SOME MAY CALL IT DESTINY: one
Parings: hollis x film!photographer!reader
tags: fluff, slow burn, strangers to lovers, mutual pining, miscommunication.
in which y/n and hollis always seem to run into each other at erewhon (no specified timeline)
You werenât supposed to be here.
Erewhon was a forty-minute detour from your apartment and a thirty dollar commitment just for a smoothie, which is why youâd only been twice beforeâ both times dragged by your friend who swore the mushroom elixir (a/n: eeyuck) had changed her life. You didnât believe her. You still donât believe her. But you were out of oat milk and the traffic on Fairfax had rerouted you past the parking lot, and somehow, in a way you couldnât fully explain to yourself, you were inside.
The produce section was quiet for a Saturday morning. Soft, filtered light. The kind of place that made you feel underdressed even in the light pink workout set with your hoodie pulled over.
You were staring at adaptogenic honeyâ three jars, three prices that made you feel vaguely illâ when you felt someone stop beside you. Not touching. Just close enough that you clocked them in your peripheral vision. You didnât look up.
You read the label on the back of the honey jar twice without actually taking anything in.
âThat oneâs not worth it.â
He was already looking at the shelf, not at you. Tallâ very tall, unbothered, a black hoodie pulled loose over his head. He reached past youâ not quite past you, you had to shift slightly, and you didâ and picked up the jar on the far left.
âthis one.â He set it back without looking at you. âThe other two are the same thing with different labels.â
You looked at the jar heâd indicated. Then at him.
He still wasnât looking at you.
A beat of silence. He glanced over then, just briefly, like he was reassessing something. His eyes were dark, tired, and completely level.
âI read the back,â he said.
Then he moved down the aisle.
You stood there holding the jar heâd pointed to. You turned it over and actually read the back, then you read the back of the other two.
You put the cheaper one in your basket and didn't look for him again. At least you tried not to. You were at the checkout when you caught yourself scanning the store againâ a quick one-two, the way you do when youâve misplaced something.
You paid thirty-eight dollars for honey, oat milk, and a bottle of something green that you definitely didnât need, and you drove home thinking about almost nothing.
Three weeks later. Tuesday.
You were shooting on filmâ youâd been in Los Feliz all morning for a project that was eating at your life, a series of interiors that kept you not quite working, the light always a few degrees off from what you needed. By noon you were tired and hungry, so you stopped by Erewhon because it was thereâ you were already having the kind of day where you made poor financial decisions.
You were in line at the smoothie bar, staring at the menuâ eyes unfocused, when you heard someone behind you order in a voice you recognized before you understood why.
You slightly turned your body to look behind you.
He was closer than you expected. He glanced at you at the same moment, and something shifted in his expressionâ not surprise exactly, more like a quiet recalibration, the look of someone filing something away.
The person at the counter asked for your order. You turned back and gave it, slightly flustered, and when you slapped aside to wait you were aware of him stepping up behind you. You scrolled through your phoneâ mainly looking at the weather app.
He came to stand a few feet away, waiting for his order. You could feel the specific quality of his stillness. He wasnât performing nonchalance; he just genuinely seemed to take up exactly as much space as he needed.
âYou come here a lot?â you asked. You didnât plan to.
He looked at you. âEnough.â
âMe neither,â you said, which didnât quite make grammatical sense as a response, and he almost smiledâ not quite, but almost, a small shift at the corner of his mouth that you would think about later in a way that annoyed you.
Your smoothie came up. You grabbed it and said, âsee you around,â which also felt like a weird thing to say given youâd seen him twice, both by accident, in a store you rarely came to.
âYeah,â he said, looking at you for a moment longer than what felt strictly neutral.
You walked out into the hot and bright afternoon light, drinking your smoothie down the sidewalk and thinking about the way he'd said yeahâ like it wasnât a dismissal, but like a small fire that was left open.
You told yourself you were reading into it.
You started noticing a pattern after this one.
It was Friday evening, golden hour, the whole city doing that thing where it looks almost worth it. Youâd been developing film all day in your friendâs darkroom, you smelled like chemicals, and your eyes hurt. You stopped at Erewhon for something that didnât require you to cook.
You were in the already prepared food section, weighing the moral implications of spending twenty-two dollars on a grain bowl, when you looked up and he was standing there.
Across the aisle. Looking at the same wall of overpriced food with the same flat, considering expression heâd had the first time you saw him, like he was unimpressed but present.
He saw you at the same moment.
Neither of you said anything for a second.
Then; âAgain,â he said. Not a question.
He picks something up from the shelf and reads the back of it, and you watch him for a moment longer than you should have before you look back towards the grain bowls.
âYou live around here?â you asked.
You nodded. You picked up the grain bowl. You put it back. You picked it up again.
âYou always do that?â he asked.
You looked up. He was watching you with an expression that was almostâ not amused, but adjacent to it. Attentive, maybe. Like you had his full attention and he wasnât sure yet what to do with that.
You thought about it. âOnly when it costs twenty-two dollars.â
He made a small sound, low, that might have been a laugh, You felt it somewhere in your chest in a way that was disproportionate to how quiet it was.
âGet the bowl,â he said, and turned back to the shelf.
You got the bowl. You paid for it, walked to your car and sat in the driverâs seat for a moment before starting the engine.
Youâd run into him three times in a store you usually came to maybe once a month.
You thought about his eyes in the fluorescent-warm light. The way he looked at you like he was always in the middle of deciding something.
You drove home. Ate the grain bowlâ it wasnât worth wasting twenty-two dollars.
You went back the following Friday anyway.
taglist: @2bun22. @luvvconceal. @spectranix. @sweet2sin.
a/n: nana so bored she just putting anything out. (i just made some BULLSHITTTT)