Chapter 4
There are names that appear on a phone screen and become information.
There are names that become weather.
Evan was still weather.
My thumb hovered over the decline button while every nerve in my body prepared for a storm that was currently three hundred miles away.
The phone kept buzzing.
From outside the storefront, Rafe shouted, “I swear to God, sir, the moon is not personally moving the ocean to ruin your vacation.”
I stared at Evan’s name.
Then I answered.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
One word, and there he was. Polished. Familiar. The voice that had shared an apartment with me, a business with me, and approximately six thousand arguments about whether camera batteries counted as fully charged at eighty-two percent.
I gripped the phone harder.
“What’s wrong?”
A pause.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You called me during a workday.”
“Jesus, Piper. I can call without something being wrong.”
Technically true.
Historically unsupported.
I looked through the storefront window. Cole stood on the dock talking to a family in matching sun hats. Beyond him, the water flashed white under the late-morning sun. The scene was so aggressively not Atlanta that for half a second I felt like Evan had dialed the wrong life.
“What do you need?”
He exhaled.
I knew that exhale.
It meant I had failed to participate correctly in the opening ritual where we pretended the conversation was social until he got to the thing he wanted.
“We can’t find the Beaumont archive.”
Of course.
I closed my eyes.
“The Beaumont wedding?”
“Yes.”
“September fourteenth last year?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“What are you looking for?”
“The full reception set. There are only selects on the main drive.”
“No, there aren’t.”
“I’m looking at it.”
“You’re looking in Active Projects.”
Silence.
I could see the old studio in my head as clearly as if I had never left. Four editing stations. Black metal shelving. The ridiculous neon sign Evan had insisted would look great in social content and had instead made every behind-the-scenes video look like it was filmed in a nightclub bathroom.
I could see the file tree too.
Because I had built it.
“Go to Archive,” I said. “Twenty twenty-five. September. Beaumont comma Claire and Daniel. The raws are inside the master folder. Reception is camera two.”
“I did that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Piper.”
“If you were in the right folder, you would see eight thousand four hundred and something files and wonder why we overshot the bouquet toss by a criminal amount.”
There was movement on his end. A mouse clicking.
I waited.
Why was I waiting?
I was standing inside somebody else’s business on somebody else’s island, in the middle of my own paid contract, listening while my ex used me as remote technical support for the company I had legally left.
My body knew that.
My mouth had apparently not received the memo.
“Oh,” Evan said.
I looked at the ceiling.
“Found it?”
“Yeah.”
“Great.”
“How did you remember the date?”
Because I remembered all the dates.
Because somebody had to.
Because for years my usefulness had been built out of a thousand tiny pieces of information that nobody else bothered to keep because Piper would know.
“I shot the wedding.”
“We both shot it.”
I nearly laughed.
He had arrived halfway through portraits because he’d booked a commercial headshot session that morning without checking the wedding timeline.
I had shot the bride getting ready, the groom getting ready, first look, family portraits, bridal party, details, and half the ceremony before Evan had appeared carrying an iced coffee and calling traffic insane.
“Sure,” I said.
Another click.
“Actually, while I have you.”
There it was.
I looked through the window again.
Cole had finished with the family. His head turned toward the shop, and for one strange second his eyes found me through the glass.
I turned away.
“No.”
Evan went quiet.
The word had left my mouth before I knew what question it was answering.
“What?”
“I have work.”
“This will take thirty seconds.”
“You already said you only needed the Beaumont archive.”
“I did only need that when I called.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“What is it?”
The old reflex had not died. Apparently it had simply learned to limp.
“The Connors album notes. The designer says the revision request references a markup file she doesn’t have.”
“Then she needs to ask whoever is handling Connors.”
“That’s the problem. You were handling Connors.”
“I was handling Connors before I left.”
“They’re still clients.”
“Of the studio.”
“Yes.”
“The studio I no longer own.”
He sighed again.
My shoulders tightened.
“I am not trying to make this a thing,” he said.
“Then don’t.”
“I just need to know where the markup is.”
I could answer.
That was the terrible part.
I knew exactly where it was.
I had saved the revised spread numbers inside the client-management system because Evan kept forgetting to check email threads before opening design notes. Twelve, fourteen, nineteen, twenty-two, thirty-one.
The knowledge sat in my brain like an unpaid invoice.
I could give it to him and be done in ten seconds.
Which was how it always worked.
No single favor had ever destroyed me.
