Chapter 39
thirty-nine
MAYA
I have to run.
From my command post near the registration table, I’ve been watching him. Not obviously—I’m too good for that—but in those stolen glances between checking volunteer assignments and coordinating water stations, Maine stands in the middle of this beautiful, chaotic thing I’ve built.
And he looks… lost.
Like a man drowning in gratitude he doesn’t think he deserves.
Because, even for me, the last few weeks have been their own kind of marathon.
After our fight outside O’Neil’s, I threw myself into organizing this run.
Every sponsor I secured, every volunteer I recruited, every social media post I crafted—it was all a way to channel the vibrating energy of my heartbreak.
Into something useful.
Something good.
The distance has been necessary. Like letting a burn heal without constantly picking at the scab. And through it all, Sophie has been dropping breadcrumbs of information she thinks I need to hear.
He forfeited the bet.
He told the whole team about Chloe.
He’s been sleeping on Mike’s couch.
He misses you.
Maya, he looks like shit.
Each report has chipped away at the image I’ve built of him as the villain in our story.
Because villains don’t forfeit bets that would cost them money they don’t have.
Villains don’t admit their failures to a roomful of guys they’ve spent years entertaining.
Villains don’t look like shit because they can’t forgive themselves.
The truth is messier and infinitely more painful: Maine isn’t a villain. He’s a terrified, deeply flawed guy who’s made a catastrophic mistake out of pride and fear. He’s someone who’s been drowning for so long he doesn’t know how to accept a life preserver when someone throws him one.
I know all of this. I’ve analyzed it with the same clinical detachment I use for memorizing drug interactions and diagnostic criteria. Understanding the pathology of our destruction has become my favorite late-night hobby, right up there with stress-eating ice cream straight from the container.
But knowing something intellectually and feeling it are two entirely different things.
Standing there, watching him try to disappear into a crowd that gathered specifically for his sister, something inside me just… breaks. Or maybe it finally heals. And, suddenly, the clipboard in my hand feels like a prop in a play I’m tired of performing.
What’s left is just me.
The woman who loves him.
Is still hurt, still mad, but still loves him.
My body moves before my brain can construct a list of reasons why this is a terrible idea. I shove my clipboard at Sophie and ask her to take over. My headset follows, tossed onto the registration table with absolutely zero regard for the volunteer who’ll have to untangle the cord later.
“Maya?” Sophie calls after me, but I’m already moving, pushing through the crowd toward the starting line.
This can’t be another conversation full of emotional landmines and carefully constructed defenses. We’ve already tried that, and look where it’s gotten us—him on Mike’s couch and me reorganizing his bedroom into a yoga studio I’ve used exactly once because it still smells like him.
No, this has to be something else.
Something honest.
The starting gun has already fired by the time I make the decision. I spot Maine’s broad shoulders about fifty yards ahead, his pace steady but not competitive. And the fact that he isn’t at the front of the pack, one of the fittest guys in the field, an athlete with pro potential, tells me plenty.
He knows this isn’t about him.
It isn’t a performance or something to be won for bragging rights.
It’s about Chloe.
My legs burn as I pick up speed, weaving through the slower runners with an urgency that has nothing to do with race times. A few people call out to me—volunteers recognizing their coordinator abandoning her post—but I don’t stop.
Can’t stop.
When I finally catch up to him, I deliberately fall into step a few feet away.
Close enough that he has to know I’m there, far enough that he can pretend not to notice if that’s what he needs.
His head turns slightly, just enough for me to catch the widening of his eyes, the way his stride stutters for half a second before recovering.
We don’t speak, because we don’t need to.
And for the last ten minutes, our bodies have been doing all the talking—each synchronized breath, each footfall on the asphalt becoming its own form of communication.
The crowd around us fades into white noise.
There’s just him and me and the rhythm of our feet hitting the ground in perfect tandem.
Left, right, left, right.
I’m here.
Left, right, left, right.
I see you.
Left, right, left, right.
I’m sorry.
Left, right, left, right.
I know.
