2. Rhodes #2
“And I’m extremely good at what I do.” She takes the eucalyptus from me before I can destroy it. “Here, let me show you again. You’re gripping too hard.”
Her hands cover mine, adjusting my hold on the stem, showing me the right amount of pressure.
Her fingers are cool from handling the flowers, slightly damp, and the touch sends a spark through me that I haven’t felt in months.
I’ve been so focused on work, so consumed by the constant demands of the company, that I forgot what it feels like to be close to her like this.
I forgot how much I missed it.
“Like that,” Maren says, her voice softer now. “See? Firm but gentle. You’re not trying to strangle it, you’re just trying to-”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
She looks up, startled. “What?”
“After the wedding. After the installation. What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. Probably collapsing from exhaustion and eating takeout on the couch.”
“Do you want company?”
The question just sits there, unanswered. It’s such a simple thing to ask, do you want to spend an evening with me, your husband, in our home, but the fact that I have to ask, that it isn’t automatic anymore, tells me everything I need to know about how far we’ve drifted.
“You don’t have anything tomorrow night?” Maren’s voice is careful, skeptical. “No events tonight? No donor dinner, no emergency that absolutely requires your personal attention?”
“I’ll clear my calendar.”
“Rhodes-”
“I’ll clear my calendar.” I set down the eucalyptus and reach across the table to take her hand.
Her fingers are cold, still damp, and I wrap both my hands around hers, trying to warm them.
“I want to be here. With you. I know I haven’t been, I know I’ve let work take over, and I know you’ve been trying to tell me, and I wasn’t listening. But I’m listening now.”
She doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me with those eyes that have always seen right through me, that saw me when I was a broke nobody trying to make something out of a broken building, that saw me before I was worth seeing.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Tomorrow night. Takeout and couch.”
“It’s a date.”
“It’s a date with my own husband. That’s pathetic.”
“It’s a date with your extremely handsome, very wealthy husband who’s excellent at stripping eucalyptus.”
“You’re terrible at stripping eucalyptus.”
“I’m getting better.”
She laughs, and I realize this is the first time I’ve heard her really laugh in weeks. The sound of it fills something hollow in my chest, something I didn’t know was empty until just now.
We work side by side until almost midnight, and when we finally go upstairs, Maren falls asleep with her head on my shoulder instead of turned away from me. It’s not a fix. I know it’s not a fix. But it feels like a start.
The next morning, I wake up to an empty bed and the sound of Maren’s car pulling out of the driveway.
She left a note on the kitchen counter, early setup, back by six, don’t forget about tonight, and I find myself smiling at her handwriting, at the small heart she drew next to her name, at the evidence that maybe last night meant something to her too.
I make coffee and sit down at the kitchen island with my laptop, intending to clear my schedule for tonight like I promised. But first I open my email, just to check…
Forty-seven new messages. Three marked urgent. A request from Rachel to look at the numbers before my meeting on Monday.
I’ll deal with it later. Tonight is for Maren.
I pull up my calendar and start moving things around, delegating what I can, postponing what I can’t.
It’s more complicated than I expected, there are meetings that can’t be rescheduled, calls that need to happen before certain deadlines, but I manage to carve out the evening.
Tomorrow night, six o’clock until whenever. Maren. Home.
My phone buzzes with a text from Rachel: Did you see the photos from last night? Some good coverage.
I didn’t see the photos. I haven’t looked at any of the event coverage from last night, too busy thinking about Maren, about the conversation in the dining room, about the way her hands felt on mine when she was showing me how to strip eucalyptus.
I open my browser and search for the event coverage, clicking through to the industry website that always runs these things. The photos are standard fare, groups of executives smiling for the camera, Rachel giving her speech, the award presentation.
And then I see it.
Rhodes and Rachel, standing together in front of the step-and-repeat. Her hand is raised toward my face, toward my tie, and we’re both smiling, caught in a moment that looks nothing like what it was.
It looks intimate, familiar - like two people who are far more to each other than colleagues.
