No one expected that the stranger standing there would turn out to be a friend of a friend's wife's friend.
The surprise made Natalie Pierce's thoughts snag, as if a gear inside her head had jammed. She reached out, hand steady, and said, "Hi."
Sabrina Myers lowered her lashes to study the hand offered to her—pale, clean, fine-boned—and then, unexpectedly, she smiled.
She didn't take Natalie's hand. Her gaze lifted, traveling from that hand to Natalie's face. She went straight for it: "Ms. Pierce. I can't be that bad, can I?"
The words landed; a delicate lift flickered at the tail of Natalie's brow. Her hand paused midair. In the draft moving through the doorway she seemed to turn to stone.
At the table, Grace Barron and Oakley Ponciano—who had been making small talk over the menu and whatever looked decent—fell quiet and looked up at the two of them.
Instinct said the air had shifted. Sabrina was saying more than she seemed to say. This wasn't the first time these two had met.
Grace lifted her tea in silence, eyes sliding to Sabrina, tracking the minutiae of her expression. At the same time she sifted backward through everything Sabrina had said tonight, and found a few details that didn't sit as quietly as they should.
Sabrina curved her mouth, a brief, helpless smile, and said to Natalie, "I crossed a line before. I'm sorry. But you don't have to cut me off like that, do you? Pretend we're strangers?"
"Huh?" Natalie blinked, honestly lost.
She hadn't meant it like that. Her brain had lagged; words had tumbled out on autopilot, so "Hi" was what Oakley heard. She hadn't planned to slice the boundary between them to the bone.
In fact, Natalie had assumed Sabrina wouldn't want to see her—might even be resentful. They hadn't seen each other since that day.
Sabrina had never vanished this long before.
Natalie found her bearings and gave a small smile. "No. I just… didn't react in time."
The smile, as always, was measured and easy, a hush of spring air across the face—flawless, unassailable—leaving it impossible to tell whether she was being politely noncommittal or gently, truly honest.
It had been this faint, translucent aura that drew Sabrina at first.
Not only had Natalie seemed singular; Sabrina had believed she, too, was singular in Natalie's eyes. Otherwise, why had Natalie been so gentle with her?
But later Sabrina understood. Natalie was like this with everyone. She'd been born with this softness, this calm. It was Sabrina who had read too much into it.
A shadowed ambiguity drifted across Sabrina's eyes. She nodded once and let it go.
Natalie slipped into the empty chair beside her.
With everyone finally assembled, they buckled down to the menu.
The place specialized in chicken hotpot—free-range chicken simmered low in a rich stock, then everyone swished their chosen sides through the broth—so most of the decisions were about the vegetables and add-ins.
They ordered by preference, passing the menu off to the server when they were done.
After he left, Oakley's gaze pinged between the two women. "So… you two knew each other already?"
At this point, there was no good reason to pretend. Pushing it further would only look clumsy.
Natalie angled her head toward Sabrina. "We do."
"What a coincidence," Oakley said, smiling. She'd guessed as much, but it still knocked her a little off balance. "I had no idea you two were old acquaintances. I basically introduced you for nothing."
Sabrina lifted her eyes. "Well, 'acquaintances' is generous. We just… know of each other. That's all."
It was true. If you stripped it down, they were a boutique owner and a loyal customer.
They didn't even have each other on apptalk. They'd never really talked. They knew nothing of who the other was beneath the surface.
Thinking it through like this, Sabrina had to admit that showing up out of nowhere to confess her feelings might have been more than a little abrupt.
Grace turned her cup in her hands and simply listened.
"And the customer you mentioned earlier…" Oakley's eyes brightened with mischief, connecting a dot at last.
Could Natalie's "regular" be Sabrina? Going by the description—tall and spare, features with an athletic edge, the effortless presence of a runway model who'd pull every eye the second she stepped onto the catwalk—it fit a very short list.
Sabrina's expression was open, almost amused. "That's it. She owns a store. I spent there. Enough times, we recognized each other."
Natalie slipped the bag from her shoulder and set it aside. She smiled. "Right."
With that, both Grace and Oakley had the picture.
Exactly what they'd suspected.
And yes, between Sabrina and Natalie there was a charge—hard to name, a little skewed—threaded with a touch of awkwardness.
Sabrina told herself she was dramatizing. If there was any awkwardness, it was hers alone. Natalie never looked awkward.
