Lilah Jean had signed the lease on the empty shop that morning, and now she stood in the middle of it with no idea what to put inside. She wanted this to be the first pink boutique Cursed Backwater had ever seen. She wanted people to walk in and feel like they'd stepped into a heart. But the room was gray. The floors were gray. Every idea in her head slipped away before she could hold it. She had the dream and the space, and still she couldn't picture a single wall. She knew the problem. She had no anchor. Every good shop had one thing that decided everything else, and hers didn't exist yet. She kept sketching dresses and tearing the pages out. A slip in pink silk. A little bow above the waist. Pretty, but small. It couldn't hold up a whole room by itself. Lilah Jean sat on the cold floor and pressed her palms to her eyes. A scratching sound made her look up. Something moved past the front window. She opened the door and gasped. A peacock stood on the walk, pale pink from beak to tail. Its feathers glowed soft in the gray light. It tipped its head at her, calm as a house cat, then strutted inside like it owned the place. "You can't be in here," Lilah Jean said, laughing. The bird ignored her. It spread its tail. The pink eyes on each feather fanned wide, and the whole gray room seemed to warm. Lilah Jean froze. That was it. That shape. That soft rounded fan. She grabbed her pencil. She didn't draw the bird. She drew a chair. A high tufted back that curved up into two soft peaks, exactly like the peacock's spread. A heart. The seat plump and deep. A velvet skirt draping to the floor. She drew it in pink and knew she was right before she finished the last line. This was the piece. Everything else would grow around it. The dresses, the walls, the light. The peacock folded its tail and wandered toward the back, poking at nothing. Lilah Jean held up the sketch and turned in a slow circle. She could see it now. The heart-shaped sofa in the center. A pink cottage feel, like her own house wrapped around the shop. Racks along the walls. The silk slip in the window, small now that it had something to sit beside. She had her anchor. But the drawing was only paper. No shop in town made furniture like this, and she had checked. To build the heart she'd have to find someone with the skill and the nerve to try, and she had spent nearly all her money on the lease. Lilah Jean looked at the peacock, then at the empty room, and reached for her phone.

Lilah Jean scrolled her phone until her thumb ached. She had contacts for stylists, buyers, and old college friends. None of them could build a chair. She called two anyway. One laughed. One didn't pick up. The pink peacock strutted past her feet and out the door, and she followed it just to move. The bird led her down to the water. A pond sat there, wide and still, with a small waterfall spilling over stone. The falling water ran pink, catching the light. Cattails leaned along the edges. Lilah Jean stopped and stared. She had never seen this place. Across the pond stood an old house on stilts, its trim painted a faded pink, its porch sagging like a tired shoulder. A man stood on that porch. Tall, broad, arms filling a black shirt. He held a plank in one hand and a saw in the other. He wasn't building anything. He was just standing there, watching her the way you watch something you've been meaning to say hello to. Lilah Jean crossed the little footbridge. "Is this your workshop?" she asked. He looked at the house, then at her. "Was somebody's. Tools still work." He set the saw down. "I'm Nik." "Lilah Jean." She laughed, nervous, and something in his face shifted. He stood a little straighter, like the sound had landed somewhere. "I know your laugh," he said. Then he stopped, searching for words. "Heard it at your shop. Couldn't figure out how to say anything." Her cheeks went warm. She pulled the folded sketch from her bag instead. "I need this built. A chair. Shaped like a heart. Everyone I called says it can't be done here." Nik took the paper. He studied the curved back, the deep seat, the peaks. He didn't rush. Behind him, an old chair leaned against the wall, its pink paint chipped down to bare wood, cushions caved in. He nodded at it. "Fixed that one last winter," he said. "Yours is bigger. Harder." He looked up. "I can do it." "I can barely pay you," she said. "I spent everything on the lease." He folded the sketch along her creases and handed it back. "Didn't ask for money." He paused. "Ask me again when it's built." Lilah Jean's chest tightened, half relief, half something newer. She had a builder. She had wood, tools, and a man who noticed her before she noticed him. The chair could exist now. It would take weeks of trips to this leaning house by the pink water, hours beside him while he worked. She thought about that and didn't mind at all. "Deal," she said, and shook his hand. His grip was warm and sure. Neither of them let go right away.