He looks annoyed. “Give me a minute, will you?”

“Sure thing, boss,” the other manager says before heading to the front end.

I offer a wider smile when his eyes finally land on me again. “The store looks beautiful, Ashe. I’m blown away. You’ve worked so hard on it.”

“Well, I had more time on my hands, so…” He shuffles his feet. “What’re you doing here?”

“I wanted to see the store,” I say, nerves rising as his eyes dart around me. “You talked Cora into the motion-censored freezers, I see. That’s impressive.”

This buys me a timid smirk. “And automatic lights in the bathrooms, loading docks, and an in-store recycling center. She gave me whatever I wanted after… well, after.”

“Well, you deserve all the bells and whistles,” I tell him, and I mean it. “And blue really is your color.”

It was another thing we planned together—having a different color scheme at the beach store than the olive green at Sunny’s in Seagrove. His hands go to his vest, straightening it out. “Yeah, I love it here. It’s close to my condo. I surf or paddleboard every morning before work. It’s been good for me.”

“I’m glad. I only want what’s best for you.”

He releases the tension in his brow, allowing a short smile. He shifts on his feet, still holding his clipboard to his chest like a shield. “Yeah, um, you, too.”

Memories tell me I should feel things, but I don’t. Our battery is dead—a fact that saddens and unburdens me. I couldn’t show up at the altar how he wanted; he didn’t show up for me when I needed him. Over and over. He drained the love right out of me.

“Here to beg me to take you back?” His smile curls with cold arrogance.

“No. You don’t want me back, Ashe. I don’t want you either. Not after… Anyway, that’s not why I’m here,” I mutter, trying to keep my voice low.

“Then, what do you want, Marnie?”

“I want my notebook.”

He hesitates. “What notebook?”

I scoff. “My notebook. The one you used to make that display.” I motion to the nearest end cap. “And every other one in this store. The one that told you what layout to use and what lights to buy. My notebook. It belongs to me.”

His hazel eyes narrow as he looks down on me. “What notebook?”

He says it slowly, assuring me I’ll never see it again. A cheesy, handwritten, and sketched scrapbook of my time at Sunny’s, the culmination of every conceivable effort over a decade to make his family’s store the best it could be snatched away like I was never there. Like I didn’t matter.