“It’s good to see you working again,” she says, taking in the room. Grime clings to the corners, gathering near a trail of bobby pins and half-buried thread.

“I’m not sure I’d call what I’m doing working, but I’m trying.”

“It’s a good start.”

“How have you been?” I ask, nudging us in a safer direction. “How’s the baby?”

“I’m fine. Baby’s good.” She looks at me then with an unspoken intensity that says more than her words do. “How are you doing?”

“Better.” Though the answer catches in my throat. “As long as I focus on the present.”

She nods, choosing not to push, then sinks into the chair across from me with a small wince, one hand settling on her midsection. “How are things with Oliver? Is he treating you well?”

My gaze strays, and for a moment, it’s not Oliver’s shadow I recall, but the sound of his footsteps retreating. Just last night, his longing lingered in the air, heavy with need, while I tried to escape through sleep.

“Novalee?”

I return to the conversation, but she’s already leaning forward, spotting something I didn’t mean to stitch into my expression.

“He’s not hurting you, is he?”

“No, nothing like that. He’s…” I trail off, my pencil gliding into the silhouette of a plunging bodice that bares more than it hides. “He’s getting under my skin.”

Her brows lift over wide blue eyes. “How’s he getting under your skin?”

“In a physical way.”

Okay, not exactly physical, since he hasn’t even touched me.

But there’s a connection, tenuous as it is, born from loss and…something I can’t quite name.

He always seems confident and put together, dressed to make a statement, every I dotted and T crossed.

Until I spot him at his desk or on the treadmill, his feet pounding a steady rhythm.

It’s in those rare moments, when he doesn’t know I’m watching, that I sense the loneliness he doesn’t want me to see.

The pain he can never outrun.

Elise studies me with quiet fascination, her chin propped on her hand. “You like him.”

“I don’t know how I feel about him.” I set the pencil down and nudge it with my fingertip until it stops spinning. “But he’s treating me better than most.”

“After everything you’ve endured, you deserve someone who sees your worth.”

“They all see me as a transaction, Elise.”

She dips her head. “I know.”

I wave the heaviness away. “Enough of that. I’ve missed you.”

“Same,” she says. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be up for visitors again, but Landon had a meeting with Oliver today, so…”

“A meeting?” I sit up straighter. “What for?”