Novels by ASHVA

ARIA'S POVWe sat across from each other and didn't move, the radiator did what it always did at this hour and neither of us said anything until the sound faded.Then I said: "Tell me the rest."He looked at me."Aria-""The rest, Dominic," I said. "All of it. In order."Something shifted in his face. Not the warmth dropping exactly. More like a man who had been holding something for a long time and understood, looking at me now, that the holding was finished. That I was not going to accept anything less than the full sequence and he could see this and there was nothing left to manage.He told me.He started with Isabella. The three years together, the engagement, the end of it. Her friendship with Sienna, how long it had gone back, the specific depth of a connection I hadn't known existed between the two women who had both been inside my story without my knowledge. When Isabella had told him about Flynn, about Sienna, about what was happening with my marriage, Dominic had understood

ARIA'S POVI cleaned the apartment before he arrived.I noticed myself doing it halfway through wiping down the kitchen counter, the cloth moving in slow careful circles over a surface that was already clean. I stopped, put the cloth down and stood there for a moment.This is not about comfort. This is not something you clean your way through.I left the rest of it, sat on the couch and waited.He arrived at seven exactly, always punctual. I opened the door and saw him with a bottle of wine in his hand. A specific bottle, a Willamette Valley pinot I'd mentioned once in passing three months ago, the kind of offhand mention that people didn't usually remember. He remembered. He always remembered things."I remembered," he said. Warm, easy, the smile that had been one of the first things I noticed about him.I took the bottle.Set it on the counter and didn't open it.He came inside and I heard the small pause behind me, the fraction of a second where he registered the absence of the us

ARIA'S POVJordan arrived with food. A bag from the breakfast spot three blocks over, the kind of place that required a wait on weekday mornings. She'd gotten there early enough to beat the line, which meant she'd been up thinking about this before most people were awake.I knew this signal. Jordan brought food when the conversation was going to require something to do with your hands.I put the kettle on without being asked.We sat at my kitchen table with the food between us and I watched her arrange the things she bought. She wasn't dramatic about it. Jordan was never dramatic. She was methodical, which was sometimes worse."Tell me," I said.She did.She laid it out cleanly and in order. Everything she found. She said it all without the framing of someone trying to convince me of something. Just information, laid on the table in sequence, and then she stopped and let the silence be what it was.The room was very quiet. Then. "You're telling me," I said, "that he knew about Flyn

ARIA'S POVJordan arrived with food. A bag from the breakfast spot three blocks over, the kind of place that required a wait on weekday mornings. She'd gotten there early enough to beat the line, which meant she'd been up thinking about this before most people were awake.I knew this signal. Jordan brought food when the conversation was going to require something to do with your hands.I put the kettle on without being asked.We sat at my kitchen table with the food between us and I watched her arrange the things she bought. She wasn't dramatic about it. Jordan was never dramatic. She was methodical, which was sometimes worse."Tell me," I said.She did.She laid it out cleanly and in order. Everything she found. She said it all without the framing of someone trying to convince me of something. Just information, laid on the table in sequence, and then she stopped and let the silence be what it was.The room was very quiet. Then. "You're telling me," I said, "that he knew about Flyn

JORDAN'S POVI'd had the feeling for weeks.Not a specific feeling. Not that I could point or name it. More like the low grade awareness you got when something in a room was slightly off and you couldn't locate the source but you kept looking anyway.It had started at the girls' day out. Isabella's face when Aria talked about Dominic. The smile that was the right shape but doing something complicated underneath it. I kept it at the back of my mind. Then the text from Aria the night of the gala. He's everything, Jordan.That “everything” bothered me.Perfect is not a word that applied to people who were actually real. Real people were specific. They had things that were good, things that needed work, histories that were complicated and patterns that repeated. Nobody who was real was everything. Everything was what you said about someone when you hadn't found the edges yet or when you'd found them and chosen not to look directly.Ryan was clearing the dinner plates when I said it."So

I turned the key in the lock and stepped into my apartment building still carrying the heavy knot from lunch with Isabella. I hadn't decided anything yet. Not what to do with what she told me or whether to say a word to Dominic. For twenty minutes in the elevator I had even forgotten we had plans tonight.Then I saw him.Dominic stood right there at my door, holding a bouquet of soft pink peonies. My favorite. The ones he always remembered."Beautiful women should have beautiful things," he said, voice low and warm as he held them out to me.“ Awwn, Dominic” I took the flowers, their petals cool against my palm. This is what it looks like. This is what real feels like. The thought hit me so hard it almost knocked the breath out of me."Come in," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.He followed me inside and closed the door. I headed straight for the kitchen, found a vase under the sink, and filled it with water. The stems made a soft rustle as I arranged them. They looked perfect on