#####Chapter 1

The gallery opening was a success—or at least that's what my best friend kept telling me as he air-kissed people I'd never met and gripped my shoulder with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested he'd already had three drinks.

"Elena, look at you," Liam said, gesturing vaguely at the exhibition space. "Your work is incredible. You should be selling out."

I smiled. It was the kind of smile I'd perfected over fifteen years—the one that said *I'm fine, everything is fine, I'm just happy to be here with you while you shine*. My illustrations covered three walls of the Meridian Gallery in downtown Portland, a collection of dark, sensual fantasy pieces I'd spent six months perfecting. Moonlit forests. Shadowed figures. Eyes full of longing.

Nobody had sold a single print.

"Thanks, Liam." I adjusted the price card on the largest piece—a watercolor of a woman with her head tilted back, surrendering to something unseen.

$800. "Having you here means everything."

He squeezed my shoulder again, a gesture that felt more like thank you for existing in my orbit than you matter to me. Then his phone buzzed, and I watched his attention scatter like startled birds.

"Sorry, it's Marcus from the firm. I should probably—"

"Go," I said, and I meant it. I'd learned to mean it a long time ago.

He kissed the top of my head—the hair kiss, I called it, not the real thing—and disappeared into the crowd. I was alone again, surrounded by my art and strangers, which was essentially my entire life in a metaphor.

I'd met Liam Russo in the tenth grade when he sat next to me in advanced English and spent the entire period cracking jokes until I couldn't breathe. He was beautiful in that golden, effortless way—dark curling hair, sharp cheekbones, the kind of smile that made teachers forget to give him detention. I fell in love with him between October and November, though I wouldn't realize it until years later.

Twenty-five felt too old to still be waiting for someone.

I wandered through my own exhibition like a ghost, listening to the occasional murmur of strangers. A woman paused in front of the surrendering-woman piece. For a moment, I thought she might ask about it. Collectors sometimes did, even if they didn't buy.

"Dark," she said to her companion, then moved on.

By midnight, the gallery was empty. The owner, Patricia, approached me with the kind of pity expression I was getting used to seeing.

"You know what? Sometimes these things take time," she said. "Your work is beautiful, Elena. Really. It just needs the right viewer."

I'd heard that before. Liam had said it three years ago when I quit my corporate job to freelance. It just needs the right moment, he'd said, believing in me so hard it felt like desperation. And I'd believed him because I'd always believed him. Because believing in Liam made sense. He was good at everything. He was good at believing in things.

The problem was, I was starting to believe that the *right moment* was a lie we told ourselves when things weren't working.

My phone buzzed as I was helping Patricia take down the remaining pieces.

Liam:So sorry I had to leave early. Work emergency. Rain check on that drink with my friends tomorrow?

I stared at the message. Tomorrow I'd planned to spend the evening organizing my portfolio for new clients. Tonight I'd told myself I was fine with coming home alone.

Elena: No worries. Get some rest.

That was the thing about loving someone who didn't love you back—at least not in the way you needed. You became excellent at pretending that their absence didn't hurt. You became generous with your time because saying yes meant he stayed, even if just a little longer. You learned to treasure the scraps because starving seemed worse.

I drove home to my small apartment in Northeast Portland, the one I'd rented alone because Liam kept saying he might move in with his girlfriend, and then he did, and then he didn't, and then I'd just gotten used to the quiet. My cat, Artemis, was waiting by the door with her usual judgmental expression.

"I know," I told her, dropping my keys. "I'm pathetic."

I poured a glass of wine—a bottle I'd been saving for a celebration—and stood on my tiny balcony overlooking a street that smelled like wet cedar and dreams people had given up on. The Oregon rain was just starting, the kind that would last for months.

My phone rang.

It was my mother. Of course it was my mother.

"Hi, Mom."

"Elena! How was the opening?"

"It went well. No sales, but—"

"Oh honey, it's early. These things take time." My mother's voice was bright with the kind of optimism that made me tired. "How is Liam? Have you two finally gotten together?"

This was her favorite topic. Liam Russo, the golden child of her dreams, the perfect Italian boy with the perfect family and the perfect future. Never mind that he'd just gotten out of a two-year relationship that had apparently been toxic, as Liam had explained during the three-hour phone call I'd made time for last month.

"Mom, Liam and I are just friends."

"For now," she said meaningfully. "He'll figure it out, sweetie. Guys are slow. Your father took six months to ask me out."

I'd heard that story seventeen thousand times.

"Listen, the reason I called—your cousin is getting married. Next June. I need you to come, and I was hoping you might bring Liam? It would look so nice. You know how the family is about—"

I stopped listening. Somewhere around *bring Liam*, something inside me fractured.

I was twenty-five years old, standing alone on a balcony in the rain, drinking wine I'd saved to celebrate art nobody wanted, listening to my mother plan a future where I was a supporting character in my own life. And for the first time in fifteen years, I felt something besides hope or resignation.

I felt angry.

"Mom, I have to go."

"Wait, about the wedding—"

"I'll let you know."

I hung up and sat in the dark, rain dampening my hair, my expensive dress soaked at the hem. My phone had another message.

Liam:Actually, are you free tonight? I could really use a friend. Things with Jessica are getting messy again.

Jessica. His on-again, off-again ex. The woman he'd called me at three in the morning to talk about. The woman I'd listened to him describe in excruciating detail while I'd sat in my car outside her apartment, waiting to pick him up after he'd shown up at her place drunk.

I looked at his message for a long time.

Then I did something I'd never done before.

I didn't respond.

For the first time in fifteen years, I chose myself.

The phone buzzed almost immediately.

Liam:Elena?

And again.

Liam:Hello?

And again.

Liam: Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?

I watched the messages come through and felt something shift inside my chest. Relief and terror in equal measure. Because ignoring Liam Russo felt like stepping off a cliff, and I had no idea if there was solid ground below, or just a very long fall.

I turned off my phone.

By morning, everything would change. But that night, I sat in the dark with my cat and my empty wine bottle and let myself imagine—just for a moment—what it would feel like to be someone's first choice instead of their convenient fallback.

I had no idea that choice was about to arrive at my door in the form of a tattooed stranger with dangerous eyes and a voice like smoke.