Chapter Three
I didn’t expect you. That was the trouble.
You were too much at once. Too loud in your conviction, too steady in the way you looked at me like you already knew me.
You filled the room without asking permission, and somehow made me want to stay inside the noise.
I was overwhelmed. I was drawn in. I still am.
Still here, Jack
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Issaky Jones arrived on a Thursday.
Ellis would remember that detail later, because Thursdays were usually typical in a way he depended on.
It was too late in the week for casual browsing but still too early for the weekend crowd.
Thursdays meant predictable foot traffic, familiar faces, and long stretches where the store settled into loneliness and let him do the same.
So when the bell above the door chimed. It was too sharp, too bright, half a beat louder than it ever sounded for anyone else. Ellis knew immediately that something was wrong.
The air changed. Not in a mystical way, nothing so dramatic.
But the subtle, sensory sort of shift made Ellis's shoulders inch upward and his jaw lock tight before his brain could catch up.
The store felt fuller, denser, like sound had weight now.
Like someone had turned the saturation up on the room.
He fucking hated it.
Ellis had been behind the counter, alphabetizing a crate of used records Clyde had picked up from an estate sale.
The smell of old paper and mildew clung to them, sharp but manageable.
He had one headphone on, the Ramones playing low.
Just enough to anchor him without drowning out the room completely.
His hands had been steady. His breathing even.
Then the man walked in.
He was tall, broad-shouldered and unfairly attractive.
He moved like he expected the world to make space for him.
And worse, it looked like it probably did.
His presence didn’t creep or hover; it announced itself.
His boots hit the floor with solid confidence, sending vibrations through the worn boards, unfamiliar patterns disrupting the internal map Ellis had memorized over years.
The man paused just inside the door, letting it close behind him, and smiled.
The smile was a problem.
It was easy and unforced. His smile was the kind that reached his eyes and made Ellis want to smile back before he could stop himself. His skin was a deep, warm brown even under harsh fluorescent lights.
His jaw was sharp enough that Ellis's brain latched onto the line of it without permission.
Dark locs were pulled half-up at the crown of his head, the rest spilling loose over his shoulders.
A few were dyed a dark blue. They were so subtle that Ellis almost missed them, like ink soaked into black fabric.
Ellis's chest tightened.
The man looked expensive. Not gaudy, just intentional.
Clean sneakers that probably never touched puddles.
A fitted jacket that hugged his shoulders just right.
Silver jewelry that caught the light when he moved: chains, rings, a watch that glinted when he lifted his hand, and, unexpectedly, a small silver hoop in his left nostril.
Too much. Too many details all at once.
Seattle was full of eccentric people. Different aesthetics, cultures, and classes collided everywhere. But something about this man was magnetic in a way that made it hard to look away and harder to breathe.
The man scanned the store slowly, eyes bright with interest, like he was taking inventory. Like the space already belonged to him in some abstract, unspoken way. His gaze lingered on the layered flyers, the crooked handwritten signs taped to bins, the milk crates stacked near the door.
When his eyes flicked toward Ellis, something in Ellis's stomach dropped.
He looked away immediately, pretending to be absorbed in the record sleeves in front of him.
He aligned the edges too carefully, tapped the crate twice to square it.
His heart was beating too fast now, each thud echoing in his ears.
“Wow,” the man said.
His voice was warm and rich. Not overtly loud but it still filled the space, rounded and confident.
Bizarrely, Ellis thought that it felt like it was used to being listened to.
It slipped under Ellis's headphone and wrapped around his thoughts before he could block it.
Ellis had a tendency to lean into personification when he was stressed.
“This place is…something else.” He smiled as he shoved his hands into his pants pockets.
Pants that probably cost more than Ellis's entire outfit.
Walkman included.
Ellis didn’t respond. Customers said things like that sometimes, but this felt different. Less reverent. More curious. Like the man was already imagining what the store could be instead of letting it be what it already was.
Clyde emerged from the back room, wiping his hands on a rag. He stopped short when he saw the man.
“Well,” Clyde said, recovering quickly. “If it isn’t the snazzy young man himself.”
Ellis's fingers stilled. So this was him. The one Clyde had mentioned. The cologne-and-shoes-that-cost-too-much guy. The future with a face.
The man laughed, easy and bright. “Guilty as charged. I’m Issaky. Issaky Jones.”
He stepped forward and offered his hand. Clyde hesitated for the briefest second before taking it, his grip firm but wary.
“Clyde,” he said. “Owner. Curator. Janitor.”
Issaky grinned. “Legend, from what I hear.”
Ellis bristled. People didn’t use words like that lightly. Not here. Not without earning them.
Clyde tilted his head. “From who?”
Issaky shrugged. “People who care about places like this. Independent stores. Community spaces.”
Community.
The word scraped against something raw inside Ellis and he squeezed his fists in an attempt to ground himself. He felt as his fingernails bit into his palms, desperately trying to ground himself.
Issaky turned his attention back to the store and wandered deeper without asking permission. His footsteps were steady, unhurried, echoing a little too loudly in Ellis's chest. He ran his fingers along the edge of a shelf as he passed. He was not touching the records themselves, just the wood.
Ellis hated that he noticed. Hated that his eyes followed Issaky anyway. Hated that he wanted to smack that hand away. Stop touching his records.
The man stopped near the punk section, scanning the spines.
