Page 61 of The Pumpkin Pie Book Nook

Instead, all he felt was restless.

Downstairs, the house was quiet in that way that usually soothed him. The dishwasher hummed. The porch light cast a warm pool onto the front steps. The normalcy of it all should have settled his nerves.

But the truth was, he still had Robyn in his system.

Today had been the perfect day, truly. Breakfast together, work in the afternoon, the library, her grandparents’ place, dinner, and ice cream. He’d loved all of it.

But he knew there was a storm just rolling underneath the surface. That even though they hadn’t talked about it much, Robyn’s world had been rocked less than twenty-four hours ago. That wasn’t something you got over in a day.

Tyler sat at his desk and opened his laptop, intending to do the responsible thing and knock out a few pages of the manuscript waiting for him.

Instead, his fingers moved on their own.

AfterHoursAuthor.

The site loaded quickly, the familiar layout snapping into place like a habit he’d never fully questioned until now. He stared at the page for a beat, then checked the timestamp on the most recent update.

Nothing new.

He shouldn’t be surprised. Hell, it’d been less than twenty-four hours since her name had been splashed across the internet.

But it was a Thursday, and she always posted something on Thursdays. It was routine.

Tonight, there was only silence.

Tyler leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his mouth, and tried to ignore the sharp flicker of anger that still lived under his ribs when he thought about her ex. The smugness of that name in her story views. The cruelty of posting her identity like it was a joke.

He’d never met the guy, but Tyler already hated him, and Tyler didn’t hate anyone. Even Emma’s mom. He pitied her more than anything.

Tyler clicked over to the comments and saw the usual flood of readers—heart emojis, “more please,” people begging for updates, people trying to be supportive in the only way the internet knew how. A few even mentioned the reveal, the tone ranging from outrage to giddy excitement, as if Robyn’s real life had simply become part of the plot.

Tyler’s jaw tightened.

Robyn wasn’t a character.

She was a woman sitting alone in a loft above a bookstore, probably staring at her laptop and wondering if the thing she loved most had just been taken from her.

Tyler closed the tab before the protective anger could turn into something that made him reckless.

He opened his messages instead.

His thumb hovered over Robyn’s name, and then he started typing.

Hey. Just… I’m thinking about you. A lot. I liked having you with me today. I like you in my space. I like you in my life.

He paused, reading it over, making sure it didn’t sound like a speech. Making sure it sounded like him.

Then he added one more line, because it was the most honest part.

I wish you were in my bed right now. Not for anything other than just being here.

He hesitated again, heart thumping like a teenager, then hit send before he could overthink it.

The message whooshed away.

Tyler stared at the screen for a moment longer, then let his head tip back against the chair, eyes closing.

He opened the manuscript he was supposed to work on, but the words swam. His brain kept drifting to tomorrow: the wood-fired stove clue, the book club chat lighting up. Robyn trying to solve everything with a plan, and him trying to remind her that it was okay if she didn’t.