Page 37 of The Story Between Us

“I would do it very supportively.” She opened the bag. “You get one for the road.”

“Your kindness is overwhelming.”

But there it was, that ghost of a smile.

He reached into the bag and pulled out a gooey cinnamon roll. “I might have to take a nap on the sofa after this.”

“You do that at your own peril.” She closed the bag. “Now go. Create. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

He disappeared down the hall. A door closed.

Livvie stood in the entryway, heart doing something inconvenient in her chest.

Although she’d cleaned up some last night, the evidence of three years of barely functional living remained in the grime that covered the cupboards.

Time for a deep clean.

She rolled up her sleeves and got to work.

This lived in her comfort zone—making herself indispensable, fixing problems, being the person who showed up and made things better. Even if those things amounted to dirty dishes and cluttered counters.

Huck and Finn watched from the doorway, tails wagging hopefully. She found a bag of treats in the pantry and gave them each one.

“Don’t tell your dad,” she whispered. “This stays between us.”

By the time the kitchen gleamed, an hour had passed. She could hear the faint sound of typing from down the hall—erratic, but there. Bursts of keys, then silence, then more bursts. The rhythm of someone fighting their way through something difficult.

Good. The cinnamon roll had worked.

She made a fresh pot of coffee, poured two mugs, and carried them toward the office. On her way through the living room, a photograph on the mantel caught her eye, and she stopped.

She’d noticed it yesterday, but she hadn’t let herself really look. Now she did.

Three people on a dock, squinting into the summer sun. Emma in the middle, arms thrown around both of them, that wild grin she always wore. Livvie on the left, younger, softer, her hair longer than she wore it now. And Nate on the right, looking at Emma with an expression that made Livvie’s chest ache.

The summer she’d lost her heart. Gotten it back broken into so many pieces.

She made herself look away. Made herself keep walking.

The office door stayed closed. The typing had stopped.

She knocked. “Nate? I made coffee.”

Nothing.

“I’m coming in. I have caffeine and good intentions.”

She pushed open the door—and stopped.

Following him into this office yesterday, she’d been just as awestruck, but she hadn’t paused to take it all in. Now she allowed herself a moment to really look. Maps covered every wall—hand drawn, intricate and dense, labeled in an ancient-looking script. Bookshelves overflowed with notebooks, folders, loose papers covered in cramped handwriting. A corkboard bristled with index cards connected by colored string, an elaborate conspiracy-theory-style outline that would take hours to decode.

This didn’t belong to someone who couldn’t create. This showed obsession. This showed love. This showed years of world-building, layer upon painstaking layer.

And there, on the leather sofa beneath the window, lay Nate Rivers. Staring at the ceiling. The cinnamon roll sat on his desk, half eaten. His flannel shirt hung unbuttoned now, the gray T-shirt rumpled.

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”