For Natalie, this was about adjusting her stance, perhaps, but nothing more. From beginning to end Sabrina had been a customer.
Once, a customer who "loved to support her business." Now, "a customer she turned down."
A passerby, either way.
The more she thought it, the more Sabrina told herself to stop thinking altogether.
She cut the reel of errant thoughts and stood. "This place has a DIY sauce bar, right?"
"Right there," Grace said, tipping her head toward the station by the far wall.
Sabrina nodded. "I'll go take a look."
Natalie eased back to let her pass, then stood as well. "You two? Want to make yours now or later?"
"You go first," Grace said after checking the distance. "We'll be along."
They could use a pocket of space, she thought.
"Okay. I'll leave my bag here," Natalie said.
"Mm. We'll keep an eye on it," Grace replied.
Natalie quickened her step to the sauce bar, took a small bowl, and came to stand beside Sabrina.
Setting the bowl down, she ladled in this and that and said, "Haven't seen you lately."
Sabrina studied the minced garlic. "Haven't I just shown up here?" She shrugged lightly. "I'm a freelancer. Anywhere I open my laptop is work."
Sometimes boredom drove her out to take a job for a while; sometimes she needed fresher textures for a novel. It was always a stint, never long.
"Mm," Natalie said, with a brief nod. She wanted to find a sentence that wouldn't clang, but nothing came. She sprinkled in a drift of scallions and let the silence be.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, each doing her own small work. Only the clink of spoons and the hush of movement filled the air between them. The quiet grew misshapen.
Just as Natalie squeezed a ribbon of sesame oil into her bowl, two kids—laughing, hollering, armed with a toy water pistol and a bubble machine—careened straight into her.
Her heel skidded. She pitched sideways.
Sabrina reacted first—shoving her own sauce aside, catching Natalie by the forearm with a firm, quick grip.
They wobbled together; a cool splash kissed Natalie's cheek. She windmilled a few tiny steps and found her balance. When she lifted her gaze, she realized how close they'd ended up—nearly pressed chest to shoulder.
Sabrina's scent reached her, subtle and green. Something like morning fields.
"Where are your parents?" Sabrina called, still holding Natalie's arm. "You can't sprint around a restaurant like it's a playground!"
The two sets of parents looked over. Embarrassment turned to apology; they hurried to rein the kids back, scolding in low voices.
"You okay?" Sabrina asked, turning back to Natalie.
"I'm fine," Natalie said. "Do I have something on my face?"
Something had splashed; with her makeup set, she didn't dare wipe at it blindly.
Sabrina checked, plucked a napkin from the stack. "Just water. I'll get it."
"Mm," Natalie breathed, holding still.
Sabrina folded the napkin in half, lifted it. "Chin a little higher."
Natalie obeyed, tilting her chin up.
Sabrina narrowed her eyes, lashes dipping. She angled closer, inspecting the delicate sheen along Natalie's cheekbones and jaw to blot it all away.
As Sabrina's shadow fell across her, Natalie held her breath without meaning to.
Sabrina was beautiful from every angle—clean lines, sculpted planes, fine brows. There was something rebelliously alone about her, a posture that said hands in pockets, heart off-limits, and it sent a tremor through the nerves.
Natalie pressed her lips together. When the napkin touched her skin she flinched, barely, as if a chord had been plucked.
Sabrina felt it, and her eyes lifted. "What is it?"
"It's nothing," Natalie said, shaking her head. A heartbeat later, with a complicated look, she took the napkin from Sabrina's hand. "I can do it."
She turned slightly away and dabbed at her face by feel.
Sabrina said nothing. She only slid her hands into her pockets and nodded. "All right."
Meanwhile, back at the table—
As soon as the server finished loading the pot and moved off, Oakley sighed. "Natalie told me earlier she had a very interesting regular. And that the regular confessed to her. I did not, for the life of me, imagine that regular would be Sabrina."
"I didn't think your 'friend' would be the ethereal shop owner Sabrina keeps talking about," Grace said, shaking her head.
"Ethereal shop owner?" Oakley blinked. "She said that about Natalie?"
So she truly liked her. Oakley didn't know Sabrina well, but she had the sense Sabrina wasn't one to compliment easily. You could feel it in her writing.
Some people write with hauteur, the letters looking down their noses; some write toward the light, everything ghosted with hope; some write out of a weathered ache; others knot everything with contradiction and stubbornness.
