I balk. “I am kind. Why would you say that?”
“Last month, a guy held the door for you at Target and you told him you had arms.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Oh? Well, two weeks ago someone asked if that parking spot was taken and you said, ‘By me, obviously, since my car is occupying the physical space.’”
“It was the truth.”
“The guy wasn’t even flirting, Jules. He was probably seventy.”
Jules. The nickname she calls me when she thinks I’m being petty. “Please. He was maybe in his fifties, but I wouldn’t go seventy. And he was flirting. He gave me his business card.”
Vivian fights a grin. “Wasn’t he a therapist?”
Outwitted, I narrow my eyes at her before I turn toward the hallway. “Theo! Dinner!”
“Coming!” his voice echoes back, followed by the thump-thump of socked feet and the dramatic slide into the kitchen doorway like he’s making an entrance on purpose.
Vivian grins at him. “Hey, Theo.”
He hugs Vivian as he eyes the pasta approvingly. “Is this the good sauce?”
“There is only one sauce in this house,” I say. “So yes. It’s the good one.”
That earns me a smile, the kind that’s all teeth and trust. He takes his place at the table and we eat like this, easy and familiar. Vivian tells a dramatic story about a customer who tried to haggle over handmade earrings. Theo interrupts with facts about hockey statistics that I don’t understand but nod along anyway. This is heaven to me: the clink of forks, the hum of the city outside the windows, and the small miracle of a table where no one is rushing to be anywhere else.
I watch them from my seat, my son animated and happy, my friend laughing with her whole face, and it hits me how fragile this is. How carefully assembled. Every piece is chosen on purpose. Every compromise I’ve ever made has been made quietly, without applause.
This is my life. Small. A little crooked. Held together withthrifted furniture and routines and a love that shows up every single day. I’ve worked hard to protect it.
The last thing I want is for it to be upended by headlines or hockey or some handsome stranger who’s been assigned to me as a proxy assistant.
If I’m being totally honest, yes, I’m worried right now. I’m juggling a lot and I don’t want my world to explode. Adulting is hard.
Theo twirls his fork, sauce splashing dangerously close to the table. “Mom?”
“Yes, buddy?”
“Tomorrow,” he says casually, like he’s asking about the weather. “Is that the day Sawyer comes to your shop?”
My pulse stutters as Vivian’s eyes flick to mine, knowing and amused, but far too observant for my comfort. I’m also clocking that my son has decided he is now on a first-name basis with someone he idolizes.
“Yes,” I say, keeping my voice even. “Tomorrow.”
Theo nods, satisfied, and goes back to his dinner like he hasn’t just shifted the axis of my universe by a fraction of an inch.
I look around the table again. At the warmth. At the normalcy. At the life I’ve built from the ground up.
And I hope—quietly, fiercely—that tomorrow doesn’t change any of it.
CHAPTER 4
JULIETTE
Morning in the shop is my favorite version of the world.
The light comes in soft and slanted through the front windows, dust motes floating like they have nowhere else to be. The plants look calmer before customers arrive—leaves glossy and patient, vines still, like they’re holding their breath with me.
