The Unwritten Story Between Us

Chapter 1

One

The barista had spelled her name wrong again.

Libby. Scrawled in black Sharpie across the side of her oat milk latte.

Six years of coming to this same coffee cart, tucked between the pretzel vendor and the guy who sold knockoff scarves from Paris, six years of helping Dante—that was the barista’s name—navigate everything from his ex-girlfriend drama to his sister’s quinceanera playlist. And still: Libby.

Olivia—Livvie, thank you—didn’t bother to correct him.

“Thanks, Dante.” She wrapped her fingers around the cup, the warmth almost too much for the mild morning. “Love what you did with the foam.”

He’d attempted a leaf. It looked more like a lopsided heart, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

September had softened the city overnight.

Livvie tucked the cup against her chest and stepped back into the river of commuters flowing down Fifth Avenue, dodging a man in a suit who apparently had somewhere very important to be.

Above the canyon of buildings, the sky stretched endless and blue, scrubbed clean by yesterday’s rain.

The brutal humidity of August had finally broken, leaving behind air that felt like a gift—warm but breathing, the kind of morning that made even the most jaded New Yorkers walk a little slower.

She didn’t blame them. The city was showing off today.

The trees along the avenue hadn’t turned yet, but they’d lost that tired, dusty look of late summer.

Their leaves hung full and green, with just a whisper of gold at the edges—a promise of autumn in the city.

Sidewalk gardens spilled over with late-blooming zinnias and marigolds, oranges and yellows bright against brownstone stoops.

The air smelled like roasted nuts from the cart on the corner, sweet and earthy, layered over coffee steam and the warm yeast scent drifting from the bakery with its door propped open.

Livvie breathed it in. It wasn’t Maple Lake, Minnesota, which pretty much set the bar on autumn scents and colors, but Central Park gave it her best go, and Livvie would take what she could get.

She took a sip of her latte—still too hot, burning the tip of her tongue—and let herself feel, just for a moment, like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

New York City. The publishing world. Moving up the corporate ladder at her literary agency, closer to the smell of success.

A woman thrust a flyer into her hand. Broadway show. She smiled, tucked it in her pocket, and kept walking.

The knockoff handbag guy was already set up on his corner, fake Prada and Louis Vuitton spread across a folding table, his eyes scanning for cops.

A saxophonist outside the bank played something slow and golden, the notes floating up past the construction scaffolding and dissolving into the morning symphony of horns and jackhammers and a thousand conversations happening at once.

A dog walker wrestled with six leashes, a tangle of pugs and ’doodles all pulling different directions.

Her phone buzzed.

Meg.

Meg

Pizza. Your place. Tonight. Dancing with the Stars.

She laughed and sent a thumbs-up emoji.

She shoved the phone back in her pocket and walked faster, dodged a couple women in skirts and tennis shoes emerging from the subway.

The Telegraph Building rose ahead of her, its limestone facade glowing honey-gold in the morning light.

Pemberton & Associates Literary Agency had occupied the fourteenth floor for forty years—long enough that the brass letters in the lobby directory had worn smooth at the edges.

Livvie loved this building in a way she’d never admit out loud—the ornate cornices and arched windows, the terra-cotta details that most people rushed past without noticing.

It felt like publishing should feel. Like stories lived here.

She pushed through the heavy brass doors and stepped into the lobby.

Marble floors, vaulted ceilings, the echo of footsteps mixing with the whisper of revolving doors.

Somewhere above her, a century of telegrams had once clattered through wires, urgent messages flying across the country.

Now it was emails and Slack notifications and the same hushed desperation dressed up in business casual.

7:14 a.m. Right on time.

The security guard—Montrose, two kids, wife just started nursing school—waved her through without checking her badge.

“Early again, Ms. Fox.”

“Someone has to water the plants.”

He laughed. What? She meant it.

The elevator dinged at the fourteenth floor: gray carpet, gray cubicles, the hum of the HVAC system. Morning light slanted through the east-facing windows, catching dust motes in the air. The smell of stale coffee from yesterday’s pot mixed with the lemon cleaner the night crew used.

And there, by the elevator, the fiddle-leaf fig was dying again.

Livvie set down her coffee and her bag. The leaves had gone yellow at the edges, brown spots spreading across the broad surfaces. She’d told Richard multiple times—more light, less water, maybe don’t shove it in a dark corner because it “fits the aesthetic.”