Sabrina's characters—no matter their roles—carried the same aftertaste: a glint of pride, and something stubbornly young.
"So," Grace said, looking thoughtfully at Oakley, "what's your friend's deal?"
Oakley exhaled. "I'm not sure. I only know she's been through a lot and the subject of love scares her. The details… I don't know."
Natalie had firm edges. Even after all this time, Oakley couldn't push too hard.
How to describe her? On the surface she was gentle, polite, bookish, the kind of person anyone could approach. But if you got too close, you'd feel it—a wall, invisible, cold as a cathedral. High. Thick. Impenetrable.
Once, Oakley thought Natalie and Grace were alike. They weren't. Natalie appeared easier to reach, but Grace was the one you could actually grow close to.
The difference? Grace's cool was camouflage; her ease was the bedrock.
Natalie's ease was camouflage; the cool was the bedrock.
Maybe she hadn't come into the world this way. But now, it lived in her bones.
Oakley, a shameless extrovert, could mesh with almost anyone. Only with Natalie did her own sunshine dim; without planning to, she adopted a way of speaking with boundaries built in, as if Natalie required a calibrated approach.
Grace lifted her cup. "Then I can only wish Sabrina luck."
If someone's been hurt in love, that's one thing. As long as she's willing to talk about it, it can be faced. But if she locks the past away and loses the key, the gravity is no longer ordinary.
In that case, asking her to open up again is asking her to rewire her heart.
"So she still cares? Even after being turned down?" Oakley had assumed Sabrina had brushed it off already. "She looks like the type to move on—the kind who, if this tree won't shade you, finds another, and doesn't waste time."
"If she were that type, she wouldn't still be single," Grace said, certain. "And she wouldn't have flown out here to clear her head."
If Sabrina's feelings for Natalie weren't deep, she'd already be fine—back to writing, to life, to laughing. Seeing Natalie again wouldn't make her voice shift like that.
"God," Oakley murmured, "love is a grinding thing."
She hooked her arm through Grace's and nuzzled her shoulder with the side of her head.
"What's all this?" Grace asked, laughing despite herself at the puppyish display.
"Nothing." Oakley propped her chin on Grace's shoulder, those gleaming almond eyes fixed on Grace's face, and slid her fingers over Grace's hand on the table. "It's just that getting from strangers to something real is hard. From meeting, to knowing, to trusting, to loving—skip a step and the whole thing cracks. I want to treasure you properly."
She really did look like a little dog—flirty, clingy, adorable. Who could resist rubbing that soft crown of hair?
Grace watched her for a long beat and smiled. "I just got an idea."
"Mm?" Oakley tilted her head, bright with curiosity. "What idea?"
Footsteps crossed nearby. Grace glanced over; two servers were hustling past with trays for another table.
As soon as they'd gone by, Grace leaned in and cupped the side of her face, quick as a spark, and kissed Oakley's mouth.
It was only the touch of a dragonfly on water, but Oakley went still, startled dumb by the soft shock.
Color rose hot in her cheeks. She covered her lips. "What was that for?"
"Couldn't help it," Grace said, lashes lowered, her smile fond and indulgent. "I like you too much."
Oakley broke into a helpless giggle. "Then I want a turn."
"Mm?" Grace looked at her, puzzled.
Oakley shifted closer and pressed a kiss to the tender shell of Grace's ear. Intimate. Deliberate. The kind of touch that lights something at the root of the spine.
Heat skimmed Grace's neck; her back went taut.
Oakley retreated at once, one hand clapped over her own grin.
"Too much," Grace murmured.
Oakley said nothing, only smiled wider, her eyes curving into bright crescents—rascal child caught in a prank, impossible to scold.
Footsteps again. Grace turned. Sabrina and Natalie were back, taking their seats.
"What's got you two so cheerful?" Sabrina asked, setting down her bowl.
Oakley opened her mouth to say nothing at all, but Grace beat her there, laughing. "Falling in love."
Sabrina's gaze flicked between them and then she laughed, too. "So you're not even pretending anymore, huh, Grace?"
Grace rested her gaze on the simmering pot and tilted her head, amused. "Why should I pretend?"
"At least show mercy to a single woman's heart," Sabrina drawled, leaning back with her water.
Grace laid her hands on her knees and, with the solemn patience of a judge, said, "People and dogs are different species. I'm not sure how to accommodate a dog's feelings."
