Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Marley
It’s Tuesday. Nine a.m. The entire office floor is empty.
Which technically isn’t hard to do, since it’s only Theo and me up here.
What’s different is that he’s not here. He’s taken the day off for the anniversary of his brother’s death.
My heart hasn’t stopped aching for him since he told me what happened with Carson and his dad. It’s the kind of grief that doesn’t go away. It just burrows deep and becomes part of who you are. He’s worn that pain like armor, even when it’s gutted him from the inside out.
I’ve been at my desk for over an hour, and it’s so quiet I want to scream just to hear something. Being here while he’s out there, grieving alone, feels wrong.
I don’t want to intrude. But I also don’t want him to mistake space for abandonment.
Somehow, over the past few months, we’ve started showing up for each other in ways no one else ever has.
Now doesn’t seem like the time to stop.
By eleven a.m., I’ve finished all my work for the day in record time. There wasn’t much to do anyways with no meetings scheduled for today and an unusually silent email inbox.
I decide to clean out the top drawer of my desk, which has somehow accumulated everything from a dozen hair ties to a frankly absurd number of coffee shop gift cards that people in this office hand out like candy.
Mostly, it’s something to keep my hands busy so I don’t text him again.
I already sent one this morning: Thinking of you today. No need to reply, but I’m here.
He hasn’t responded. I didn’t expect him to. And yet, sitting here, knowing what today means for him, makes it feel almost impossible to stay put. Even harder to accept that he’s sitting with all of it alone.
Maybe he wants space. Or maybe he’s too used to not having anyone who’s ready to take up space beside him.
I close the drawer and stand. Before I can overthink it, I grab my bag and my keys, and beeline to the elevator. If he doesn’t want to talk, I won’t make him. I can at least be there, though, and sometimes, that’s enough.
When I arrive at his building, the doorman waves me right through as if he was already expecting me. The elevator ride feels like it takes ages, but I think it’s simply the fact that I’m nervous of how he’ll react to me showing up in his personal space on a day like today.
I knock and there’s no answer.
My hand stays glued at my side, nerves twisting low in my stomach. I should leave, probably. Still, something keeps me standing there.
After one more knock, I really begin to worry about him. I decide to try the handle, and it turns easily, unlocked.
“Theo?” I whisper through the door crack. “It’s me.”
Silence.
Carefully, I ease the door open and step inside.
I think this may be considered breaking and entering.
If you take my track record of “stealing” mints, this isn’t a great look.
I’d like to think we’ve come far since the day he caught me wrist-deep in the candy dish.
I should turn back around, but another half of me pushes forward.
A sixth sense that something isn’t right.
A magnetic pull, drawing me toward him like it has a mind all its own.
At first glance, it’s empty. No noise. No mess. Nothing out of place.
I take a few steps in, scanning the living room, the kitchen, and patio. It’s so quiet I can hear the hum of the refrigerator and the faint ticking of a clock I’ve never noticed until today.
I’m about to turn my ass right back around and pretend this never happened when I hear it. The ring of his phone echoing in his bedroom. I walk closer, staring at the closed door. He’s inside. Or at least his phone is.
Turning the handle, I nudge the door open a crack. “Theo?”
Inside, it’s dark. The light filtering through the open door casts him in light amongst the sea of darkness.
He’s in bed, curled on his side in a pair of sweats, blanket tangled around him, like he’s been tossing and turning. His hand lifts to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness.
“Marley?” his voice croaks.
“I’m sorry for intruding. I know you weren’t expecting me. And I shouldn’t be in your apartment right now …” I trail off when his eyes meet mine. They’re red-rimmed from crying, holding a pain so deep it feels bottomless. The sight of it splinters my heart right in half.
I cross the room and kneel beside the bed, putting my palm against his warm cheek. “I’m here, okay?”
He nods, half-hearted.
Fuck it. I’m not sure who needs this more at this point, but I need to feel close to him. I need to hold together his broken pieces until he’s ready to put them back together again.
When I climb into bed beside him, he doesn’t flinch. Instead, his hand finds mine beneath the blanket and wraps around it like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the present.
I press my forehead to his, and his eyes close. His breathing evens out. His tense body begins to relax.
My fingers slip through his hair, soft and thick, as he melts into me like he’s been waiting for it.
“Marley?” he finally rasps.
“Yeah, Theo?”
“Thank you for being here.”
“Always,” I reply. “I know you usually spend the day by yourself, but I needed to make sure you’re okay.”
“I didn’t want to be alone. Not really.”
I press my body against his. “I know. I’m here now. I’m not leaving.”
His arm wraps around my shoulders, pulling me as close as humanly possible.
I’ve never had this. A closeness that protects the other from their hurt and hang-ups.
I’ve been through hell and so has he.
Our versions look a little different. I grew up with neglect because of my mother’s substance abuse, while he lost a brother and a father whom he entirely blames himself for.
There’s no comparing pain. No competition.
Grief doesn’t care how it arrives, it still wrecks you. It makes you want to shut everyone out, because too often, the people who were supposed to stay didn’t.
But here, now, wrapped up in him, I know he won’t intentionally leave. And I’m not going anywhere either. He’s shown me that the right kind of love doesn’t come in waves. It stays. Not loud or perfect, but steady. The kind you can count on. The kind that shows up.
And right now, for Theo, I’m showing up. Exactly like he has for me.
Two hours later, the sound of his phone ringing snaps us out of sleep and back into the real world. We fell asleep, my head on his chest, his arm around my waist, my head tucked beneath his chin.
He runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends, as he lifts his phone to see who’s calling. The ringing stops, and a notification pops up.
Three missed calls from his mother.
Exhaling, he stares at the screen, debating something.
“Are you going to call her back?” I ask, lifting my head from his chest, looking up at him.
“I should, but I don’t want to.” His eyes meet mine and dart back to his phone, the screen turning dark. “It’s hard to hear the pain in her voice, because I know I’m the one that put it there.”
I bury my head back into him. “I’m sure she’s just worried. She knows today is hard for you …”
“It’s harder for her,” he mutters.
“Grief isn’t something to compare,” I say softly. “Your pain doesn’t erase hers. And hers doesn’t erase yours. You’re both hurting. And to be very clear, you didn’t put that pain in her. Grief did, loss did. And I think she’s probably just as scared she failed you as you are that you failed her.”
The more I learn about Theo, the more I see how deeply guilt has shaped the way he connects to people.
Grief is hard enough, but when you think it’s your fault, it changes everything.
Guilt distorts connection. It makes you misread silence as blame, and closeness as a risk.
Theo is still in his family’s lives, but not fully.
Not the way he used to be. He’s pulled back, convinced that staying guarded somehow protects everyone else from more pain.
But the people who love him? They’re not blaming him. They’re hurting, too, and hoping they don’t lose him in the undertide of it all.
“How do you always know the right thing to say?” he asks.
“I’m gifted. It’s annoying, I know,” I tease.
Against my cheek, I feel his chest shake with a laugh.
He picks up his phone again, looking at the missed calls. “So, I should call her?”
“You should call her.” I smile. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
I begin to sit up and stand from the bed, but his hand in mine tugs me back to him, pulling me snug against his chest again. “I don’t need privacy. I need you right here next to me.”
There’s absolutely no way I can argue with that, so I stay put as he calls his mother back.
I can hear the garbled surprise in his mother’s voice when she answers.
I feel the rumble of his voice through his chest as he speaks.
It’s impossible not to eavesdrop on their conversation, but he also technically gave me permission to do so.
When he ends the call, we lie there side by side, my head in the crook of his arm, both of us staring up at the ceiling. We’re silent. Both of us lost in our own thoughts.
After a long stretch of quiet, his voice breaks it.
“Isn’t it crazy how quickly life can change?
One minute, I had a brother. The next, I didn’t.
My life seemed like it stopped that day, while the world kept going.
Before I knew it, I was left behind. Too far and too damaged to even try to catch up.
I used to think getting through the day was enough.
Go to work, come home, keep my head down, don’t feel too much.
” His head turns toward me. “When did surviving stop feeling like enough?”
I shrug, letting the question settle. “I think when you realized that maybe you deserved more than just getting by. That you were allowed to want more, to feel more.” I brush my lips against the muscle of his chest. “And that more was actually possible.”
His hand slides into mine, as we lie there on our backs. I hear him inhale, holding his breath before breathing it out again. “I think I love you,” he whispers into the dark.
The words float in the air above me. Surreal and unimaginable in the best way possible.
“I think I love you too,” I whisper back. It’s a truth that’s terrifying to admit. But this feeling I have for him? There’s no other way to describe it other than love.
I hadn’t known the true definition of it until I met him. Even when I first started as his assistant, and he was on the fence about me, he still took care of me. He fed me. He showed up.
To be loved by a man like Theo Prescott is a feeling I never thought I’d get to experience in my life.
Every time someone didn’t show up for me, it felt like I lost part of my ability to believe in the theory of love.
When my mother was too drunk or high to show up to my dance performances or school awards. When I’d see her fall in and out of love with man after man like it was so easy, so disposable. When I stopped dating altogether because it felt easier not to get attached than to be left behind again.
Every negative experience shed another piece of my heart.
Then somehow, Theo picked up the pieces, glued them back together, and made them into something entirely new and beautiful.
He rolls onto his side, takes my face between his hands, and kisses me. His mouth is gentle, but intentional, like he’s trying to tell me something he doesn’t have words for. And with no words, I tell him right back. That I’m his, and I’m here to stay.
We laze around for another two hours before the alarm on my phone rings out.
“Shit,” I mumble, scrambling to turn off the chimed ringer. I turn to Theo, who’s still lying on his side facing me, arms crossed, so serious but intrigued by anything I do. “I have a performance tonight.”
I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here.
I want to soothe this broken half of him and remind him that he’s not alone anymore.
But tonight is our last performance of the season and may very well be our last time ever performing at The Cobalt, with the way things are heading.
“Are you going to be okay?” I ask, biting my lip as I try to assess him.
He reaches for my hand, running his mouth along my knuckles. “I’ll be fine,” he mumbles into them.
One glance at him, and he doesn’t look like he’ll be fine. He looks like he’s three seconds away from toppling back over the edge into the torment of his own personal demons.
“Come with me tonight,” I suggest. “You can stand in the wings. Get to see the behind-the-scenes action.”
“I want to more than anything. I don’t think I’m necessarily well-liked around there at the moment though. I don’t want to ruin the night for you if people react negatively to me being there.”
“Honestly? I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks,” I admit. “All I care about is this—us. And I want you there.”
I know he’s not evil. I know he’s a good man with a tender heart beneath his grumpy exterior. In the end, that’s all that matters.
“Then I’ll be there.” He nods.
And I believe him.
Even if the crowd hates him, even if every person in that theater glares his way, he’ll still be there. Because he says he will, and he doesn’t go back on his word.
No matter how many people want him gone, Theo Prescott isn’t the kind of man who runs. He stays.