Drawn Together

In a city that never sleeps, Flora is desperate to wake up and finally land her first big break. But if your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life, Flora’s off to a terrible start. Five months into her move, she's barely scraping by—her closest companion a silent roommate, and her first major freelance job slipping through her fingers. Her best chance at making it is surviving the one commission no illustrator before her could: a notoriously impossible-to-please author who (quite rudely) rejects every single draft she submits. Flora’s timeline is short—and she's running out of chances. To nail this project, she’ll have to lean into the dark, moody themes of his writing—no small task for someone known for illustrating woodland creatures in top hats. When she’s on the brink of giving up, a chance encounter with a surly stranger changes everything. Fletcher Harding, neighbor, a friend of her roommate, and a dark literature connoisseur, needs help writing a column on romance novels to achieve an advance in his career. Flora, a firm believer in happily-ever-after's, he decides is the perfect tutor. On a hazy walk home, the two strike a deal: she’ll teach him about love stories, and he’ll teach her how to embrace the shadows in her work. As their creative boundaries blur, so do the ones between their growing friendship and something far more.

Story added by rmsx3090 on February 18, 2026