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Stupidly, she found herself eager to get another look at Matt Howe, too

MATT DIDN’T SLEEP MUCH anymore The lure of the soft pillows and thick er had ht chair, watching the eh the curtains

In front of him was his sketch pad

While waiting for Vanessa to show up, he was actually supposed to do some work

He rotated the empty pad in quarter turns

A blank page used to be a call to work, a spark to his iination

Now?

He rereenhouse The tool shed in the back nearly obliterated by vines The endless possibility of the space

And he felt nothing Just that cold breeze blowing through hily familiar

Thinking he could force it, the way he used to in college when he was so tired from exams his eyes felt like sandpaper, he fras

Sitting back he stared at his sketch, his work son at the sah sketches on napkins, on the backs ofplan for the doarehouse renovations on the back of a pizza box Then he’d taken that pizza box over to Jack’s house in the ht, so damn fired up about this plan So damn blind with his own ambition

He’d convinced his best friend to go in on the project with hiht at the time it would be the professional adventure of a lifetime For both of them

Matt tried again to re specific about that southwest corner About choosing not to reinforce the floor, but he could not re that he couldn’t take another loss, that the , that the building was in worse shape than any of theht

The lawyers had so easily absolved Matt of guilt, clapping their hands together and washing hiedy all because he couldn’t remember

“But what if I’?” he’d asked

“Are you?”

He’d shaken his head, sick to his stoh for the lawyers

But his sickness had stayed