Chapter 4

Over the next week, Brent did exactly what Annette and Lily advised. He stayed out of Manhattan during the day.

Jackson Heights became his refuge—a place where nobody asked what he did for a living, where no one squinted at him with recognition. He took long walks through streets humming with languages he didn’t understand, sat in small parks with coffee growing cold in his hands, and returned to Mr. Pollard’s more often than he’d planned.

Not because he wanted to see Maggie. Most definitely not that. Maggie was the burr in the nice, warm blanket he’d found.

It was because even allowing for Maggie, the café felt ... real.

Unfortunately, so did she.

Their second encounter happened in a narrow grocery aisle, both reaching for the same carton of eggs.

Maggie snatched it first. “Careful, Wall Street. These aren’t pre-cracked.”

Brent recoiled. “Do you have a hobby besides insulting strangers?”

She eyed his jacket. “Do you have one besides dressing like a billboard?”

He withdrew his hand. “You know, this place sells more than one carton.”

“And yet,” she said, taking the last one from the shelf, “you still managed to make it my problem.”

He stared at the empty space where the eggs had been. “I was here first.”

“Story of your life, I’m sure.” She stepped past him, basket swinging, leaving him standing there with nothing but a flare of irritation and the strange sense that he’d just lost a round in a game he didn’t remember agreeing to play.

The third time, they stood on opposite ends of the same subway platform. Maggie noticed him first—leaning against a pillar, headphones in, looking absurdly composed for someone supposedly embroiled in scandal.

She muttered to Rosa, “Of course he takes the local. Probably slumming it.”

Brent caught only the tail end of her glare, not the words, but he recognized the expression immediately.

Her again.

He turned away, jaw tightening. Unbelievable. I come all the way out here and still can’t escape it.

Then there was the bodega incident.

Brent waited patiently while Maggie argued with the cashier over a misrung price.

“That’s not what the sign says,” she insisted, pointing. “You can’t just decide juice is luxury now.”

Brent shifted his weight, glancing at his phone.

“Some of us have places to be,” he muttered under his breath.

Maggie spun. “Then go back to wherever rich boys run late to.”

“I’m not rich,” he snapped.

She laughed. “That’s the funniest thing you’ve said.”

He walked out without buying anything.

Each chance encounter sharpened their assumptions. To Maggie, Brent was polished, distant, and emblematic of everything she distrusted about Manhattan professionals—men who moved through the city insulated from consequences until they finally tripped over one. His expensive clothes and tired restraint read as entitlement.

To Brent, Maggie was abrasive, hostile for sport, and convinced she knew him based on rumor and vibe alone. Her sarcasm felt like a wall he kept running into, one he hadn’t earned.

Neither of them realized how often they were thinking about the other.

But for now, they were just two strangers in Queens, orbiting each other with static in the air, convinced they were right to keep their distance.

Brent tried to talk himself out of going back to Mr. Pollard’s.

There were a dozen other places in Jackson Heights where he could drink coffee and pretend the world wasn’t sharpening knives for him. But Mr. Pollard’s had a gravity he couldn’t quite explain—warmth, rhythm, the sense that life continued here regardless of headlines.

So late one afternoon, there he was once again, pushing open the familiar door. The bell chimed.

And there she was. Of course.

Maggie sat in her usual booth, flanked by Tamika, Aiden, and Rosa. Laughter rippled around the table—easy, intimate, the kind that made the room feel alive.

Maggie noticed him instantly. Her smile vanished.

“Well, if it isn’t Queens’ most dedicated tourist,” she called out. “You get a punch card for this place or something?”

Brent stopped just inside the doorway. “Is there a reason you announce my arrival like I’m a weather event?”

“Public service,” she replied. “Letting everyone know the vibe just dropped.”

Aiden clutched his chest dramatically. “Damn, Maggie. You’re gonna kill him before the tabloids do.”

Tamika leaned across the table, eyes bright with mischief. “You really don’t like him, huh?”