Page 1

Chapter

One

“Your first set of dice should come as a gift. It’s tradition.”

Liam fishes into the pocket of his chinos and draws out a small velvet pouch. I shift from where I’ve sunk into the plush cushions of his couch, suddenly uncomfortable. My palms start to sweat, the can of beer slick in my right hand.

“You’ve already given me too much, Liam,” I say.

A plane ticket from New York to Texas. Groceries for the last two weeks.

Free rein to drive his grandpa’s old Civic.

His guest room to stay in for the foreseeable future.

I smile crookedly and shake my head. Finally agreeing to play Dungeons my mood immediately darkens, like a cloud blotting out the sunny giddiness of my first roll. The beer turns sour in my stomach, and I glance away, tossing pale curls out of my face. “Unlikely. But it’d be nice if my luck swung in the other direction for once.”

Liam is quiet for a moment, fiddling with the end of the paper fortune sticking out of the cookie.

He cracks the cookie in half, pops it into his mouth, and spins the slip between his fingers.

When he finally lets out a slow, measured sigh, I know he’s about to hit me with some hard truth.

We’ve been friends for fifteen years; I recognize his tells.

“People get laid off all the time, Sadie. It happens.”

“I know,” I say sullenly. “But that doesn’t make it suck any less.”

Since college, I’d lived the dream. For years, I’d trekked every morning—in heels —through the grimy streets of Midtown Manhattan to a gleaming beacon of a skyscraper where I’d worked as an associate at Incite Media, one of the top marketing agencies in the nation.

I’d loved throwing that name around, loved seeing the raised eyebrows from Tinder dates and my parents’ fancy friends. So impressive!

It had seemed too good to be true. Sometimes I felt like I was dressing up in someone else’s pencil skirt and magenta blazer, showing off someone else’s flashy résumé full of glowing recommendations and compelling statistics.

I kept waiting for somebody to out me as an impostor, to yell, Who let her in here?

But I stuck around, and I did good work.

My campaigns were inventive and effective. I was devastated when I was let go.

I was also—just slightly —relieved.

But I wasn’t ready to admit that out loud. And I definitely wasn’t ready to tell Liam the whole truth about why I lost my job.

It was his idea for me to leave New York and stay with him in Texas for a while.

He’d known something was wrong after a week of me ignoring his texts.

He’d known something was really wrong when I stopped sending reactions and emojis to dumbass memes he sent me through social media.

So he’d made up an excuse to fly up to visit his mom, who still lives on the same street my parents did in the small town in Connecticut where we’d both grown up.

He’d hopped on the train and shown up at my apartment building in Queens one Sunday morning, stale donuts from my favorite hometown bakery in one hand, a couple of duffel bags in the other.

I’d opened the door with a scowl and a messy bun, wearing sweatpants I’d had on for four days.

After a few hours of stuffing my face and crying, I hashed out a half-assed plan with Liam, and we decided I’d finally take the trip down to visit his new place in the Wild West.

Just a month, I’d told him. Just a month, and I’ll be back on my feet.

But with another look at my blotchy eyes and the state of my neglected apartment, Liam had put a hand on my elbow and gently encouraged me to stay for the summer.

“I know it sucks,” he soothes, bringing my attention back to the present. “But try to look at it as an opportunity.”

“Is that the advice your fortune cookie gave you?”

Liam gives me a flat look. “No. But it’s stale advice, I know.

Listen. It’s awful, and it’s going to hurt for a while.

But think of it as a forced vacation.” I wince, but he presses on.

“That job was running you ragged. You never took time off, never explored the hobbies you said you would, never came to visit me…” He’s smiling now, teasing, but guilt pinches at me.

He’d moved to the tiny town of Heller, Texas, five years ago, but since college, I’d only ever seen him on his trips back to New England.

He squeezes my shoulder. “Enjoy it. Take a pause. Think about what you want to do next. Let me show you around, introduce you to my friends, and distract you with a fantastical adventure.”

It’s the perfect subject change, because I’m certainly not yet ready to think about any future further than this D it’s the most inspired I’ve felt in months. “I might keep noodling away for a bit, actually.”

“Of course.” Liam disappears into the bathroom, and as the whine of his electric toothbrush drones in the background, I take another look around his new home.

It’s so unlike the apartments we shared in college.

The house is fucking massive, frankly, and Liam’s given me full rein of the second floor, while the first-floor master bedroom and game room are his.

He inherited the house from his late grandpa, and it’s still furnished with an odd mix of Liam’s clean, modern taste and his grandpa’s rugged old country boy aesthetic.

I look up the stairs, and a mounted deer head gazes imperiously down at me from where it’s positioned next to a fantasy landscape I painted for Liam as a birthday gift years ago.

I frown at the landscape. I haven’t painted in ages, but still—I could do much better work now.

Liam’s elderly orange cat, Howard—another inheritance from his grandpa—lumbers carefully down the stairs and curls up at my side.

In just the last couple of weeks, we’ve become good friends.

He croaks a meow at me, sounding like a growly old engine.

I run my thumb along the cat’s forehead, between his eyes, and he immediately begins to purr.

“Hey,” I call down the hallway. “Thank you again, Liam. For everything. I mean it.”

The sound of running water cuts off, and the buzzing stops.

“Josephine Sadie Brooks.” Liam comes out of his room with one hand on his hip and the toothbrush gripped menacingly in his fist. He always uses my full name when he’s pretending to be cross. “You’re my best friend. It’s nothing. I’m glad to have you here.”

His expression softens.

“You’ll figure it all out. We can’t control the wind, but we can always adjust the sails,” he says sagely.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Now that’s definitely from the fortune cookie.”

Liam’s eyes sparkle. “You caught me.” He passes me the small slip of paper before disappearing into his bedroom.

I look at the fortune then set it aside and turn back to my notebook and Jaylie’s character sheet. I can’t ignore the itch that there’s something missing, some aspect of her character that I haven’t captured yet. Again my eyes skim the painting I made for Liam all those years ago.

Even as a knot of apprehension tangles in my chest, I trudge upstairs with Howard close on my heels.

Ignoring the mess I’ve made of Liam’s guest room—bed unmade, clothes scattered on the floor—I dig into the bottom of my duffel bag and retrieve my sketchbook.

It was the last thing I’d grabbed before Liam shepherded me out of my apartment.

I hadn’t touched it in months, but I remember that tug of uncertainty, the feeling that I couldn’t bear to leave it behind.

I sink to the floor and open it in my lap, flipping about midway through to a blank section. Already I imagine Jaylie coming to life on the page as colors and lines swim behind my eyes.

Before I begin, I tape Liam’s crinkled fortune to the top of the page and read it once more.

We can’t control the wind, but we can always adjust the sails.

Lucky Numbers 34, 23, 67, 5, 40, 17

As I set my pencil to the empty page, a brief flash of optimism settles in my chest. Maybe my luck is turning after all.