The Tate & Hollis satellite office was a converted storefront on Main Street with big windows, old wood floors, and exactly enough room for three desks, a filing cabinet, and a ficus thatwas already dying because nobody in this building had any idea how often to water a ficus. I'd watered it twice since Monday. I suspected Theo had been giving it coffee.
But it was mine.
I'd arranged the desks myself — mine by the window, Bev's by the door, Theo's in the back where he could monitor foot traffic and gossip in equal measure. I'd chosen the plants. I'd picked the mugs for the tiny kitchen — mismatched, colorful, the kind of mugs that made a space feel lived in instead of staged. I'd negotiated my hours with Savannah before I took the job: school drop-off to school pickup, with occasional exceptions when I could arrange a sitter.
Savannah hadn't blinked.
"You're a single mom, Cal. We'll make it work."
Nine words. Nine words that rearranged something in me because here was a woman who treated my life like something to build around. Like it mattered.
I made my tea. Not coffee — never coffee. The smell still made me seize up like some sadistic Pavlovian response. Dark roast and I was back in the Dallas kitchen, reading Preston's mood from the angle of his jaw before I'd even said good morning. Some mornings I'd stand at the counter with the coffee maker going and my whole body would lock up — hands frozen, lungs tight, a full-body flinch at a smell.
The first week here, Bev had made a pot before I arrived, and I'd walked in and stopped in the doorway like I'd hit glass. Just stood there. Couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't explain why the smell of Folgers in a Copper Creek storefront had turned me into a statue. Bev had taken one look at my face, poured the pot down the sink, and said, "I'm more of a tea person anyway." She wasn't. But she never made coffee in the office again.
Bev arrived at eight-fifteen with a breakfast taco and the kind of warmth that made you feel like you'd known her your whole life.
She was fifty-something, divorced, and ran the office with warmth disguised as efficiency. Reading glasses on a chain around her neck, sensible shoes, and a memory like a steel trap. She'd been office manager since Levi Hollis opened the satellite branch, and she ran the place the way I suspected she ran her household — with zero tolerance for nonsense and a heart as big as Texas.
She took one look around — the plants, the mugs, the rearranged desks — and declared it "almost human."
"It needs art," she said, setting the taco on my desk. "Something with color. This place looks like a dental office."
"I was going to get a print —"
"Not a print. Art. I'll bring something tomorrow."
I knew it’d be hand-painted and slightly too large for the wall. She would hang it without asking, and it would be perfect, and I would let her because Bev operated on a frequency I was still learning to tune into — the frequency of women who help by doing, not asking.
Theo arrived at eight-twenty-two, which for Theo was practically dawn. He was twenty-three, gay, recently graduated, the junior paralegal whose enthusiasm outpaced his experience by a factor of ten. He came through the door already talking — laptop bag swinging, travel mug sloshing, cheeks flushed from either the walk or the conversation he was having with himself.
"Good morning, good morning, I have news."
"It's Monday, Theo," Bev said. "Nothing newsworthy has happened since Friday."
"Wrong. Have either of you seen the PBR championship coverage? Because Clay Blackwood won the whole thing and the internet is losing its mind. I’ve been stalking his Instagramsince six a.m. and I need to talk about it." He dropped his bag on his desk and turned to me with an expression of profound devastation. "Callie. Have youseenClay Blackwood?"
My mouth twitched. "I was at his victory party this weekend, actually."
Theo's mouth fell open. Bev looked up from her taco.
"You were there? There attheBlackwood Ranch? At the party? And you didn'tleadwith this information? Is this your way of saying you hate me?”
I chuckled. “No, I don’t hate you, Theo.” I took a sip of my tea. “You literally just walked through the door and didn't give me much time to lead with anything.”
“Whatever.” He leaned against my desk, fanning himself. “That man should be illegal. The shoulders alone should require a permit. And Savannah says he's nice. He's nice and he's tall and he's got that voice — you know the voice, the low Texas drawl that makes you feel like you're the only person in the —"
"Down, boy," Bev said, not looking up from her taco.
"I'm just stating facts, Beverly."
She snorted. ”You're stating fantasies. There's a difference."
"He's charming," I said. "I'll give him that. Beat him at cornhole, though."
Theo's eyes went wide. Bev's went wider.
"You playedcornholewith Clay Blackwood," Theo said, in a tone that suggested I'd casually mentioned having tea with the Pope. "And youwon?"