With every quarter-mile, the careful distance between us shrinks. Not consciously—I don’t think either of us makes the decision to move closer—but naturally, like gravity or magnetism or whatever force makes broken things try to become whole again.
My shoulder brushes his as we navigate a tight corner, and I have to resist the insane urge to grab his hand. This isn’t a rom-com where everything gets fixed with a dramatic gesture. This is real life, where forgiveness has to be earned step by step, breath by breath.
His stride shortens just enough to match mine. It’s subtle—probably invisible to anyone else—but I feel it in the way our rhythms align, the way we become a single unit moving through space, two fiercely independent and broken people becoming one irresistible force.
By mile two, we’re running hip to hip, our arms occasionally brushing with each swing. My lungs are screaming, and my legs feel like they’re made of concrete, but I refuse to slow down. This physical pain is nothing compared to what we’ve put each other through. If he can keep going, so can I.
The course loops back toward the athletic fields, and I can see the finish line banner in the distance.
Some competitive part of me wants to sprint, to push ahead and beat him across the line.
But that’s not what this is about, and he seems to get it as well, because he could leave me in his dust if he wanted to.
As we round the final corner, I match him step for step. We cross the finish line at the same moment, our bodies giving out in perfect synchronization. I stumble, my legs finally rebelling against what I’ve asked of them, and his hand shoots out to steady me.
I grab onto him without thinking, using him for support.
His hand is on my elbow.
My fingers are twisted in his race shirt.
We’re both slick with sweat, panting like we’ve just run a marathon instead of three miles, and for a moment—just a moment—I let myself lean into him. Let myself remember what it feels like to have him hold me up when I can’t stand on my own.
“Water,” I manage to gasp, pulling away before I do something stupid like hug him or punch him.
We stumble toward the volunteers handing out bottles while, around us, other runners are finishing, the announcer’s voice booming updates about the fundraising total.
Someone claps Maine on the back, congratulating him, but he barely seems to notice.
His eyes haven’t left me since we crossed the line.
I can’t handle the weight of that gaze right now. Not with my emotions scraped raw from the run. “I should get back,” I say, already stepping away.
“Maya.”
Just my name, but the way he says it stops me cold. Not pleading, not demanding. Just… defeated. Like he’s already accepted that I’m going to walk away again, like I’ve lit a spark of hope in his chest only to pour water over it all over again.
“Later,” I promise, and I mean it. “After everyone’s gone. We’ll talk.”
He nods, understanding that this isn’t a rejection—it’s a rain check.
I start to leave, then turn back. “Maine?” I say.
“Yeah?”
“That was a good run.”
The smile that breaks across his face is worth every burning muscle, every ragged breath, every complicated feeling churning in my chest. And as I make my way back to the registration area, where Sophie is handling things with her usual quiet competence, she raises an eyebrow.
“What?” I say, feeling defensive.
“Nothing,” she says, then squeezes my shoulder.
The next hour passes in a blur of announcements and thank-yous and final tallies. The fundraising thermometer’s final total makes my chest tight with something that might be pride or might be tears trying to escape: $189,000 and still climbing with online donations.
Enough for Chloe’s treatment.
Enough for hope.
As the crowd finally starts to thin and volunteers begin breaking down tables, I spot Maine standing by the empty athletic fields, away from the celebration.
He looks exactly like he did that night I found him slumped against our apartment door—exhausted, vulnerable, completely stripped of his usual bravado.
My feet carry me to him without conscious thought. “Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he responds, and somehow it’s perfect.
We stand there for a moment, two people who are used to being the social oxygen, the life of the party, the loudest people in any room. But this time, we’re silent, people who’ve said the worst things to each other trying to find our way back to something better.
“Maya,” he finally starts, his voice raw. “What you did… I don’t have any words that are big enough.”
His blue eyes meet mine, and for the first time since this whole mess started, I see him.
Not the performer, not the player, not even the guilty man begging for forgiveness.
Just Maine, the guy who’s twice as strong as anyone should need to be and twice as proud and twice as stubborn as anyone should be.
Maine, accepting help, and appreciating it.