“You’ve got good taste,” he said over his shoulder.
“That’s subjective,” Clyde replied.
Issaky laughed. “Sure. But I still mean it.”
The Ramones blurred into noise in Ellis's ear. The song lost its shape. He slid the headphone off, letting it rest around his neck. The pressure was no longer grounding, just irritating.
Issaky turned then, really looking at him. The gaze lingered. Not invasive. Just curious and almost, assessing?
Ellis felt exposed, like the man could see the way he held himself too rigidly, the way his fingers hovered near his sleeves, ready to retreat.
“And who’s this?” Issaky asked, a grin plastered to his face.
Ellis froze. He didn't know he felt about the undivided attention this obnoxiously irritating man was giving him. Ellis couldn’t bring himself to look up into his face. He didn’t want to look at this man. Couldn’t force himself to take in features and potentially be seen in return.
He opened his mouth, but Clyde answered first.
“This is Ellis Carter,” Clyde said. “He runs the place.”
Issaky’s eyebrows lifted. “Runs it, huh?”
Something light and impressive in his tone set Ellis's teeth on edge.
“Works here,” Ellis corrected flatly, still not looking at either of their faces.
Issaky smiled wider. “Modest, too, Mr. Carter.”
That did it. Ellis hated him. He hated how Issaky took up space so easily. It seemed like he would just say whatever. The consequences of those words meant nothing to him, since they were his truth. Ellis didn’t like the way it made Clyde soften his posture, opening him to more conversation.
Issaky stepped closer to the counter, leaning his elbows on it like it was casual, familiar.
Ellis's pulse spiked. Too close. He could smell him now.
It was some sort of clean, subtle cologne layered over something warm and more human.
It disrupted the careful balance of dust and vinyl Ellis relied on.
“So,” Issaky said, glancing between them. “You’ve probably guessed why I’m here.”
“You want to buy my store,” Clyde said.
“I want to talk about it.”
“No,” Ellis said, sharper than he meant to.
Both of them looked at him and heat flooded his face. He swallowed, forcing his hands to unclench.
“This place isn’t for sale.”
Issaky studied him for a moment, expression unreadable. Then he nodded. “I get why you’d feel that way.”
Feel. As if this were emotion, not survival.
“I’m not here to bulldoze anything,” Issaky said. “I care about spaces like this. That’s why I buy them. Keep them alive.”
Alive.
The word landed wrong. Alive meant change. New shelves. New rules. Losing the precise creak of the third floorboard from the left. The exact pitch of the bell. The comfort of knowing what came next.
“You don’t know this place,” Ellis said.
Issaky’s smile faded slightly. “I guess you’re right. I don’t really. Yet.”
“Then you don’t get to decide what keeps it alive.”
Clyde shot Ellis a warning look but he ignored it, refusing to back down from this overly confident asshole. Well, asshole might have been too much. Issaky didn't seem impolite.
Issaky straightened, stepping back. Relief flickered through Ellis at the extra space.
“Fair,” Issaky said. “That’s why I’m talking. Listening.”
Listening sounded like a lie, even as Issaky’s eyes stayed on Ellis. They screamed open, attentive.
“I’m not interested in gutting its soul,” Issaky continued. “Sometimes preserving something means changing it. Sometimes it means protecting it.”
Ellis's head buzzed. Issaky spoke like someone used to being trusted. Used to being right.
“That’s not your call.”
“Ellis,” Clyde said quietly.
Ellis bit down on the words crowding his mouth. The store felt smaller now. The lights hummed louder. Issaky’s presence pressed in on him from all sides.
“I should go,” Issaky said after a moment. “Didn’t mean to drop a bomb and bounce.”
“You did both,” Clyde replied.
Issaky laughed softly. “Fair.”
He headed for the door, steps slower now. At the threshold, he pinned his card to the corkboard near the missing dog poster that had hung there for seven years. Then he looked back at Ellis.
“For what it’s worth,” Issaky said, “I don’t want to take anything from you.”
Ellis didn’t respond. He couldn’t.
The bell chimed as Issaky left, its tired sound jangling too sharply in Ellis's nerves. The door shut, and the store exhaled but not completely. Issaky’s presence lingered
Ellis sagged against the counter, legs weak. His hands trembled, adrenaline still flooding his system.
“Well,” Clyde said quietly. “That could’ve gone worse.”
Ellis let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t see how.”
Clyde studied him. “You okay?”
Ellis nodded, though it wasn’t true. “I will be.”
Clyde sighed. “He’s not wrong about one thing.”
Ellis stiffened. “Which is?”
“The store needs help,” Clyde said gently. “Not today. But eventually.”
“Not him.”
Clyde hesitated. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. We’ll see.”
Ellis turned away and slipped his headphones back on with shaking hands. The Ramones roared to life. Fast and loud enough to drown out Issaky’s voice, but his smile burned into Ellis's mind.
Ellis hated him. Hated what he represented: the future, change, the possibility that the only place he’d ever felt safe could be reshaped by someone who didn’t understand how fragile that safety was.
And worse. He hated the small, traitorous part of himself that had noticed the warmth in Issaky’s eyes, the steadiness in his presence, the way his attention had lingered like he wasn’t looking past Ellis at all.
That part scared him more than anything. Because it meant the threat wasn’t just external. Something inside him was already shifting, whether he wanted it to or not.