I stop at the edge of the sidewalk, eyes on the wooden bench. The world around it has moved on. The flowers are gone. The tape. The noise.
All that’s left is the memory.
I sit down, the wood cold beneath my palms. My fingers trace the shallow grooves carved into the bench, initials, faded and rough.
Tears roll down my face through clenched teeth.
Because this — this bench is the only place I still feel close to what I lost.
I scream her name, but the wind doesn’t carry it.
IVY.
Chapter 1
Ella
It seems my broody neighbor has made an art form out of not being alone with me in the elevator. Or at least that’s what it feels like. We just happen to get home at the same time. Usually.
Which makes sense, because we live in the same building—a low-rise, six-story condo that’s way nicer than it needs to be. The top floor is a group of luxury penthouses; the rest of us live in the normal floors below. I’m on the fourth. He’s on six. Of course he is.
My bakery is just down the street, but somehow, he still must feel like I lurk in the bushes waiting for him.
He just...exists on my timeline.
Not that I keep track or anything.
Because that would be weird.
And desperate.
He’s never said more than a handful of words to me, but he has one of those faces that feels familiar, which naturally makes me want to fill every silence with even more small talk.
Spoiler: I’m terrible at it, but only with him...
Last week, I asked him about the Mariners.
I don’t watch baseball and can’t name even one player on the team. I struggle with even remembering their mascot.
He tilted his head and said, “They didn’t play,” in the exact tone of someone wondering if I needed medical attention.
The frustrating part is that this doesn’t happen to me. Not normally.
I talk to strangers all day. I run a bakery. Holding conversations is literally my job.
But put me alone in a small metal box with him, and my brain apparently decides to take the day off.
Which is probably why he’s been avoiding the elevator. Or maybe that’s in my head. Hard to tell when you start noticing someone a little too much.
Maybe today I’ll get lucky. Maybe he won’t show up at all.
I jab the Close button and wipe my palms on my jeans. The metal doors start to slide shut?—
Then a hand shoots through, stopping them.
It’shim… Dark shirt, quiet expression, broad shoulders… like silent steel wrapped in black, making the small space shrink instantly… and a tiny Yorkie tucked securely in his arms like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
The contrast,this massive man holding a six-pound dog, is so disarming that the words tumble out before my brain can vote on them.
