Page 4 of Everything We Found

“Good. I don’t trust him.” It was something Aimee said whenever Thomas came up in conversation, which he rarely did anymore.

Time to change the subject.

“So…” Nadia threaded her fingers. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I’m officially ready to expand.”

“Really?” Nadia leaned forward, intrigued. “You’re opening a new store?”

“Yes. This time for real.” Aimee had attempted to open a second café four years ago, but with a toddler and a baby on the way, she felt overwhelmed and killed the project.

“How exciting! You’ll let me design the site, of course.”

“Of course. As if I’d hire anyone else. And I’m paying your fee this time. I insist, or I’ll find another designer.”

“Do I still get free coffee for life?”

“That’s up for negotiation.” Aimee clicked her tongue, pointing a finger at her, and Nadia laughed. She had designed the original Aimee’s Café pro bono, with the caveat she was entitled to one specialty coffee daily free of charge.

“Tell me what you have in mind.”

“All right.” Aimee pressed her palms on the desk and launched into her spiel. For the next hour they discussed Aimee’s vision for the café’s expansion. She had several sites in mind she wanted Nadia’s opinion on. They made plans to tour the locations early the following week, and before Nadia left for her office, they discussed what dishes they planned to bring to Kristen and Nick’s potluck barbecue that Saturday. Aimee was making her insanely delectable version of Mexican street corn.Nadia would probably pick up a potato salad from the grocery store. They hugged and Nadia left for work.

As she walked to her car, Nadia checked her phone. Several calls and texts had come in while she’d been with Aimee. A couple were time sensitive, projects with deadlines and clients requesting updates. But she ignored those, drawn to one particular message, as she had been since it arrived yesterday afternoon.

She reread the text from Thomas.

Need your expertise. Can we meet?

Her thumb hovered over the screen, her heart doing the familiar skip-and-stumble it always did when his name appeared.

Four years ago, Thomas had hired her for a job, a kitchen remodel at his weekend home in Carmel Valley. She’d designed that space knowing his hands would touch those surfaces, his mornings would unfold in the light-filled room, as the thought she’d been designing a life she couldn’t admit she wanted to share with him hovered in the recesses of her mind. He’d planned to eventually move into the house full time. She suspected he was living there now.

Nadia had tried to keep her involvement in the project from Aimee, knowing how she felt about Thomas. Her relationship with him had been turbulent after James’s disappearance. At one point, she filed a restraining order against him. But Aimee caught Nadia messaging Thomas, and while Aimee conceded she had no say over Nadia’s social life and career, Nadia felt that Aimee had seen her contact with Thomas as a betrayal of their friendship.

Nadia still felt that way because she had been betraying Aimee. Not just with the project, but the longing for Thomasshe’d never confessed. With the truth that every time she’d encouraged Aimee to move on from James, part of her had been thinking of Thomas, wondering if there could ever be a world where loving him didn’t mean losing everything else.

And the secret she’d sworn never to breathe a word of.

But if she hadn’t betrayed Aimee, she could have been killed and Nadia had refused to risk the life of her closest and dearest friend. Someone she considered family.

After her father, a man she’d adored and looked up to, walked out on her and her mom, Nadia had a difficult time trusting anyone would stick around for her. While every romantic relationship she’d had was fragile territory that usually ended with her abruptly terminating the relationship before she got too close, the thought of losing Aimee triggered a panic that felt almost physical. She couldn’t bear the thought of Aimee abandoning their friendship. But if Aimee ever discovered how deep Nadia’s betrayal ran, Nadia would lose her.

She read Thomas’s text again.

There was so much Aimee didn’t know about her history with Thomas.

There was a lot that their inner circle didn’t know about what had happened between them. If there was anything she and Thomas had in common, it was how closely guarded they kept their secrets.

Nadia typed a short reply and sent it off. She put her phone away and went to work, her mind brimming with colors and patterns and textures, her head packed with an overabundance of ideas her conversation with Aimee had sparked. Which wasn’t unusual for her.

Nadia always had to be thinking, doing, creating, or brainstorming. Downtime scared her, so she kept herself busy and her mind occupied. It was the only way she could suppressthe nagging compulsion to confess everything to Aimee, a secret that had been haunting her for a decade.

2

NADIA

Thomas was waiting outside when she arrived at his mid-century, split-level home that overlooked the ranches and vineyards of the Santa Lucia Mountains in Carmel Valley. She parked on the paver stone driveway beside his Tesla and gathered up her phone, keys, and her wits. The entire two-hour drive had been an internal debate about whether she should have come.