Then he bolts.
I let him go. I don’t care about him. I pick up the brown leather bag and check the contents. Wallet. Phone with a daisy case. Keys on a keychain shaped like a tiny Eiffel Tower.
I jog back toward La Rambla, because apparently, I’m doing this now. I’m the guy who chases down thieves while carrying fifty grand in cash and ignoring increasingly frantic texts from his disaster of a father.
Somewhere, my agent is getting a stress migraine and doesn’t know why.
I round the corner back onto La Rambla, and there she is. Still standing in the same spot, one hand pressed to her chest.
I walk up, slightly out of breath, and hold out the purse. “I think this is yours.”
Her gaze lifts to meet mine, and?—
Up close, she’s…wow. Freckles scattered across her nose. Brown eyes—warm, the color of melted chocolate—currently doing this thing where they’re welling up but also crinkling at the corners like she can’t decide whether to cry or laugh.
She looks at me.
Then at the purse.
Then back at me.
And then shelaughs.
Not a polite chuckle. A full, slightly hysterical laugh that makes her shoulders shake.
“Oh my goodness,” she says, taking the purse and clutching it to her chest. Her voice is warm, slightly breathless. “Oh mygoodness. You—you got it back. I can’t believe you—” She stops,presses a hand to her forehead. “Thank you.Thank you.I don’t even—whoareyou?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, which is a lie because—you know, 50K in my backpack and all. “Are you okay?”
“Am I—” She stares at me. “You just chased that guy down and rescued my purse like you’re Batman, and you’re asking ifI’mokay?”
When she puts it like that, it does sound a little ridiculous.
I shrug. “Just making sure.”
She opens her purse—the zipper sticks—and starts riffling through it with shaking fingers. And then she pulls out this worn, battered sketchbook. The cover is soft leather, faded and creased, with coffee stains near the bottom corner.
She flips through it quickly, her lips moving silently.
And for just a second, it falls open.
I see it.
Drawings. Whimsical, detailed,beautifuldrawings. A dragon with fierce, expressive eyes and intricate wings. Handwritten notes crammed in the margins.
It’s…incredible.
She notices me looking and snaps the sketchbook shut, shoving it back into her purse. Her cheeks flush pink.
“Sorry,” she mutters. “Just…making sure everything’s there.”
I want to ask about the drawings. Want to tell her what I just saw was amazing.
But something in the way she’s holding the purse now—close, protective—tells me that topic’s off the table.
So I don’t say anything.
But I don’t forget it.
