He brought her a candle on their third date. Not flowers, not wine. A small, amber jar with a handwritten label that simply said: Dreaming in Lavender.

“It reminded me of you,” he said, a little embarrassed.

She smiled and didn’t ask why. She lit it that night, long after he left, and the room filled with something quiet, something kind.

They never rushed anything. Love came in glances across cafe tables, in the shared silence of Sunday afternoons. In small things—like the way his hand always found hers when they walked.

She called these moments candlelikes.

The way he leaned in close to whisper something silly. The pause before a kiss. The warm hush of laughter under blankets. Not grand gestures, but glimmers—soft, flickering, real.

One night, as the candle melted low and music hummed in the background, he turned to her.

“I think I love you in candlelikes,” he said.

She nodded, leaned into him, and whispered, “Then don’t ever stop lighting them.”