Rowan has spent his whole life being overlooked. At twenty-two, he works the graveyard shift at a lonely gas station, goes home to an empty apartment, and keeps careful lists just to prove he existed through another day.

Then something in the dark begins watching him.

A shadow in the storage room. A voice that knows his name. Cold fingers against his skin when no one is there.

Rowan should be terrified. Instead, for the first time in his life, he feels seen.

Jax is ancient, trapped between worlds, and far from human. He was supposed to use Rowan—to burn through the strange gift that makes him visible in the gray and finally escape his prison. But Rowan doesn't run. He asks questions. He listens. He chooses to stay.

And Jax, who has spent forty-three years in nothingness, begins to want something more than freedom. He wants him.

As their bond deepens, Rowan is pulled into a world of veilwalkers, impossible hunger, and transformations that cannot be undone. The closer he gets to Jax, the less human he becomes—but the more real he has ever felt.

Because some love stories don't begin with a first glance. Some begin with the feeling that something has been watching you all along.

He Watched Me First is a dark, atmospheric MM paranormal romance about obsession, loneliness, consent, transformation, and the terrifying beauty of finally being chosen.