Leroy wanted one thing: to talk to a stranger long enough to be liked. But his stoic face read as a threat. In the diner, the woman beside him grabbed her coffee and slid three stools down. He hadn't even spoken. He just wanted someone to stay. His older brother Elias watched from across the counter and laughed. Elias charmed people without trying. He winked at the waitress, and she refilled his cup for free. Leroy scowled at his own untouched plate, which only made a man near the door hurry out. "You're doing the murder face again," Elias said. He leaned close. "Nobody sees the guy who cried at a dog movie. They see this." He pointed at Leroy's flat mouth and dark eyes. "I can't change my face," Leroy said. "You don't have to. You have to give them a reason to stay." Elias spun off his stool. "Wait here. Do not glare at anyone." Leroy sat stiff while his brother crossed the diner. In the corner booth, a short woman with red curly hair bent over a sketchbook. She wore a dark cardigan and heavy boots. Silver eyes, tired and sharp. She didn't look up when Elias slid into her booth. Elias talked. The woman answered without smiling. Then Elias pointed back at Leroy, and Leroy did the worst thing. He froze. His face locked hard, the way it always did when he panicked. The woman glanced over. Leroy expected her to look away like the others. Instead she studied him. She flipped her sketchbook shut and walked over, mug in hand. "Your brother says you're scary," she said. She sat down on the stool the coffee woman had left. "He's selling it too hard." Leroy's throat went dry. "I'm not scary." "I know. Scary people don't hold their fork like it might break." She nodded at his hand. He was gripping it like a lifeline. He set it down fast. "Rori," she said. She didn't offer to shake. She just stayed. That was the part that stunned him. She stayed. Nobody stayed. "I drew you," Rori said. She turned the sketchbook halfway. On the page was his face, but soft. The hard jaw, the heavy brows, the Roman nose. Under it she'd written one word: worried. "That's not how people see me," Leroy said. "It's how you actually look." She sipped her coffee. "Most people are lazy. They stop at the first glance." Elias returned, grinning, ready to take credit. Rori didn't look at him. She kept her tired silver eyes on Leroy and asked what the dog movie was. Leroy answered. She stayed for an hour. When she finally left, she tore the sketch from her book and slid it across the counter. "Keep it," she said. "So you remember what you really look like." The obstacle was gone. Someone had stayed. But now Leroy knew her name, held her drawing, and had no idea how to see her again.

A week after the diner, Rori's sketch still hung on Leroy's fridge. He lived above a mechanic's garage. The flat smelled of oil and old coffee. He'd looked at that drawing every morning, at the word she wrote under his face. Worried. He wanted to see her again. He just didn't know how to make it happen. Elias solved it for him, the way he solved everything. He showed up at the flat with two cups of coffee and a grin. "Good news. I found where she works. That little bookshop." He set a cup on the workbench. "I'll go in tomorrow. Warm her up. Get her number. Then I hand it to you." Leroy stared at his brother. That was the plan. Elias talks. Elias charms. Elias delivers the girl like a part for a car. And it would work. It always worked. "No," Leroy said. Elias blinked. "No?" "If you get her number, she likes you. Not me." The words came out slow and hard. "She stayed for me at the diner. Not for your winking. Me." "Little brother." Elias set down his coffee. "You freeze up. You do the murder face. I'm trying to help." "I know." Leroy's throat tightened. "But every time you help, she meets you. I need her to meet me." Elias opened his mouth. Then he closed it. For once he had nothing charming to say. He picked up his coffee and leaned back. "Okay," he said quietly. "Then what's your move?" Leroy didn't have one. He looked at the sketch on the fridge. She saw past the face. Maybe he just had to let her keep looking. He crossed to his closet and pulled out a flannel shirt, warm orange and brown. His mother said it brought out his eyes. He never wore it. Too soft for a face like his. "I'll go myself," Leroy said. "Tomorrow. Alone." Elias watched him hold up the shirt. Something in his brother's face changed. The grin faded into something smaller and real. "You'll freeze," Elias warned. "Probably." Leroy folded the shirt over his arm. "But it'll be me freezing." Elias stood. He walked to the door, then stopped. "For what it's worth, she didn't laugh at my jokes." He almost smiled. "She waited for you to talk. I noticed." The door shut. Leroy was alone in the oily quiet. He hung the flannel on the chair where he'd see it first thing. His hands were sweating already. Tomorrow he would walk into that bookshop with no brother, no plan, and a face that scared strangers. But it would be his face she saw. That was the whole point. He looked at the drawing one more time and let himself be scared.

Leroy wore the orange flannel the next morning. He walked to the bookshop with a book from his own shelf, an old repair manual for engines. If she asked why he came, he could say he wanted a trade. It was a thin excuse. But it was better than nothing. The bookshop sat low and wooden, its shelves crammed to the ceiling. A bell rang when he pushed the door. The warm smell of paper hit him. Near the counter, a round possum sat in a crate. It lifted its head and stared at him with sharp orange eyes. Its lip curled, as if it had already decided he was trouble. Leroy froze in the doorway. The possum kept judging. His hand tightened on the manual. He almost turned around. Then Rori came out from behind a shelf, arms full of books. Red curls fell across her face. She saw him and stopped. Her silver eyes went wide, then soft. "Oh," she said. "It's you." Leroy opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His face did the thing it always did, the hard flat look that scared people. Rori didn't back away. She set her books down and tilted her head. "I thought about you," she said. "After the diner. I wondered if I'd see you again." She glanced at the possum. "Don't mind him. He hates everyone." Leroy looked at the possum, then back at her. The joke loosened something in his chest. He held up the manual. His voice came out low and rough. "I brought this. To trade. Engines." Rori took it. She flipped a page and smiled. "You fix things." She said it like it mattered. "I can't fix anything. I just draw it." "I know," Leroy said. "You drew me." Her cheeks went pink. "I did." She set the manual on the counter and kept her hand on it. "You came by yourself. No brother this time." "He wanted to come." Leroy swallowed. "I told him no. I wanted you to meet me. Not him." Rori went quiet. The possum shifted in its crate. She looked at Leroy for a long moment, the way she had at the diner, past the face, into whatever sat behind it. "Good," she said. "I like meeting you." She tore a strip of paper from a notepad. She wrote on it and pressed it into his hand. Her fingers were warm. "I close at six on Thursdays," she said. "There's a diner I like. If you want." Leroy looked down. Her number. Her handwriting, small and round. He'd walked in with a thin excuse and no plan. He was walking out with this. "Thursday," he said. Rori grinned. The possum glared. Leroy stepped back into the cold, the paper folded tight in his fist. He hadn't frozen for good. And she'd asked him, not the other way around.