Eli’s POV

The coffee shop didn’t have a name worth remembering. Just a counter, a tired espresso machine, and a fluorescent light that turned everyone ugly.

I liked it for exactly that reason, no one came here to be seen. They came to disappear into a laptop screen or a deadline, and the barista, a kid named Drew who never spoke more than four words to me, let them.

It was almost midnight. I had a layout for a boutique skincare brand due by morning, and I’d been staring at the same composition for forty minutes, moving elements around like rearranging furniture in a room I didn’t want to be...