The Night Shift Bookshop

Rain again. The city does this at night, a soft static against the glass, neon smearing in the puddles like spilled paint.

You stand under the awning of Lanternlight Books and read the sign in the window, the one that has been there longer than you have been alive. OPEN. Always. The light inside is the color of weak tea and somehow it reaches all the way out to you.

You borrowed this apron from a box by the door an hour ago, when August hired you on the spot for reasons he didn't explain. It still smells of someone else's coffee.

You take a breath. Somewhere past midnight, in a city that refuses to sleep, you are about to start over.