32. Maren
— ? —
Maren
The night air hits my face as we step out of The Sinclair, and I realize I’m still holding his hand.
I don’t remember reaching for it. I don’t remember him reaching for mine.
But here we are, standing on the sidewalk while the last of the gala guests filter past us, and my fingers are threaded through his like they’ve been doing it for years.
Because they have. Because muscle memory is a traitor, and so is hope.
Rhodes doesn’t say anything. He’s watching me with that careful expression I’ve come to recognize, the one that means he’s waiting to follow my lead instead of assuming he already knows where we’re going.
“The hotel,” I say. “We need to talk.”
“Okay.”
“Not-” I pull my hand free so I can think straight. “Not like last time. Actual talking - words, full sentences.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “I do know what talking means, Maren.”
“Do you? Because historically-”
“Historically, I was an idiot.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’m aware.”
I flag down a cab because my feet hurt, my head hurts, and I don’t have the bandwidth for anything else tonight.
The driver barely glances at us, just another couple leaving some fancy event.
He doesn’t know that the man sliding in beside me just gave a public confession to a room packed with people.
He doesn’t know I’m about to bring my ex-husband back to a hotel room in the one city I swore I’d never set foot in again.
He doesn’t know I’m terrified.
The drive across the city is quiet. Rhodes sits close enough that our shoulders touch when the cab takes corners, but he doesn’t try to fill the silence with explanations or apologies.
It’s such a small thing, giving me space to think.
It shouldn’t feel revolutionary. The fact that it does tells me everything about what our marriage was.
We pull up to the hotel and Rhodes pays before I can argue. Old habit. I let it go because I’m saving my arguments for the things that actually matter.
The elevator is too bright and too quiet.
I watch the floor numbers climb and think about the last time I was in this city, eight months pregnant, packing a whole life into boxes, promising myself I’d never come back.
And here I am. Back in San Francisco with the man I ran from, riding up to a hotel room like either of us has any idea what we’re doing.
Inside, the suite is dim except for the lamp Nora left on when she dropped Rowan off after dinner. He’s asleep in the second bedroom, I checked my phone obsessively all through the event to be sure, and the stillness feels sacred somehow. Like the universe is holding its breath.
Rhodes stands in the middle of the suite looking like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. It’s the first time we’ve been truly alone since the reveal, without the charge of all that desperate wanting between us. The first time with intention instead of instinct.
“Sit,” I say. “I’m going to check on Rowan and then we’re going to figure out what the hell we’re doing.”
He sits on the couch like I’ve given him an order. I try not to read too much into that.
Rowan’s door is cracked open the way he likes it, enough light from the hallway to keep the monsters away.
He’s sprawled across the bed with Mr. Zorp clutched to his chest, one foot hanging off the mattress, breathing the deep even breaths of a child who has no idea his parents are about to have the most important conversation of their lives.
I fix his blanket. Kiss his forehead. Whisper that I love him so much it scares me sometimes.
Then I close his door most of the way and go back to face my future.
Rhodes hasn’t moved. He’s sitting exactly where I left him, hands on his knees, watching me with an expression I can’t quite name.
I settle into the armchair across from him instead of next to him. I need the distance.
Rhodes lifts his gaze to meet mine. “What happens now?”
I wait for him to continue, to lay out the plan, to tell me how this is going to work. He doesn’t.
“I was hoping you knew,” he says finally.
“That’s concerning.”
He almost laughs. “I’ve made enough decisions on my own for one marriage. If we’re going to do this, whatever this is, I’m not doing it that way again.”
“Okay.” I tuck my feet under me, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the room. “So let’s actually figure it out. Together. Like adults.”
“Novel concept.”
“Shut up, I’m being serious.”
“I know.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I have to go back to California. My company is there. My family, my mom, my sisters. I can’t just disappear.”
“I know.”
“But I’m not-” He stops, starts again. “I’m not choosing them over you. Over Rowan. I need you to understand that.”
“I need you to understand something too.” I hold his gaze so he can see I mean every word.
“I’m not moving. I’m not uprooting Rowan from the only home he’s ever known because it would be more convenient for us.
I built something here, Rhodes. A business, a community, a life that doesn’t revolve around waiting for you. ”
He flinches at that last part, but he doesn’t argue.