The comment section is already active. Industry gossip, the kind that passes for entertainment at these events. Someone has made a joke about “Calloway’s better half,” and it takes me a moment to realize they’re not talking about Maren.
I close the laptop.
It doesn’t mean anything. It was a tie adjustment, a professional moment caught at an unfortunate angle. Rachel was helping me look presentable for photos. That’s all.
But I think about David Kessler’s comment, good thing Rachel makes such a convincing plus one, and I think about the way Rachel knew exactly when I wanted to leave, exactly what I was thinking without me having to say it.
I think about the years we’ve worked together, the shorthand we’ve developed, the familiarity that felt professional until last night.
I think about what Maren would think if she saw that photo.
I should tell her. I should show it to her myself, explain what happened, make sure she hears it from me instead of stumbling across it on some industry website. That’s what I should do.
Instead, I close my laptop and go back to clearing my schedule. I’ll tell her tonight. Over takeout on the couch. I’ll explain about the photo, and she’ll roll her eyes, and we’ll laugh about the stupid rumors that always circulate about successful men and their female colleagues.
My phone buzzes again. Rachel: Meeting prep at 9?
I type back: See you then.
The photo doesn’t mean anything. Rachel doesn’t mean anything, not like that, not the way the photo suggests. Maren knows that. She trusts me.
But as I get ready for work, I can’t shake the image of her face from this morning, the hesitation before letting me kiss her goodbye, and I wonder if I’ve given her reasons not to.
Six hours later, Maren sends me a text: Running late. Wedding drama. Start without me.
I text back: I’ll wait.
But she doesn’t respond for another hour, and when my phone buzzes again, it’s Rachel: Can you look at the numbers before you leave tonight? Need your sign-off.
I look at the clock. 5:47 p.m. Maren will be home soon. We have plans. I promised.
I’ll look at them quickly, I tell myself. Twenty minutes, tops.
The numbers take forty-five minutes. And then there’s an email that needs immediate response, and a call I forgot about, and by the time I look up again, it’s after seven and Maren still isn’t home and I’m still sitting at my desk instead of on the couch with takeout like I promised.
My phone buzzes. Maren: Just finished. Picking up Chinese. Be home in 30.
Thirty minutes. I can finish what I’m doing and still beat her home.
But then Rachel calls with a question about the meeting, and the call goes longer than expected, and when I finally hang up and check the time, it’s 7:43 and I’m still at my desk and Maren is probably already on her way home.
I grab my keys and head for the door. I can still make this work, still be there when she gets home, sitting on the couch like I’ve been waiting for her, like I didn’t almost let work steal another evening.
Halfway to my car, my phone buzzes with a text from Maren. Just a link, no message.
I click it.
It’s the photo. Rhodes and Rachel at the industry dinner, her hand on my tie, both of us smiling at each other like we’re sharing a secret the photographer caught by accident.
The caption reads: “Rhodes Calloway and Rachel Vaughn at the Hospitality Innovation Awards.”
That’s it. No accusation. No angry message. Just the link.
I call her immediately, but it goes to voicemail.
I text back: Maren, it’s not what it looks like. Call me.
No response.
I drive home faster than I should, breaking at least three traffic laws, and when I pull into the garage, her car is already there. The lights are on in the kitchen. I can see her through the window, standing at the island, Chinese takeout containers spread out in front of her.
She’s staring at her phone. At the photo.
I watch her face through the window, the way she’s looking at that image, studying it like she’s trying to find something in it that’ll make it make sense, and I realize I should have told her this morning.
I should have shown her myself, explained what happened, given her the context she needed before she had to find out from some gossip site.
But I didn’t. I was too busy telling myself it didn’t matter, too busy convincing myself there was nothing to explain.
And now I’m standing in my own garage, watching my wife look at a photo of another woman touching my face, and I have no idea how to make this right.
I open the door and step inside, and Maren looks up, and her expression is something I’ve never seen before, not angry, exactly. Something worse.
Something resigned.
“Rachel’s hand looks good on your tie,” she says.