Page 45 of Rising Heat

Bex

Darce…

Bex

You moved into a brownstone with two firefighter brothers living underneath and all you’ve got is, “just settling in?”

Darcy

I’m sorry my life isn’t a Netflix original.

Bex

It could be. You’re just ignoring the plot.

Darcy

That’s because the plot sounds expensive.

Darcy

Emotionally.

Bex

That’s quitter talk.

Bex

Call me later. I need a full update on your life.

Bex

And your furniture.

I send back a thumbs-up and set my phone face-down. The cafe hums around me while I finish the last edits on my mockups.

By four o’clock, I’ve reread the same email three times without absorbing a single word of it, which feels less like professionalism and more like a sign from the universe that I’m done for the day.

Or burnout.

Either way, I close my laptop, pack it up and shrug into my coat.

The air still nips at my face while the sun does its best to take the edge off. I leave my puffer unzipped on the walk home, which I’m chalking up to optimism or stubbornness. The South End is doing that early-spring thing where it’s not quite warm enough to justify it but everyone is acting like it is anyway.

Someone walked by in shorts earlier. I respect the optimism.

I tip my face toward the sun for half a second and notice I’m still smiling when I let myself into the house.

By the time I make it upstairs and push open my apartment door, I’m already digging my keys out of my pocket.

It still catches me sometimes.

The navy blue couch under the oversized windows, velvet shining in the afternoon light. My paperback is face-down on the coffee table where I left it this morning, the spine already broken from use.

A month ago, none of this existed.

I drop my tote by the couch and head toward the French doors, shimmying out of my coat. My bed finally arrived five days ago and I’m still not over it—the cream comforter rumpled from this morning, one corner kicked loose when I overslept and answered a client email half under the covers.