They had never really spoken.

Not properly.

Elliot has seen her before, behind the coffee stall on Newbury High Street, under striped awnings, serving half the town without ever noticing him watching.

Rowan knows exactly who he is.

When a reckless radio competition offers a huge cash prize, demanding that contestants try to get married by 10 pm, she does something impulsive, practical… and quietly inevitable.

She asks him.

What follows is not a race for a prize, but a race through rain-soaked streets, stalled trains, and a city brought to a standstill, where plans fall apart, signals drop, and the clock keeps ticking.

Somewhere between Newbury and Birmingham, with the world grinding to a halt around them, Elliot and Rowan realise something far more dangerous than losing:

They might actually mean it.

Before Ten is a story about chance, pressure, and the moment when two people stop running and decide, quietly, stubbornly, to choose each other.