“I’m not asking you to wait for me,” he says carefully. “I’m asking, I don’t know what I’m asking. I just know I can’t lose you again.”
“Then stop thinking in terms of losing and keeping.” I’m surprised by how steady my voice sounds, how certain. “I’m not a thing you possess or don’t possess. I’m a person who gets to decide, every single day, whether this is working for me. And so are you.”
“So what does that look like? Practically?”
I’ve thought about this. Late at night when I couldn’t sleep, in the quiet moments at the shop when Jamie was handling customers and I could let my mind wander. I’ve thought about all the ways this could work and all the ways it could destroy us.
“You split your time,” I say. “Boston and California. You figure out how to restructure your company so you’re not personally putting out every fire. Barrett exists for a reason. Your executive team exists for a reason. Use them.”
“I’ve been working on that. Since the first time I came back.”
“Good. Keep working on it.”
He nods slowly. “And you?”
“I stop treating every compromise like proof I’m turning back into the woman I was. I stop keeping score of all the ways you might be leaving again and then using that score to justify never saying anything until I’ve already decided to leave.”
The words hang between us. They’re not pretty, but they’re true.
“That’s what happened before,” Rhodes says. It’s not a question.
“That’s what happened before. You assumed everything was fine because I never told you it wasn’t. And I-” My throat tightens. “I got so good at adapting that I adapted myself right out of our marriage. By the time I finally said something, I’d already made up my mind.”
“And I didn’t listen anyway.”
“No. You didn’t.”
He scrubs a hand over the back of his head, wrecking the careful styling. “I was so sure I knew what you needed. So sure that if I just worked hard enough, provided enough, built enough, that you’d see I was trying.”
“I saw you were trying. I just needed you to try differently.”
“I know that now.” His voice cracks slightly. “I know that now.”
We sit in the silence for a moment, letting it settle. This is the first time we’ve actually talked about what went wrong without one of us getting defensive or deflecting with logistics. It’s uncomfortable. It’s necessary.
“Before any of that.” I make myself say it. “Rachel. Tell me it’s handled. Tell me my son isn’t going to be a headline.”
“It’s handled.” He says it without a beat of hesitation.
“Her lawyer called Diane before I even made it off that stage. There’s no story left to sell, which means there’s no leverage in the suit either.
Diane says it’ll be withdrawn within the week, quietly, because quiet is all Rachel has left now.
” He holds my eyes. “She has nothing. I made sure of it. Rowan stays exactly as private as you want him to be.”
Something I’ve been carrying since that night in my kitchen finally sets itself down.
“You torched the whole story in one night just to take it away from her.”
“I’d have done it in an hour if you’d let me.” The corner of his mouth lifts, tired. “Turns out the fastest way to kill a secret is to stop keeping it.”
“I don’t want to get remarried,” I say, and watch his face carefully. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
He takes a breath. “Okay.”
“I don’t want to move in together. I don’t want to make some big promise that we then have to break when things get hard.”
“Okay.”
“I want to try. Slowly, carefully. With separate apartments and sharing Rowan and all the boring, unsexy logistics that means.”
Rhodes is quiet for a long moment. “Can I ask why? Not arguing, I just want to understand.”
“Because I need to know I can survive without you before I choose to be with you.” The truth of it surprises me, how much I’ve been carrying this without examining it.
“Last time, I gave up everything, my family, my home, my career, to follow you. And when it fell apart, I had nothing. I can’t do that again. I won’t.”
“So this is about keeping an exit strategy.”
“This is about not needing an exit strategy because I’m not trapped in the first place.”
He looks at me for a long time. Then he nods, acceptance moving through his expression. Or understanding.
“I’m terrified,” he says quietly, “that you’re going to wake up one morning and realize this was a mistake. That you gave me another chance and I didn’t deserve it and you should have walked away while you could.”
I should probably reassure him. Tell him that won’t happen. But I can’t make promises I don’t know I can keep.
“I’m terrified,” I say instead, “that the minute you feel secure, you’ll start disappearing again. That the California trips will get longer and the Boston trips will get shorter and one day I’ll look up and realize I’m staring at the clock wondering when you’re coming home, just like before.”
His jaw tightens. “I won’t-”