Then there was the clothing company—the one he founded for Tiffany under the pretense of “building brand synergy” which was Blake-speak for: I owed her, she has terrifyingly good taste, and Beverly wanted new dance clothes. Tiffany nearly fainted when she found out. She called it a life pivot, pulled out a sketchbook, and immediately started making mood boards titled My Vision & My Closet.

Jamal teased her for a week straight, but he also started showing up to meetings in suspiciously well-fitted sweaters.

The four of us had become a unit while ChimeIn exploded into something bigger than any of us had imagined. We worked, we danced, we laughed too hard, and we stayed up too late, too often talking about nothing and everything. The world still sucked in places, but our corner of it had gotten lighter. Warmer.

While Blake was knee-deep in code and Tiffany was stress-ordering platform heels she absolutely didn’t need, I stepped outside for air. The California sun wrapped around me, and I tugged my phone from my bag and hit Mom.

She answered after one ring. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Mom,” I said, tucking my legs up on the bench outside the studio. “You busy?”

“I’m never too busy for my girl,” she said warmly, and just like that, I was eight again—sitting in her lap in the kitchen, crying about scraped knees and burnt pancakes.

“I just…wanted to say thank you,” I told her. “For not being mad when I disappeared.”

“Oh, Beverly,” she murmured. “You were healing, sweetie. Sometimes healing looks like hiding.”

I blinked fast. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

“I know you’re not.” There was a soft pause. “I saw the new photo on your studio website. You look like you own the place.”

“That’s because I do,” I said with a smile.

“I’m coming by next week. Just for a couple days.”

I sat up straighter. “You are?”

“I’d love to see the studio in person, and I was thinking we could visit your father’s grave again. I think he’d be so happy, Bev. About the peace I hear in your and Blake’s voices these days.”

The tears hit quietly, sneaking past my smile.

“Yeah,” I said eventually. “I’d like that. And he would too.”

“He always said life’s too short not to do the thing that keeps your heart beating. And you—” she said, her voice cracking a little, “you sound like you found your rhythm again.”

I pressed my fingers to my lips, blinking toward the sunlight. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I think I did.”