Sabrina huffed a laugh. "You're insufferable."
Natalie looked from Grace and Oakley to Sabrina at her side.
Sabrina's outfit was casual, but her frame did the work for her; from head to foot she carried that unrepeatable ease that made "effortlessly beautiful" feel like a simple fact.
If Natalie was honest, Sabrina fit the shape she was most drawn to. Not only that—her temperament, too.
Unfettered. That was the word.
Even when she didn't get the thing she wanted, she didn't let herself drift into a bottomless fog. In this they were entirely opposed.
The server returned to lift the lid off the pot.
Steam billowed up, dense and white, then thinned, revealing the food beneath—gold, green, glossy—smelling like comfort cooked down to its essence.
They ate for a while. Sabrina looked up at Grace. "By the way—your designer. The one who did your place. Name? Contact?"
"Sure." Grace paused with her glass. "You're not living with your parents anymore?"
"They're driving me crazy," Sabrina said, brows pinched. "Told them to stop with the blind dates. This week they started again. I'm supposed to meet the youngest daughter of someone from Léa Interiors."
She'd stayed home all this time because her mother couldn't let go—one of those women who panics if a text goes unanswered for three hours. With no partner and no reason to hide, Sabrina had simply stayed.
But over the past year the matchmaking had gotten relentless. She couldn't stand it. She wanted out.
If love was a contract hammered together with goals and timelines, she wanted no part of it. She wanted to find the real thing, and she wanted to find it on her own.
Grace—who'd once severed all ties as a form of survival—had married anyway and lucked into love afterward. How many people managed that?
A few years ago Sabrina might have lacked the spine to push back. But now she earned well, and her wings had hardened. She would resist to the end.
"Okay," Grace said. "Which place are you doing? The apartment in Skylark, or the one in… Qi City?"
"All of them," Sabrina said, easy as breathing. "Then I'll rotate depending on mood."
"Fair." Grace sent a contact. "From demo to move-in is going to take some time. What's your plan until then?"
Sabrina bit into a piece of chicken. "I've rented at Emerald Court for now."
"Nice," Grace said.
Listening, Natalie's chopsticks slowed without her knowing.
A blind date with the much-talked-about daughter of Léa Interiors. Homes in the most polished corners of Skylark and Qi City, both getting full renovations without blinking. And for the interim, a place at Emerald Court—weren't those villas?
Just as she'd guessed, Sabrina wasn't merely comfortable. She was rich. Rich enough to spend without the tiny flinch.
They were from different worlds.
Without warning, a seam in Natalie pulled, and an old memory yanked hard. She clenched her jaw and shut her eyes.
Oakley saw it first. "Nat? You okay?"
"I'm fine," Natalie said, opening her eyes and giving the smallest smile. She went on eating.
Sabrina glanced at her, considered, and said nothing. She turned back to her plate.
An hour slipped by in talk and bite and the gentle clatter of cutlery. Dinner wound down.
Outside, Grace and Oakley were set on wandering the town's famed Matchmaker Lane. They turned to Sabrina and Natalie—did they have other plans, or would they come along?
Natalie's bones had gone heavy. The thought of strolling through crowds was beyond her; she shook her head and smiled. "You two go. I'm a little tired. I'll head back to the Airbnb."
Oakley remembered how Natalie had arrived in a rush and immediately napped—she must be wiped. Pressing her would be unkind. "Okay. Get some rest."
"Mm." Natalie pulled out her phone. "I'll call a cab."
But within minutes her brow knit. The traffic map glowed red, bleak as a wound. No cars. The queue inching nowhere.
Grace leaned to look. "No good?"
"Pretty bad," Natalie admitted, rubbing at her temple. "They're doing roadwork nearby. It's jammed, and the pickup queue is long."
It could be ages.
"You go on," she said, weighing her options. "I'll wait here a bit. Maybe it won't be long."
If it came to it, she'd walk to the subway. It was about three-quarters of a mile. Not far. A stretch of the legs wouldn't hurt. Might even help.
She was still assembling her Plan B when Sabrina's voice cut in, low and simple: "Where are you staying?"
"Mm?" Natalie turned toward her.
In the dusk, the spill of the city's lights haloed Sabrina. She stood tall, loose, easy.
Hands tucked in her pockets, she said, "I'll take you."