Chapter 64
Tom
The night air hit him like a sobering splash of water.
Tom stood for a moment on the front step, coat unbuttoned, pulse still racing. The porch light spilled across the drive, and behind him the house—her house—glowed warm through the kitchen window.
He wanted to go back. Every cell in his body wanted to turn around, knock again, and stay.
But he didn’t.
He’d meant what he’d said. He didn’t deserve it yet.
By the time he reached his car, the energy had settled into something quieter—an ache edged with hope. His hands gripped the steering wheel. Not from frustration. From restraint.
He drove through the sleepy neighborhood, headlights sweeping across familiar streets.
It was late enough that most of the windows were dark, and the hum of the tires on asphalt was the only sound in the car.
He could still smell her on his skin: the faint sweetness of her shampoo, the warmth of her body pressed against his.
Tom pulled into his in-laws’ driveway and sat there for a second, engine idling. The porch light was still on, like it always was when they were expecting him. The front door opened before he even reached it.
Linda stood there in a robe. “You look like a man who just made a very bad decision or a very good one,” she said.
Tom let out a breath that sounded too much like a laugh. “Somewhere in between.”
Gerald’s voice came from the living room. “He’s home late. That’s a good sign.”
Tom stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The house smelled like chamomile tea and the faint citrus cleaner Linda used on everything. He toed off his boots.
“Dinner go well?” Linda asked, following him into the kitchen.
He nodded. “Yeah. I, uh… cooked. We ate. Talked.”
Linda handed him a mug. “Tea?”
He accepted it, grateful. “Thanks.”
Gerald appeared in the doorway. “You good?”
“I’m okay,” Tom said. And it was mostly true. He felt wrung out but steady, like something inside him had finally clicked into alignment.
Linda reached over and patted his arm. She gave him a look that was equal parts affection and warning. “We’re still on her side, you know.”
“Good,” he said quietly. “But I’m grateful you’re letting me stay here anyway.”
Gerald’s mouth twitched—the ghost of a smile. “Let’s just say we’re rooting for a happy ending. For her.”
Tom’s throat tightened. “Me too.”
Linda tilted her head. “We know.”
The tea was cooling in his hands now. The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that felt safe. He could hear the faint hum of the heater, the creak of the stairs settling.
His heart still hurt, but it was a clean kind of hurt now.
He’d left her house tonight because it was the right thing to do.
Because he wanted to earn his way back, not just slip back like nothing had changed. Everything had changed.
He looked at his phone.
One unread message. From Lauren.
A heart.
The Kent house was expensive but not flashy—old brick, tall windows, the quiet confidence of money. Tom followed Mr. and Mrs. Kent into a sitting room that looked over the garden.
“Coffee? Or tea?” Mrs. Kent asked, elegant and easy.
“Coffee would be great. Thank you.”
He laid the printed plans on the low table and talked them through the changes—how the extension stepped out to meet the garden, how the vaulted ceiling would catch the light, how the circulation would make the new rooms feel like part of the original house. Warmth, not show. Welcome, not showroom.
Mr. Kent nodded as Tom spoke, his interest sharpening. “This is… excellent,” he said at last, almost surprised. “It looks like a place people will actually live.”
“That’s the idea,” Tom said, and felt something steady settle inside his chest.
Mrs. Kent leaned in, pearls catching the winter sun. “I love the window wall. And this—” she tapped the little nook he’d tucked beside the French doors—“it’s charming.”
“I can bring material samples next,” Tom said. “We can talk texture.”
“That would be wonderful,” she said. “Let me just ring Lila. I’d like her to peek at this if she’s free.”
The Kents excused themselves—one to make a call, one to answer a buzzing phone—and Tom was left alone in the quiet.
He let out a slow breath and glanced around the room. On the marble-topped coffee table sat a small stack of magazines—art and architecture journals, a gardening quarterly—and on top, glossy and familiar: Muse.
Lauren’s office. Lauren’s people.
He remembered that cold afternoon after Christmas—how he’d thought a bouquet could fix what he’d broken.
He’d waited outside the building like an idiot, expecting a grateful text, and instead watched a wave of women pour onto the pavement around his wife.
Shoulders squared, eyes bright, protective in a way he hadn’t known how to be.
He’d hated that it wasn’t him even as he’d been grateful it was anyone at all.
He reached for the magazine and flipped through on instinct, not sure what he was looking for until the page found him.
Lauren.
Studio light edging her in soft glow. She wore a pale sweater with a smear of paint at the cuff and a pair of jeans she’d had for years.
Hair falling loose, her roots starting to show under the dye.
She was… breathtaking. Luminous. It hit him low and hard, the simple fact of her.
God, she looked good to him. She always did.
His eyes dropped to what she held.
A wooden plaque, coral-bright, layered and loud in a way that felt like her laughing. White letters, blunt and unapologetic:
DIVORCED AF
For a beat the words didn’t compute.
Divorced. AF.
Tom’s stomach hollowed. The caption under the photo was tidy and merciless: Reinvention through craft. Artist Lauren Barrett, photographed for Muse’s February issue.
Artist, he thought, dazed. Yes. Of course she is.
He stared until the edges of the page blurred.
She was an artist and this was her statement.
Pride and pain twisted together until he wasn’t sure which was which. She looked powerful. Free. Exactly the way he’d always been too cowardly to let her be.
He closed the magazine gently and set it back where it had been.
Footsteps returned down the hall. He straightened, rolling his shoulders once, and turned back to the plans.
“Apologies,” Mrs. Kent said, breezing in with a smile. “Lila’s tied up for the next hour, but she trusts us.”
She tapped the corner of the top sheet. “Let’s do it,” she said. “This version.”
“Great,” Tom managed, professional and even, and slid a simple next-steps sheet across the table. Measurements. Survey. Materials meeting. He kept his voice steady through the small logistics, even as the image of Lauren—steady, sure, holding that plaque—burned in the back of his mind.
Divorced AF.
At the door, Mrs. Kent shook his hand. “This is good work, Mr. Barrett. This feels right.”
“Thank you,” he said blankly and stepped out into the rain.
His wife was mentally, emotionally divorced AF.
And he couldn’t bear it.