I leaned back into the leather and stared at the houses generously spaced beyond the driveway, their windows glowing against the dark, the lies loud in my head.
Dad was lying. Drew was evasive. And the boardwalk studio—the one place that was supposed to be left intact for the community but really for Mila—was gone.
It hadn’t even been my father’s vision. It was mine. An idea he’d once pretended to back, selling it as civic goodwill when it was the only thing I’d asked him to protect.
Now it was another deal on paper. Another promise broken.
Sophomore year, after practice, Mila and I had cut across the boardwalk, skates still clacking from where I’d had them slung over my shoulder. The air had tasted of salt and sugar, funnel cake oil turning the wind sweet. She’d stopped at the corner lot—the shuttered building with the peeling blue trim and sun-bleached sign. And in the window, another sign that read for lease.
“What would you put in there?” she’d asked, hair in her mouth from the wind, pencil already out as though the answer was supposed to be sketched, not spoken.
“Smoothie shop,” I’d thrown out.
Her unguarded laugh hit me dead center. “You? Blending fruit for tourists?”
“Better than another T-shirt store.”
She’d stepped closer to the glass, breath fogging a small circle. “Art gallery.”
“Wouldn’t make a dime,” I muttered.
“Too perfect,” she murmured back, eyes on the empty building, and the way she lingered on it told me she meant more than the space. Then she lifted her sketchbook, angled it against the window frame, and started drawing. Quick lines. The window frames first. Then the door. Then a line of light she imagined would hit the floor at sunset. Half the time, she drew like she could force the world to bend to her lines.
I’d watched the way she bit her lip when a line didn’t land exactly how she wanted and how she kept going anyway. Watched her reflection in the glass look braver than either of us felt.
“Gallery’s a lot of work,” I’d muttered, because vulnerability made me stupid. “You’d have to?—”
“—source artists and curate?” She’d shot me a look. “I know what to do with a door when it finally opens, Luke.”
I didn’t say it then, but I thought it. I wanted this one to open for her. I wanted that building to stay exactly where it was until we could make something out of it that she would stand inside and call her own.
I could still see her there if I closed my eyes. Her hair snapping in the wind. Pencil carving possibility where everyone else saw a tax write-off. She smiled sideways at me, a small curve that let me in on the joke, trusting I wouldn’t ruin it.
So yeah. It mattered. She mattered.
Whatever my father erased with that lease, I was going to get it back. Dig it up. Hold it steady. Even if it meant tearing through every wall he built. Because it wasn’t just a building. It was hers.Her dream sketched in graphite and painted in oils, her laugh fogging the glass. And if keeping that alive meant burning my father’s blueprint to the ground, then so be it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MILA
The committee meeting was supposed to be routine—Elise in her element, practiced smile in place, while the school board liaison cooed over her clipboard as though it were the cure for cancer.
My job? Event entry coordination. Stand at the door and smile. A placeholder role, just enough to claim I was reinstated without giving me anything that mattered. Fine. This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time—it was mandated, and that was the only reason I was here. That, and to figure out why someone cared enough to put me back on the list—and who the hell Mr. Langley was. I needed to push Elise for answers but not let her see I wanted them. If she did, she’d twist it into another weapon.
I tuned most of the conversation out. My pencil wandered instead, sketching in the margin of the packet—nothing focused, just lines that spiraled into something almost resembling wings before I pressed too hard and the lead snapped.
Elise didn’t look at me once. And somehow, that unsettled me more than if she had. Maybe her silence wasn’t about me at all but about who she’d spoken with—Mr. Langley.
Her pen slipped against the page, leaving a streak of ink. She smoothed it like nothing had happened, but her jaw ticked once. The moms around her didn’t notice. I did. Elise hated being ignored, and right now, she was pretending I wasn’t even in the room.
When the meeting broke, I slipped out the side door before she could think of a reason to pull me back. The sun hit low and gold across the library steps, and the air carried an earthy, damp scent. I adjusted my bag and was halfway down when I heard it.
“Hey.”
I turned to find Tori. She hugged her tablet to her chest as if it were armor, strawberry-blond ponytail pulled tight, eyes darting toward the quad before she stepped closer.
“Is Theo avoiding everyone today or just me?” Her voice tried for breezy, but the stiffness in her shoulders gave her away.
