Chapter 14 #2
She let herself stay in bed longer than usual.
The wish hovered at the edge of her mind, not as words but as a feeling, like she’d loosened something internal, and now it didn’t snap back into place.
That both comforted and unsettled her. Mac was used to systems that returned to baseline.
Bodies did that. Training did that. You pushed, you recovered, you got back to neutral.
This felt…different.
She swung her legs out of bed and padded into the kitchen, poured coffee without thinking about it and smiled faintly at that. The coffee warmed the mug and she wrapped both hands around it and leaned against the counter, watching the light change on the back fence.
Mac took a big sip. Burned her tongue. Didn’t mind.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
She glanced down, already knowing.
Paula Katz had a gift for timing. Not in the malicious sense—she wasn’t a jerk—but in the way people who’d built their lives on momentum learned to feel the air shift. She always called when things were quiet. When space opened up.
She let it buzz once. Twice.
Picked it up.
“Hey,” she said, keeping her voice even.
“Mac.” Paula sounded pleased. Energized. As if Mac were already on board with whatever she had to propose. “I’m glad I caught you. I know you said you needed space.”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Listen, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to check in. We’re getting closer to July, and there’s real movement on the West Coast. Seattle’s still very much on the table. And not just playing,” she added quickly. “There’s interest in other ways of keeping you in the game. If you wanted to—”
“Paula,” she said, not sharp, but firmer than she usually allowed, because she knew where her agent was headed.
A pause.
She sensed Paula was recalibrating.
“I’m not deciding today,” Mac continued. “Not about any of it.”
Her heart rate had started to tick up, but she focused on the mug in one hand, the warmth, the way the coffee steamed near her lips. “I told you in my last text that I need time.”
“I know,” Paula said, soothing. “And I respect that. I just don’t want the door to close without you noticing it’s open.”
Mac almost laughed. That was the trick, wasn’t it? Making pressure sound like concern and possibility sound like urgency.
“I’ve noticed,” she said. “I’m asking you to trust that—and to stop trying to decide what noticing should look like.”
Silence. Longer this time.
“All right,” Paula said finally. “We’ll talk soon.”
Mac waited for the usual follow-up. Just keep an open mind. Or, You don’t want to lose momentum. It didn’t come.
They hung up.
Mac didn’t put the phone down right away.
Not because she was tempted, but because for the first time, she could imagine staying close to the game without losing herself to it.
She set the phone down carefully, as if sudden movement might shatter something. Her chest felt tight, but not panicked. More like she’d been holding a weight at arm’s length and just realized how tired she was.
This was the moment she would usually do something with that feeling. Go for a hard run. Clean the house. Open her calendar and map out the next three weeks until the sensation dulled.
Instead, she stood there. Exhaled.
Connor texted while she was still in her pajamas.
Morning. Coffee?
She stared at the screen longer than necessary, noticing the absence of qualifiers. No time. No explanation. No if you’re free.
The wish nudged.
Yes, she typed back. Then, after a beat, Give me ten.
She dressed without overthinking it—jeans, a soft shirt—and stepped outside, hair still damp, mug in hand. The space between their doors felt different now. Not charged, exactly. Acknowledged. Like a line you’d crossed once and now knew was there.
Connor was already on his porch, leaning against the railing. He smiled when he saw her.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
They stood there for a second, neither moving. Mac felt the old instinct rise, the one that wanted to define what this was, to label it so it wouldn’t surprise her later. She let it pass.
They sat on the glider, shoulder to shoulder but not touching, the quiet stretching comfortably between them. Somewhere down the block, a garage door opened and shut. A dog barked once.
Connor glanced at her, then looked back out at the street. “Something wrong?”
The question was gentle. Not prying. Not a diagnostic.
She could have said no. It would’ve been true enough.
“I talked to Paula,” she said instead. “My agent.”
He nodded, slow. “You okay?”
There it was. The space. The opening without a push.
“I feel like I’m standing in a doorway,” she said, searching for the words. “It feels like no matter where I stand, someone’s telling me I’m already supposed to be moving.”
Connor huffed a quiet laugh. “Doors are like that.”
She smiled, then felt it falter. The urge to smooth the moment—to make a joke, to move on—pressed in. She noticed it. That, too, was new.
“I don’t want to rush myself,” she said and heard the echo of the wish in it. “But I also don’t want to hide behind waiting.”
He turned then, really looked at her. “You don’t seem like you’re hiding.”
Her throat tightened. She hadn’t expected that to land so hard.
“I don’t always trust that,” she admitted.
“That’s fair,” he said. After a beat, he said, “If it helps, I’m here for you.”
The words were simple. No claim. No plan. Just presence.
Something in her chest loosened, and with it, something else shifted, an awareness that staying open meant accepting not just comfort, but uncertainty. That she might want something she couldn’t yet protect.
She set her mug on the table beside the glider and rested her hands on her knees to keep from reaching for him just to anchor herself.
“This part,” she said quietly. “Where things are good, but undefined. It makes my brain start…preparing.”
He smiled faintly. “Yours, too, huh?”
She glanced at him. “You?”
“Oh yeah.” He tipped his mug back for a sip, considering. “I make lists. Mental ones. Contingencies. It’s a skill I learned when nothing stayed put for very long.”
She studied him then, really seeing the effort beneath the ease. The restraint. The choice not to fill the space.
“And you’re not doing that right now,” she said.
He met her gaze. “No. Right now, I’m just having coffee with you.”
Mac let that be enough.
The wind chimes rang again, a little louder this time, as if in agreement.
She reached for his hand. Not carefully, not precisely. She just reached.
His fingers curled around hers, warm and steady.
This was the test, she realized. Not a crisis. Not a demand. Just the quiet decision to stay present when it would be easier to armor up.
She stayed.
For the first time since she’d made the wish, the thought that followed wasn’t, What happens next?
But, I can handle this.