She rotated the pot toward the window. Pulled off two dead leaves and tucked them in her pocket.

On her way to her cubicle, she stopped at Derek Huang’s new desk—the one by the window, the spot that used to belong to Janet before her promotion.

Livvie pulled a small bakery box from her bag and set it on his keyboard.

Salted caramel cupcake. She’d been up at five to frost it, and the smell of brown butter still clung to her sweater.

The little flag said Happy Birthday! in her best handwriting.

She twisted the silver fox ring on her finger—three full rotations, a nervous habit she’d never managed to break—and headed for her cubicle.

The list dropped at ten. And a tiny voice inside kept whispering…today could be different.

Twenty-three months ago, she’d pulled a manuscript from the slush pile at eleven p.m. on a Tuesday.

Debut author, quiet voice, the kind of story that rearranged your heart.

She’d shepherded it through three rounds of revisions, staying late, coming in early.

She’d cried actual tears when it sold at auction for six figures.

Richard Ames, her boss, had read approximately forty pages, but she’d known—just known in her bones—that the book was destined for The New York Times bestseller list.

Livvie pulled up her chair, booted up her computer, and checked the internet. Not live yet.

She opened her email program, a list of tagged queries all rejected by Richard, the manuscripts deemed “not for us.” Most of them deserved to be there. But one had been nagging at her until she’d finally opened it and moved it into the what-if category.

Nora Whitcomb. Twenty-three. First novel. Richard had forwarded Livvie the proposal with the words “too quiet, no platform” in the message.

But Livvie had been curious, pulled up the manuscript, and read the first fifty pages on her lunch break yesterday.

A different story—a woman inherits her grandmother’s flower shop and discovers it’s actually a front for a matchmaking service.

Something in the voice—raw and searching and desperately honest—had followed her home.

It was the kind of story that didn’t announce itself.

The kind you had to lean in to hear. The protagonist’s relationship with her grandmother reminded Livvie of Aunt Lila—the way some people saw you clearly when the rest of the world looked right through.

Brilliance in the making.

She looked at her notes.

Page 7: This is where I fell in love with the grandmother. Deepen this scene.

Page 28: The twist needs more setup. Plant something earlier about the roses.

Page 45: I’m crying on the subway and I don’t even care.

She pulled up the query again. Stared at it.

Richard would never approve her reaching out. Junior agents didn’t overrule senior partners. Junior agents didn’t contact rejected authors behind their boss’s back.

But the voice in those pages. That raw, searching honesty. The way the protagonist described her grandmother’s hands—weathered and sure, holding secrets in every crease.

Livvie had read a thousand queries. She knew when something was special.

She opened a new email.

Dear Nora,

I know you received a pass from our agency, but I wanted to reach out personally. Your pages stayed with me—the voice, the honesty, the way you write about family and all its complicated truths. I think there’s something real here, and I’d love to talk about it if you’re open to feedback.

No promises. Just a conversation.

Her finger hovered over Send.

This was stupid. Could even be career suicide. If Richard found out she was developing an author he’d rejected, going around him, making the agency look inconsistent—

She thought about the fiddle-leaf fig. The cupcake Derek wouldn’t remember by lunch. The bestseller list that would drop in two hours with her work on it and her name nowhere near it.

Some voices deserved to be heard. Even if hearing them was against the rules.

She hit Send.

The email whooshed away. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

Too late now.

She minimized the window, hands trembling slightly, and went back to the slush pile, reading through the rejects. Just another Friday morning, nothing to see here.

And probably just another invisible risk no one would ever know about.

Unless it worked. Unless Nora Whitcomb turned out to be everything Livvie thought she could be.

Then everyone would know, and she’d be one of those agents that authors thanked in their forewords.

Or on an award stage.

“You’re here early.”

Priya Sharma stood at the edge of her cubicle, statement earrings catching the light, blazer rumpled over one arm. Two coffees. And the expression of someone delivering bad news.

“I’m always here early.” Livvie saved her notes. “What’s wrong?”

Priya stepped closer, voice dropping. “I think they’re restructuring. We have an all-hands meeting this morning.”

The coffee in Livvie’s stomach went cold. “How bad?”