“I’m so sorry,” he runs a hand through his hair. “For everything. For the bet, for the lies, for being a fucking coward.”
The words hang between us, heavy with truth.
“I know,” I say.
Really, I’ve known for weeks, since Sophie told me about him forfeiting the bet, and since he hasn’t tried any grandstanding or bullshit to win me back. But seeing him stand alone in that crowd today, a participant rather than the peacock, finally won me back.
He takes a breath, and I can see him gathering courage for something bigger.
“I love you,” he says. “I need you.”
There it is.
The apology.
The question.
The choice offered to me.
He’s looking down at his shoes now, hands in the pockets of his running shorts. And I’ve got no doubt that if I tell him I no longer feel that way, he’ll thank me again and walk away, blaming himself for what’s happened and leaving it settled there.
And, if anything, this moment clarifies to me exactly what I want.
Him.
“I know,” I say again, softer this time.
“I have no right to say it,” he continues, his face lighting up, words suddenly tumbling out like he’s afraid I’ll stop him or change my mind.
“I know that. I know I fucked up in ways that might be unforgivable. But I needed you to know that it’s real.
It was always real, even when I was too proud and too scared to?—“
“Maine.”
He stops talking, waiting, clearly terrified I’ll tell him it’s not enough or too late.
“You ever pull anything like that again,” I say, my voice steady despite the tears threatening to spill over, “and I’ll cut your balls off and feed them to you. Clear?”
The laugh that escapes him is half-sob, all relief. “Crystal.”
“Good.” I take a step closer. “You can come home. If you want.”
His hands come up to frame my face. “There’s nowhere else I want to be.”
When he kisses me, it’s not the desperate, hungry kisses we’ve shared before. This is something else entirely—gratitude and promise and the kind of bone-deep relief you feel when you finally stop holding your breath—and I return the kiss with interest.
His hands slide from my face into my hair, fingers tangling in the sweaty strands as he angles my head back, deepening the kiss with a groan that vibrates through my chest. My arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer, needing to erase every inch of space between us.
We’re both still slick with sweat from the run, salt on our lips, hearts hammering against each other’s ribs, but I don’t care. I need this—need him—like air, like the family I always deserved but never had and have now said goodbye to. I want him to be my person, my man, my family.
My everything.
His tongue sweeps against mine, and I make a sound I’ll probably be embarrassed about later, but right now all I can do is hold on tighter. One of his hands drops to my waist, fingers splaying across my lower back, pressing me against him like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
I fist my hands in his race shirt, using it to pull him even closer, and he responds by backing me up until I hit the chain-link fence behind us.
The metal rattles but holds, and then his mouth is on my jaw, my throat, pressing kisses that feel like apologies and promises and declarations all at once.
“Maya,” he breathes against my skin, and I thread my fingers through his hair, holding him there, letting myself have this moment of pure, uncomplicated want.
Of choosing him. Of being chosen back.
When we finally surface, we’re both panting harder than we were at the finish line. His forehead rests against mine, our breaths mingling in the small space between us. His thumb traces circles on my hip where my shirt has ridden up, and each pass sends sparks straight through me.
“Just to clarify,” I say, still catching my breath against him, “that probably wasn’t appropriate behavior for the event coordinator.”
He laughs, low and rough against my ear. “Pretty sure I saw at least three volunteers getting an eyeful.”
“Great.” I pull back enough to see his face. “Maybe we should make it part of the fundraising strategy. Twenty bucks to watch us make out against the fence.”
“We’d hit a million by noon,” he says, and my heart sings when I hear the easy confidence back in his voice. “Though I think that violates university policies.”
“So, bad news… we’ll need to share a bed now,” I inform him, finding my footing in the familiar territory of our banter. “Your old room is my yoga studio.”
His laugh is real this time, full and warm and exactly what I’ve been missing.
And, as we stand there as the cleanup continues around us, two people who ran three miles to find their way back to each other, I know it’s not perfect.
I know there’s more to work through, more conversations to have, and more trust to rebuild.
But it’s a start.