Miller had looked at her like proximity was the point. Not proximity to her money or connections, but toher. Like being near Astoria was something Miller wanted for its own sake.
When was the last time anyone had looked at her like that?
The sun dropped lower, and Astoria stayed in her chair, watching the light change and not thinking about anything productive.
She wanted Miller Scott. The realization sat in her chest, undeniable and impossible. She couldn’t lie to herself and say it was just a passing attraction or professional respect gone slightly sideways. She wanted her in a way that terrified her. She just couldn’t have her.
But knowing something couldn’t happen had never stopped the yearning before.
The stars were coming out by the time Astoria finally went inside, and she still didn’t have an answer for any of it.
11
Chapter 11: Miller
Miller almost canceled three times on the drive over.
She’d picked up her phone at the first red light, her thumb hovering over her mother’s contact. She mentally drafted texts.Not feeling well. Rain check?But Nadia would hear the lie in the text the same way she’d hear it in Miller’s voice, and then she’d worry, and worrying Nadia was worse than showing up and pretending like everything was fine.
So Miller kept driving past the familiar streets of the Heights district, past the elementary school where she’d learned to ride a bike in the parking lot on weekends, past the coffee shop where she and Sienna used to spend hours pretending to study. The neighborhood wrapped around her like an old sweater, comfortable and known.
But she didn’t feel like she fit inside it anymore.
The house looked the same as it always did: porch light on even though it wasn’t dark yet, windchimes Harper had made from old motorcycle parts clinking in the evening breeze, and the overgrown rosebush Nadia kept meaning prune. Millerparked on the street and sat for a moment, her hands still on the wheel.
It’d been six days since the meeting in the conference room, which really meant it’d been six nights of dreams that left her tangled in her sheets with her heart pounding and skin flushed. She’d started dreading the moment she closed her eyes, knowing what waited for her there. Her body had become a stranger, something that knew things she didn’t and wanted things she couldn’t quite name.
Miller pressed her palms against her eyes until colors bloomed in the darkness. She just needed to get through dinner. Eat some food, make normal conversation, go home. She’d been holding herself together all week. She could hold it together for three more hours.
The front door opened before she reached the porch.
Nadia stood in the doorway, dish towel over her shoulder and a smile already forming. But the smile faltered, just slightly, as Nadia’s gaze moved over Miller’s face.
“You’re early,” she said, the same greeting as always, but her voice had softened into something gentler.
“Traffic was light.”
Nadia pulled her into a hug. Miller let herself be held, breathing in the familiar scent of rosemary and the lavender hand cream her mother had used for as long as she could remember. The embrace lasted a beat longer than usual. Two beats, then three.
“Sweetheart,” Nadia murmured against her hair.
Miller’s throat tightened. She pulled back before her composure cracked. “Is Harper in the kitchen?”
Nadia’s eyes searched her face for a moment, but she didn’t push. “Where else would she be? She’s trying a new chicken recipe. She’s been threatening me with it for weeks.”
“Threatening?”
“She found it on one of those cooking shows. You know how she gets.”
Miller managed something close to a smile and stepped inside. The house embraced her the way it always did. It was warm, cluttered, and alive with books precariously stacked on the coffee table and Harper’s reading glasses abandoned on top of the pile. She walked past the wall of photos and slowed. She saw herself at seven years old, gap-toothed and grinning; another when she was eighteen with her graduation cap askew; and another when she was at the beach with her moms, all three of them lightly sunkissed and laughing.
That girl in the photos had known who she was. But Miller didn’t know anything anymore.
“There she is.” Harper’s sing-song voice floated from the kitchen, followed by the woman herself as she wiped her hands on her jeans. Her hair had gotten more gray since retiring, and she wore it cropped short in a way that suited her. “You look like hell, kid.”
“Harper,” Nadia chastised.
“What? She does.” Harper crossed to Miller and pulled her into a solid hug, the kind that felt like being anchored to something strong and stable. “Are you sleeping?”
