“Tonight,” Mads says. “Seven o’clock. Hazel’s house. Bring those lemon bars you made last week.”
“Those were for the boys’ teacher.”
“Make more. The book club deserves lemon bars.”
She leaves. The studio is quiet. Lavender diffuser still running. Light fading in the window.
I start packing up. Fold the backdrop.Coil the wrap. Put the basket back on the shelf next to the other baskets—the wooden one, the wire one shaped like a heart that I only use for Valentine sessions. My props are organized by color and size, labeled, inventoried. This room is the one place in my life where everything is exactly where it belongs.
The rest of my life is less organized. Divorce finalized four months ago. Two eight-year-olds who treat furniture like gymnastics equipment. A house that still doesn’t feel entirely mine. A photography business I’m building from scratch in a town where I’ve lived for less than a year.
But this room. This room is mine.
I pick up my phone. One text from Emma:
Emma:The boys built a raft out of pool noodles and duct tape. It held for approximately nine seconds. Everyone is alive. Barely.
I type back:Coming tonight. Bringing the goods. Please don’t let my children drown before I get there.
Emma:No promises. Paul is supervising. He’s already rethinking every decision that led to this moment.
I smile. Set the phone down. Start editing.
Hazel’s housesmells like cinnamon and chaos.
There are shoes by the front door in four different sizes—Jack’s work boots, Hazel’s sandals, Ellen’s sparkly flats, and Caroline’s black combat boots, which are parked at an angle that suggests she kicked them off while walking and didn’t look back. Inside, the living room has been rearranged for book club: chairs pulled into a circle, Michelle’s pastry box open on the coffee table, a stack of the month’s book—some romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover—bristling with sticky tabs because these women do not mess around.
The book club is already in session, which means everyone is talking at once.
Michelle is perched on the arm of the sofa next to Jo, who is gesturing with a cookie. Jessica has her legs tucked under her on the big chair, and Amber is on the floor leaning against Brett’s favorite ottoman, which Hazel drags out specifically for these meetings because Amber always ends up on the floor. Hazel is in the kitchen doorway holding a pitcher of sweet tea. Grandma Hensley is in the wingback chair with a notebook open on her lap.
Mads is in the corner rocker, nursing Saralynn under a blanket. Asher dropped her offtwenty minutes ago and whispered “good luck” to the baby like she was being deployed.
Emma is cross-legged on the rug, laughing at something Michelle said, and she looks—settled. That’s the word. When she first got to Twin Waves, she was held together by caffeine and willpower. Now she belongs here.
I slip in with my baking dish and take the empty chair by the window.
“Lottie!” Hazel takes the plate. “You came.”
“Mads threatened me.”
“I suggested firmly,” Mads corrects without looking up from Saralynn.
“She said bring dessert or don’t come back.”
“That’s because your baking is a spiritual experience,” Jo says. “I had one of those bars last week and I saw colors.”
The conversation swirls. They’re supposed to be discussing the book—something about a firefighter and a librarian—but the discussion has veered into whether the hero’s grand gesture was romantic or a felony. Jessica argues it was both. Grandma Hensley is taking notes.
“A man who breaks into a library at midnight to fill it with roses is either deeply in love or deeply unwell,” Michelle says. “I can’t decide which.”
“Both,” Amber says. “That’s the appeal.”
“Grayson would never break into a library,” Michelle adds. “He’d buy the library. Then fill it with roses. Then present me with the deed and a spreadsheet of projected property values.”
“That’s romance for developers,” Emma says, grinning.
“Scott would write me a poem,” Jessica says. “Anonymously. And then deny it when I found out. And then write another one.”
