Page 13 of For the Plot

I curl tighter into the couch, pressing my face into the pillow. It smells like lavender and dryer sheets. Home. Safety.

I’ve spent so long working. Hustling. Clawing my way toward a version of success that always moved just out of reach. And when I finally had it, when I was climbing the ladder, hitting the metrics, doing all the things—they still left. They always leave.

I don’t know how long I stay like that. Ten minutes? Thirty? Time stretches and shrinks when you’re mourning a version of yourself that doesn’t exist anymore.

Eventually, I sit up. My head spins slightly from the wine and moving too quickly and my cheeks are warm and damp. Reece’s card is still sitting there, glowing like a golden ticket to a different life.

Maybe that’s why I’m spiraling. Because for the first time in forever, something shifted. Instead of feeling like I had to make a life decision and figure out the next decade of my life, I’ve been given a chance to just take a job for the next few weeks that will allow me to get my life back on track.

There’sa knock at my door just after nine a.m., which can only mean one of two things: a package I forgot I ordered or Maya on a mission. Reluctantly, I slide on my sweatpants on the off chance it is a stranger and trudge toward the door.

I open it to find her holding a cardboard tray with two coffees, a paper bag between her teeth, and the expression of someone determined to fix what I undoubtedly broke overnight. I step aside without a word, and she breezes in, toeing off her shoes with the efficiency of someone who’s done this a hundred times, because she has.

“You’re lucky I love you,” she says, setting everything on the counter. “Because I was halfway to SoulCycle when I had a feeling you needed carbs more than I needed to pretend I enjoy sweating and bouncing around on a bike.”

“You are a literal angel.” I sigh, grabbing the coffee with my name scribbled in Sharpie and inhaling it like I’m trying to revive a corpse.

Maya arches a brow as she watches me shuffle to the couch. “So. You gonna tell me how far down the spiral you went last night, or do I have to guess based on the number of cheese wrappers I’m about to find in your trash?”

I groan, already curling into the cushions. “Do we really have to talk about it?”

“Depends. Did you do something unhinged like DM Reece Blackwood a reel of you lip-syncing ‘Earned It,’ or did you just stalk your exes until you cried into your cat’s fur?”

“I don’t have a cat.”

“Well, now we know what’s missing in your life.”

I laugh in spite of my pathetic situation, hiding my face behind the coffee cup. “Okay, fine. You were right.”

Maya blinks. “Wait, what?”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

She slides onto the couch beside me, grinning. “About what, exactly? Be specific. I want to savor this.”

I roll my eyes but give in. “Reece. The offer. The… effect.”

Maya gasps, dramatically placing a hand over her heart. “Are you saying you’re actually considering it?”

“I haven’t said yes.”

“But you’re thinking about it.”

“I didn’t say no.”

She grins like she just won a bet. “That’s all I needed. We’re making progress.”

“I also cried over Shane and rage-Googled Archer, so don’t throw me a parade just yet.”

“Still progress,” she insists. “You’re feeling things. That’s good.”

“Is it? Because it mostly feels like emotional whiplash and a hangover wrapped in a Garfield t-shirt.”

Maya gives me a look. “Skye. You’ve been checked out for months. Head down, working, surviving. This is the first time in forever I’ve seen you light up—even if it’s just from the adrenaline of possibly self-destructing in an extremely hot, very complicated way.”

I lean back against the cushion and let the silence stretch.

“I can’t tell if this is an opportunity or a terrible idea wearing a really well-tailored suit,” I finally say.