If the bid exceeds the ask there will be a trade; if not, the order will rest on the book. That's entirely normal, and a smoothly-functioning exchange should allow granular enough pricing that there would be a clear spread - when the spread is the minimum increment possible (as it usually is in equities markets - the offer is almost always just $.01 above the spread) that is a sign that there are trades that could be executing but aren't (e.g. if the bid is at 5.23 and the offer at 5.24, maybe both parties would be willing to trade at 5.233).

There's an argument that more granular prices make it harder for humans to read the order book but I don't put much faith in it.