Chapter 4 The Art of Almost

The next few days passed in a daze of polite distance and awkward collisions.

Joan decided to start helping out in the shop. It was her only way of staying close without admitting she needed to. She alphabetized shelves, refilled tea jars, and pretended not to notice how Nathan watched her when he thought she wasn't looking.

On one rainy afternoon, she found herself in the back room, sorting through a box of forgotten books. Inside was a sketchpad-worn out, weathered, and unmistakably his.

She flipped through the pages.

Drawings of treehouses. Campfires. A girl with wild curls and a crooked smile.

Her.

"Nathan," she called softly.

He appeared at the doorway, freezing when he saw what she held.

"You kept this," she said.

He nodded. "It was all I had of us."

Joan's heart thudded. "I thought you forgot."

"I couldn't even if I tried."

Their eyes locked, and for a moment, the air between them thrummed with the possibility of something old becoming new again.

But then her phone buzzed.

A message from Jules: *We need to talk. Urgent.*