They had just accumulated until my entire life was built around preventing other people from experiencing inconvenience.
“Evan.”
“What?”
“I don’t work there anymore.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
The silence changed.
Not angry yet.
Just less polished.
“I thought we were trying to make this separation civil.”
There it was.
The old trap dressed in reasonable clothes.
Civil meant I answered.
Civil meant I helped.
Civil meant Evan got continued access to the useful parts of me as long as he did not explicitly ask for the rest.
“I am being civil.”
“Piper.”
“I’m also working.”
He made a small sound under his breath.
I knew that one too.
“You always knew where everything was.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand why you’re making a thirty-second answer into a boundary.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
Because you turned eight years of thirty-second answers into a business model.
I almost said it.
Instead I looked down at the Tide & Timber logo printed across a stack of release forms beside me.
New company.
New job.
My name on the contract.
My cameras on the table.
My time.
“The markup should be in the client record,” I said. “If it isn’t, the designer can contact the couple and confirm the requested changes.”
“So you do know.”
“I know how we used to file things.”
“Can you just tell me which spreads?”
“No.”
That silence was better.
Cleaner.
My pulse still jumped like I had done something dangerous, which was ridiculous. I had not set fire to his studio. I had declined to remember page numbers for a wedding album.
“I have to go,” I said.
“How’s North Carolina?”
The change of subject was so smooth I almost followed it automatically.
“Hot.”
“Job okay?”
“Yes.”
“You like the client?”
Clients, I thought.
One quiet captain who grabbed me before I could lose my balance.
One shameless surf instructor who had been arguing with a tourist about lunar gravity for six minutes.
One boatbuilder who labeled screws by type and size and thought alphabetizing them would be stupid.
“They’re good clients.”
“Good.”
Another pause.
Then, softer, “You sound different.”
My stomach twisted.
“Probably the ocean.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Salt air. Very transformative.”
“Piper.”
I closed my eyes.
For years that tone had meant intimacy.
Now I heard the machinery underneath it.
Concern, nostalgia, access.
Maybe some of it was real.
That did not make it harmless.
“I have to work.”
“Okay.”
He sounded hurt.
The reflex came up again.
Explain. Soften. Make sure he knows I am not angry. Make sure he does not think I am cruel. Make sure the man who cheated on me does not experience an unnecessary negative emotion because I ended a phone call during business hours.
Absolutely fucking not.
“Goodbye, Evan.”
I hung up.
Then I stood there staring at my phone like it might issue a formal complaint.
“That looked fun.”
I jumped.
Rafe stood in the open doorway holding two bottles of sunscreen, a coil of ankle leashes, and a cardboard box labeled YOUTH PFD XS.
“Jesus.”
“I get that a lot, but the hair is different.”
I pressed the phone against my chest. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know somebody on that call made you want to eat your own teeth.”
“Great.”
“Not long enough to hear anything interesting.”
He came inside and set the box on the counter.
That mattered more than it should have.
He could have asked.
Rafe looked like a man born asking questions other people knew better than to ask.
Instead he picked up one of the release forms.
“Do you need funny or quiet?”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Some people need funny after a bad call. Some need quiet. I can do either.”
“You can do quiet?”
“No. But I can leave.”
A laugh escaped me.
He pointed at my face. “Funny. Excellent. My stronger discipline.”
“Forty percent funny.”
“That is cruelly restrictive.”
“Consider it a professional challenge.”
He looked at my phone, then back at me.
“Ex?”
I nodded.
“Asshole?”
“Complicated.”
Rafe tilted his head.
“Was he the cheating fiance?”
I stared.
His expression changed immediately.
“Shit. Sorry. Cole told us you were coming out of a business breakup and an engagement breakup. He did not give details. I just connected that badly.”
“No. You’re right.”
Rafe’s face lost the joke completely.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Then asshole.”
“Still complicated.”
“Most assholes are.”
I laughed again despite myself.
He smiled, but there was less performance in it now.
“You okay?”
“I just spent nine minutes providing technical support to a company I legally exited.”
“That seems longer than zero.”
“Thank you, mathematician.”
“I’m versatile.”
I put my phone facedown beside the laptop.
“He called for one file location. Then there was another question.”
“And you answered?”
“One.”
Rafe nodded.
Not approving.
Not criticizing.
Just taking the fact as offered.
“Then I said no to the second one.”
His eyebrows went up.
I folded my arms. “Do not give me a sticker.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“I was thinking small trophy.”