bar, I could have sworn he had been listening.

Since that interaction, I watched him, and it was odd the things I learnt. When he wasn't writing in his book, he was reading it. Not in the way people read a novel or a magazine, casually flicking through pages. He read it like it a person read a textbook, or a scientific journal. It was like he dissected every word.

He seldom left his seat, despite sitting in it for up to eight hours a day. On the rare occasion he did, he always took his book with him, yet left his expensive phone unattended. Either he placed sentimental value above material worth, or he trusted those around him not to steal but not to sneak a peek at what he'd written.

Then there were the sweets. I had never really paid attention to how much he ate. It wasn't an easy thing to do somewhere like this. Each of us would refill the bowls or clear the empties, so it was difficult to pick out if a person was a gobbler or a grazer. Now I watched him, and made an effort to pay attention, I noticed Book Boy was most definitely a gobbler. A greedy one.

By Friday I'd lost track of how many bowls of sweets he'd ploughed through, but as I delivered a bowl of ready salted crisps on his table, I was shocked to see he didn't reach for them straight away.

He was lounging back in the chair, with his legs extended out in front of him, but he looked up when I spoke.

"Not hungry?" I asked.

He cast a glance at the bowl I'd put down.

"Have you got any Skittles?" he asked as he looked at the crisps with disgust.

"What's wrong with crisps?" I bit back, offended that he had the gall request a different kind of free snack. Kelly tried to preach that the customer was always right, but I'd yet to be converted.

"They're not Skittles," he said with a lopsided smile, a light dancing in his eyes in a way I hadn't seen before. He always smiled, but it never really reached his eyes like it did now. That glimmer made the bright blue sparkle like the sun bouncing off an ocean.

"They're free," I pushed, exasperated.

He blinked at me.

I looked at the shiny phone on the tabletop, and the fine navy jumper that clad his toned torso. As I did, I decided that there was another reason why he left his phone on the table but not his book. It was more than the fact he valued sentimentality above material worth. He just didn't seem to value expensive things, probably because he had no concept of what money was worth. To him the fact he was getting something for free was no different to if he had paid through the nose for it.

With that realisation fresh in my head, I looked at him, and it was like looking back at my past life. The memories it brought made my hand clench at my side.

"Order something and I'll think about bringing out a bowl of Skittles," I snapped, resting my hand on my hip.

He wasn't fazed by my change of mood.

"I'll have a soda," he said lightly, something shrewd and calculating in his eyes.

I rose one dark eyebrow as I watched him expectantly.

He chuckled roughly. "Please."

"Anything in particular?"

"Surprise me." He pressed his tips in a tight line, a playful glimmer back in his eyes.

I nodded tightly and spun on the spot.

"He's actually ordered something?" Callum asked with surprise as I returned to the bar.

"I held the Skittles hostage."

"What's wrong with crisps?" Callum questioned, and I shrugged in reply. I dropped chunks of ice into a pint glass and filled it to the top with Coke before walking it back to the table.

"I'll put it on a tab, just pay on your way out."

I leaned forward and laid a napkin down on the table to act as a coaster. As I did the door behind me opened and a stiff autumn breeze swept through the bar. I pressed the napkin in place to keep it from fluttering away.

I wouldn't have noticed what I did, if I hadn't been eyeballing the napkin.

As the wind made the napkin battle against my fingers, I saw the pages of the black book fly open with the breeze. The wind rifled through them, like it was searching for something, and in the process, I saw a blur of white flick past my eyes. It didn't last for long before Book Boy's hand slammed the book shut. Wide and authoritative as it pinned the pages below it.

"Strange," I murmured quietly as I placed the Coke on top of the napkin.

"What's strange," he whispered in my ear playfully.

I jumped; unaware he had leaned over so closely.

"I thought..." I started as I thought about what exactly I had seen.

"Yes?"

"I thought I saw you writing in it earlier, but it's blank." I frowned as I sifted through my memories of the past few weeks. It was definitely the same book. I knew it was because I remember thinking how soft the cover looked. The worn leather was lighter in places through years of human contact. Just today I'd seen him making notes with the same silver fountain pen he always wrote in. I'd heard the sound of the pen scratching against the paper. I'd seen him rereading the things he'd written. I was certain of all those things. However, as sure I was of all that, I was also certain that, when the wind had whipped through the pages, each one was inexplicably empty. No notes, no ink, nothing but white. Could I have been wrong? Maybe he wrote in invisible ink, that existed didn't it?

"That is strange," he mused with a smile. This time it wasn't real. This time there was no light in his eyes. Instead they were hard and cold like ice. "Almost as strange as you snooping through a customer's personal possessions," he continued with the same odd juxtaposition in his expression. His voice was light and breezy —like a friend teasing another— but his eyes watched me intently.

He chuckled as he leant back. I felt myself blush when I thought back on what I had done, what I was accusing him of. Whatever that was.

"Sorry, that is weird isn't it," I jabbered, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind my ear. I felt oddly out of character. Like the persona I'd built here had just dropped away, and I'd been left vulnerable.

"I'll let you off if you bring a bowl of Skittles out." He winked as he pushed the untouched bowl of crisps towards me.

I hesitated but conceded with a sigh.

With every step away from his table, I felt my guard go back up. By the time I returned, I was locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

As soon as I placed the Skittles on his table, his fingers rifled through them. I should have found it interesting that he avoided the green ones again, but all I could think about was the black book that sat in front of him and the blank pages within.