Thinking about you. How's the first day?
She typed back: Learning a lot. Call you tonight?
Can't wait.
She slid it back into her bag.
Trevor was an hour and a half away. Steady, uncomplicated, exactly what she'd wanted when she'd agreed to spend the summer apart. But he was also texts and calls and a face on a screen, held in her hand instead of standing next to her.
On the patio, Jake was taking an order, leaning in with a grin that made the table laugh. Recording equipment. Music stuff. The scar through his eyebrow.
Sophie turned back to the reservation screen. Opened the next hour's bookings. Focused.
Then Ethan emerged from the back, face giving nothing away.
"Well?"
"I start Thursday." He didn't quite smile, but his shoulders dropped an inch.
"That's amazing."
"It's clearing plates," he said, but he was almost smiling.
"It's a start." She punched his arm. "Your mom's going to be thrilled."
For a second, it looked like he might let himself feel it. Then he looked away. "Yeah. I guess."
He left through the front door, and Sophie turned to her station. Ten minutes until her first real shift. Menus to organize, a system to master, a whole summer stretching ahead.
She was ready.
The coffee shop on Landis was called Driftwood Coffee, and Jen had claimed a table by the window with her laptop and a determination to actually work.
An iced latte sweated beside her laptop, and she'd already eaten half of the blueberry scone she'd grabbed at the counter. If she was going to take up space for hours, she might as well contribute to the local economy.
The cozy mystery was open—the one her editor had been asking about, stuck at seventy-five percent and stalled for three months. Six of these books behind her. Quirky sleuth, small town, body in the first chapter, suspects with secrets, resolution by page three hundred.
She read the last paragraph she'd written. Then read it again.
A sentence. Another. A third.
Highlighted. Deleted.
Her fingers found the new document button before she'd made a conscious decision.
Just to clear her head, she told herself. To shake loose whatever was stuck.
And something else entirely poured out.
A woman facing a forest that shouldn't exist, rising where the field abruptly ended. Two moons overhead, one silver, one the color of old copper. Magic that moved through the trees like water, visible if you knew how to look. The woman didn't know how to look, not yet, but she could feel it against her skin, waiting to be noticed.
And then, inevitably, a man appeared. Dark-haired, sharp-tongued, saying one thing and meaning three others. He stepped out of the tree line like he'd been waiting for her, which he probably had.
The sentences came faster than they had in months. Page one became page two became page three, and when Jen finally looked up, an hour had passed.
She went to the counter for another iced latte. The barista smiled like she recognized a fellow creative mid-breakthrough. Jen took her drink back to the table and kept writing.
Scrolling back to the beginning revealed three pages of work that felt nothing like obligation.
