Next time, I’m charging.
Worth it. Goodnight, Snarky Stranger.
Goodnight.
I’m smiling, surprised by how easy that felt.
Before setting the phone down, I slip a hand into my pocket and pull out the compass. The needle wobbles once. Then steadies.
North.
Anchor.
I’m neither tonight. I’m just someone standing still beneath a sky that won’t stop spinning. But for now, that’s enough.
To be here.
To still look up.
To still believe the stars are worth chasing.
And to find bright ones in the most unexpected places.
CHAPTER 7
THE NEPHEW AND THE KNIFE
NOLAN
Sunlight stabs through the blinds,nailing me right in the face like a cosmic middle finger. My lower back protests with a dull ache—a not-so-subtle reminder that my couch is not a proper bed. Chloe picked it out. Too stiff. Too white. Too curated.
I should get a new one.
Yeah. I’ll do that today.
The coffee table in front of me is a full-blown war zone. Takeout containers teeter like Jenga, an abandoned whiskey tumbler, and a lazy sprawl of laundry that never quite made it to the basket.
Sitting up, I rub the sleep from my eyes, and take in the wreckage.
It feels… lived in. Chloe would’ve hated this. Her spaces were airbrushed—couch pillows karate-chopped into magazine perfection.
“We should present our best selves,” she’d say, smoothing corners that didn’t need fixing.
And I let her. Because I loved her.
But now, in the quiet of this imperfect space, I realize how much I missed actually living in it.
My phone buzzes.
A jagged fracture splits across the screen. A memory surfaces—me telling Rorie Adams that cracks meant change. It had been a non-flirtatious line at the time. But now, staring at the spiderweb across theglass, I wonder if the universe was trying to shout through the silence in that moment.
A text from my assistant, Tammy, comes through.
You working today or what? Your driver said he’s been waiting for over an hour and your not answering your phone.
I check the time. “Shit.”
I fire off a text to Alan.
