Chapter 1

Rhys Oxley's grandmother turned eighty, and the whole family gathered on the restaurant patio for a group photo.

The photographer asked three times, "Anyone else coming? I'm about to take it."

His aunt Loretta looked down the line. "Everyone's here. Go ahead."

I stood outside the frame, holding the six coffees they'd specifically asked for.

The photographer gestured toward me. "Is that lady joining you?"

Rhys smiled. "This one's family only. She doesn't count."

Loretta chimed in. "She's not part of our family. Just take the picture of us."

In six years of dating Rhys, I'd sent gifts, flowers, and food to the Oxleys twenty-seven times, for weddings, funerals, and birthdays.

I'd always paid for and arranged his mother's blood pressure medication refills, and when his grandmother was hospitalized, I was the one who stayed by her bed.

Even his cousin's girlfriend of just three months had a place in the photo.

Everyone except me.

When the shutter clicked, I set the coffees on the steps and walked away.

Rhys called as soon as I got into the car.

"Where'd you go? Wasn't Aunt Loretta's supposed to have a double shot?"

I hung up.

He'd noticed a missing shot of espresso, not that I was missing from the photo.

...

"His cousin's girlfriend has been around for three months, and she gets to stand beside his aunt. You've taken care of them for six years, and there's not even room for you at the edge? What does Rhys think you are, an on-call maid?"

Talia Winslow slammed her palm against the steering wheel in anger.

The car was pulled over at the side of the road, and I was still holding my phone.

After I'd hung up, Rhys hadn't called again.

Five minutes later, he sent a WhatsApp message.

[Don't make a big deal out of this. That's just how Aunt Loretta is; let her have her way. I'll book your favorite restaurant tonight.]

He hadn't even asked where I'd gone.

Talia saw the message and gave a bitter laugh. "So he buys you dinner, and you have to swallow what happened today?"

I didn't answer.

Six years earlier, when Rhys was pursuing me, he'd crossed half of Seattle in the rain just to bring me the gloves I'd left at the office.

Now he apparently thought I was just like those gloves: it didn't matter where he left me, because I'd always end up back in his hands.

My phone vibrated again.

Loretta had posted the family photo in the Oxleys' WhatsApp group.

Seventeen people crowded together, with Rhys right in the middle.

Loretta had her arm wrapped affectionately around his cousin's girlfriend, Coralie Merrick, and the replies to the photo were full of praise.

[Coralie's gorgeous. She already looks like one of us.]

Loretta had personally draped the cashmere shawl over Coralie's shoulders that day.

The first time I'd spent Thanksgiving with them, Loretta had shoved a roasting pan full of turkey drippings toward me and told me to scrub it in the kitchen.

Rhys had leaned against the doorframe, smiling as he ruffled my hair.

"They ask you to help because they see you as family. Guests eat and leave; only family stays to clean up."

Back then, I'd believed him.

Apparently, the Oxleys had two definitions of family.

When there was work to do, I was family.

When there was a photo to take, I wasn't.

Talia took the phone from me. "Enough. Stop looking."

I took it back and opened the pharmacy delivery account I managed for his mother, Moira.

On the ninth of every month, the pharmacy charged my credit card on file and delivered her blood pressure medication refill to her house.

I'd been doing this for four years, and Moira didn't even know the pharmacy's number; she just called me when she was running low.

I clicked to cancel automatic refills and delivery.

A notification popped up: [After cancellation, automatic payments and delivery will stop next month.]

Before I tapped the button, I paused for a few seconds.

Moira had once brought me chicken soup when I had a fever, and she'd also held my hand and told me she hoped to watch me walk toward her son in a wedding dress someday.

I'd used those small kindnesses to excuse far too much of what her family had come to expect from me.

I tapped Confirm.

Moira's number was listed as the patient's contact number.

The pharmacy would text her about the cancellation.

There were still more than twenty days before her next refill, plenty of time for them to make new arrangements.

Then I left the group chat called "The Oxley Sunday Table."

Rhys finally called.

I watched his name flash on the screen, assuming he'd noticed I'd left the group and would at least ask about the family photo.

When I answered, all I heard was irritation.

"Mom just got a text from the pharmacy saying they won't deliver next month. Audra, you're upset, fine, but why drag her into it?"

My fingers slowly tightened around the phone.

"I'll send you the pharmacy's number. You can handle her refills."

"When am I supposed to have time to keep track of that?"

"Then find someone who does."

He went quiet for a moment, as if he'd finally sensed something was wrong.

"What exactly do you want today?"

Someone at the restaurant called him over to cut the cake, and he lowered his voice: "We'll talk at home tonight. Get the delivery back on first; don't make my mom worry."

He hung up.

Talia asked where I wanted to go.

I sent Rhys the pharmacy's number and unpinned the conversation I'd kept at the top of my chats for six years.

"Let's go back."

This time, I wasn't going back to wait for him.

I was going back to return the key that didn't belong to me.