Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The marina was busier than Connor expected for a weekday afternoon.
Boats bobbed in their slips, lines creaking softly as the water shifted. A couple of kids raced each other along the dock, sandals slapping against sun-warmed planks, while an older man crouched near a motor, muttering under his breath like the engine had personally offended him.
Connor eased the sailboat into its berth and cut the engine. The sudden quiet rang in his ears.
Mac had already headed off—Bella needed help with something—and Connor hadn’t questioned it. He never did. He trusted her rhythm. Trusted that she’d come back around when she was ready.
He looped the line around the cleat and pulled it snug, then straightened.
Callum was leaning against one of the posts near the dock office, sunglasses pushed to the top of his head, a coffee cup balanced loosely in his hand like it had been there all afternoon.
Connor frowned. “How long have you been lurking?”
Callum grinned. “Long enough to watch you make docking look heroic.”
“It wasn’t heroic.”
“Still counts.” Callum nodded toward the boat. “Nice day for it.”
“Yeah.” Connor wiped his hands on his shorts. “Lake’s calm.”
Callum watched him for a beat longer than necessary. It was the look of someone who knew him well enough to notice when things were almost, but not quite, where they should be.
“So,” Callum said casually, “has she gotten back to Clay yet? She taking the job?”
Connor’s shoulders tightened before he could stop them.
He reached for the cooler by the dock, popped it open and took out a bottle of water. Twisted the cap. Drank.
“I don’t know,” he said finally.
Callum raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”
Connor capped the bottle and set it aside. “That’s what I said.”
Callum nodded slowly, letting that sit. “She talk to you about it at all?”
Connor hesitated. Just a fraction.
“She’s figuring it out,” he said. “I don’t want to rush her.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Connor looked at his brother then. Really looked at him.
“No,” he said. “She hasn’t talked to me about it.”
Callum exhaled through his nose, gaze shifting out over the water. “You okay with that?”
Connor opened his mouth. Closed it again.
“I don’t want to be the guy who pressures her,” he said instead. “She’s had enough people telling her what she should and shouldn’t do. Enough people framing her choices before she even has a chance to make them.”
Callum turned back to him. “Talking isn’t pressure.”
“I know,” Connor said quickly. “But it can feel like it to someone who’s used to carrying things alone.”
Callum studied him. “What about you?”
Connor frowned. “What about me?”
“Where does that leave you?”
Connor leaned back against the dock rail, the wood warm through his shirt. He stared at the water without really seeing it.
“She’ll tell me when she’s ready,” he said.
Callum didn’t say anything right away. He took a sip of his coffee, then said gently, “You know couples bounce things off each other, right?”
Connor’s jaw tightened.
“That doesn’t mean you’re deciding for her,” Callum went on. “Or steering her. Or making it about you.” A pause. “It just means you’re in it together.”
Connor laughed quietly. “You make it sound simple.”
“It can be,” Callum said. “If you let it.”
Connor shook his head. “With Nicolette, I was in everything. Every decision. Every conversation. We talked things to death.”
Callum’s expression softened. “Nicolette.”
Connor nodded. “We were always negotiating—where to live, where to travel, what we both wanted long-term. I thought that if I showed up fully, if I compromised, it would be enough.”
He exhaled slowly.
“Turns out, we weren’t building the same thing. And by the time I realized that, I’d already bent myself into shapes I didn’t recognize.”
Callum didn’t interrupt.
Connor rubbed the back of his neck. “So now I’m trying not to crowd anything. Not to step into decisions that aren’t mine.”
Callum tilted his head. “Maybe you’ve swung too far the other way. Mac isn’t Nicolette.”
“I know,” Connor said. “But I’m still trying to figure it all out.”
They stood there in the thick afternoon quiet, the marina humming around them.
Callum shifted closer. “Let me say this once, and then I’ll drop it.”
Connor waited.
“Respecting Mac’s autonomy isn’t the same as checking out of her decisions,” Callum said. “And asking how she’s doing isn’t the same as asking her to change.”
Connor absorbed that. He didn’t respond immediately.
“I don’t want to lose her,” he said finally. Not dramatic. Just honest.
Callum clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Then don’t lose yourself trying not to.”
Connor let out a slow breath. “I’m not going to push.”
“I’m not recommending you do.”
“But I might…ask,” Connor added. “At some point.”
Callum smiled. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Connor nodded once, gaze drifting back to the sailboat. To the place Mac had been standing earlier, sun on her face, wind in her hair, laughter easy and real.
He didn’t feel angry.
He didn’t feel wronged.
He felt…quietly exposed in a way he hadn’t expected.
For the first time, he wondered whether staying quiet was protecting her—or protecting himself.
The water lapped gently against the dock, steady and unbothered.
Connor let out a slow breath and straightened.
He wasn’t going to push.
But he wasn’t going to disappear either.
Mac let herself into the apartment and dropped her keys into the bowl by the door.
The sound was small. Final.
She stood there for a moment longer than necessary, listening to the quiet settle back into place—the low hum of the refrigerator, the faint tick of the wall clock, the distant thrum of summer drifting through open windows.
She wasn’t wound up.
She wasn’t anxious.
She was…steady.
Mac set her bag down and pulled out her phone. A calendar alert sat at the top of the screen, newly added and already impossible to ignore.
Production Onboarding Call. Wisconsin Women’s Basketball.
10 a.m. Friday.
She hadn’t added it herself. Paula had. Efficient. Assumptive. Correct.
Mac tapped the alert open, then closed it.
The decision was already behind her. That part felt clean. Right, even. The work made sense. The timing less so, but timing had never been her North Star. Clarity had.
She moved into the kitchen and rinsed the coffee mug she’d carried home earlier, setting it carefully in the rack. Lined up. Balanced. The way she liked things when her head was clear.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Paula.
They’re excited. You’ll get materials this week.
We’ll talk through travel once production sends the outline.
Mac stared at the message for a second longer than she needed to.
Everything was in motion now.
She typed back a brief acknowledgment and set the phone facedown on the counter.
Her first inclination was to get organized.
She opened a drawer, pulled out a legal pad, and jotted a short list—logistics, dates, equipment she’d need to update, notes she wanted to review before the first broadcast.
The pen moved quickly. Muscle memory.
Preparation had always been her comfort.
Only when the list ran out did she stop.
Connor.
The thought came quietly. No jolt. No guilt.
Just…there.
She pictured him at the marina earlier—easy, steady, giving her space without making a thing out of it. The way he never pushed. Never asked questions that felt like pressure.
She could tell him tonight.
She could call and say, Hey. I took a job as an analyst.
Simple. Direct.
She could hear his pause already. See the way his brow would pull together while he worked through it.
Mac rested her hands on the counter.
Not yet.
Not because she was afraid of what he’d say.
Because once she said it out loud, the decision wouldn’t be just hers anymore.
And right now, she needed it to be.
Independence wasn’t something she talked about. It was just how she moved through the world.
She told herself she was waiting for the right moment.
A quieter one.
A clearer one.
She wasn’t hiding.
She was just…holding it for a little longer.
Mac picked up the legal pad again and added one more line at the bottom.
Talk to Connor.
She didn’t underline it.
Didn’t circle it.
Didn’t add a date.
Outside, the afternoon moved on—cars passing, a door opening and closing down the block, summer continuing like it had all the time in the world.
Mac folded the page of the pad in half and set it aside.
The decision was made.
The job felt right.
What she hadn’t figured out yet was how to make room for someone beside her after the choice.
Her eyes drifted back to the last line on the page.
Talk to Connor.
She would.
Just…not yet.