Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

The note under her door read: ‘Re: the drilling. I am sorry. It will be finished by Thursday. — 4B.‘ It was written in very careful handwriting on the back of a hardware store receipt, which meant he’d written it standing in the aisle between spackle and sandpaper, and Priya found this oddly endearing.

She’d lived next to 4B for eight months without learning his name.

She knew other things. She knew he made coffee at seven-fifteen. She knew he played guitar badly on Wednesday evenings and improved significantly by Sunday. She knew he’d been renovating since March with the particular energy of someone who had decided this was going to save him from something.

She also knew, because walls were thin, that he laughed at his own jokes on the phone and that his mother called every Sunday and that he’d said ‘I’m fine, Mum, I promise‘ in a tone that meant neither.

She had not meant to catalogue him. It had happened organically, the way you learned the rhythms of anything you lived beside.

She wrote back: ‘Thank you for the note. I appreciate the honesty. What is it you’re actually building? — 4A.‘

His reply, that evening: ‘Library. Small one. The built-ins are proving complicated. Do you know anything about load-bearing walls? Asking for a friend who is definitely me.‘

She did not know anything about load-bearing walls. She was an urban planner; she knew about load-bearing streets, which was not the same thing.

She knocked on his door.

He opened it with a pencil behind his ear and paint on his forearm and a look of complete surprise, like he’d expected anyone but the person who lived next door.

“Priya from 4A,” she said.

“Dev from 4B,” he said, and opened the door wider.

The flat was beautiful chaos — bookshelves half-built, the smell of fresh paint, blueprints spread across the kitchen table, and in the middle of it all a space that was clearly, unmistakably, becoming something wonderful.

“You’re really building a library,” she said.

“I really am.”

“In a flat.”

“It’s a very small library.”

She walked in, because he’d left the door open and the blueprints were right there and she had a professional instinct that was difficult to override. She looked at the plans. She looked at the wall in question.

“This is the problem,” she said, pointing.

“I know this is the problem. I don’t know how to fix the problem.”

“You redistribute here and here. You’ll need to consult a structural engineer for the actual work, but the principle is straightforward.”

He looked at the wall. He looked at her.

“You’re an architect?”

“Urban planner. Adjacent.”

“Close enough to be remarkable.”

She smiled and he smiled back and the flat was warm and smelled of paint and the library wasn’t finished yet but she could already see what it would be — a good, quiet, full place.

“Dev,” she said. “Why does a person build a library in a rental flat?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Because I spent a year in a place with no books and I decided never again.”

She understood that. She understood it in her bones.

“Can I see it when it’s finished?” she asked.

“You can help me fill it,” he said, like that was the natural next thing. “If you want. Bring your favourites.”

She went home and immediately looked at her shelves.

She stayed up far too late deciding which books would make a good first impression on a man who was building a library because he’d once had none.

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So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.