After Riley breaks their ankle in a hiking accident, they decide to take the advice of a friend and seek a temporary caregiver. Mika arrives the next day for an on-the-job interview. Though it’s Mika's ability to perfectly complete the shopping and make delicious meals that first convinces Riley to hire them, a sense of trust soon begins to more deeply connect the pair. Over the weeks it takes for Riley's ankle to heal, they bond over their shared struggles in finding companionship. But ne...

Not only is Lia backpacking the sixty-mile Timber Loop trail for the first time, but she’s also hiking it alone. Lia has backpacked solo plenty of times, so she starts the hike much more excited than nervous — that is, until she discovers an eerie note in the first trail shelter she passes. The following day she discovers another. Though the notes are clearly meant not for her but for someone named Andi, Lia fears what might happen if she runs into the author all alone in the woods. But be...

Brian and Sully are at home on the couch, drifting slowly toward a midday nap. When they decide to set a precautionary alarm, they have to laugh at the absurd number of old alarm settings Sully has saved up. Instead of drifting off, the two end up reminiscing about a handful of memorable waking times — from Sully’s early-morning café shift where he and Brian first met to the hike they took a few weeks earlier — that span the duration of their three-year relationship. Though their trip back...