“You first,” Vick said.

Vick and Viola weren’t a grand romance. They were a quiet one. A second shelf, not the center display. But if you listened closely—past the noise of the world—you could hear them building a home out of inside jokes, stubborn love, and the gentle art of growing side by side.

They were an unlikely equation—haste and hesitance, volume and whisper. Vick taught Viola how to order coffee without apologizing. Viola taught Vick that a Sunday afternoon could be spent doing nothing at all, and that nothing could feel like everything.

“No,” Viola replied, smiling softly. “You read faster.”