13. Dean
Dean
She hadn’t come home last night.
Dean stood in the kitchen, staring into the mouth of the French press while he waited for the kettle to boil. His hands were jittery. Too much adrenaline, not enough sleep.
The bed had been cold when he woke up. Her pillow untouched.
The whole apartment felt off-kilter. Her shoes weren’t by the door. Her scarf was missing from the hook in the hallway. She was gone.
Not gone gone, he told himself. Just… cooling off. Needing space. Women were emotional. She just needed time to process things. This wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be.
He leaned on the counter, rubbing the back of his neck.
She’d overreacted. That was the truth. The account had been lighthearted. Funny. Endearing. He’d never posted anything cruel—okay, maybe teasing , but people loved it. She might even have loved it too if she hadn’t been blindsided like that.
Dean gritted his teeth. That dumb award.
If she’d found out differently—if he’d had the chance to frame it —it wouldn’t have blown up like this.
He could’ve walked her through it, explained the tone, the context.
She didn’t get that kind of high-level media culture, not the way he and his friends did.
Cam, Roxanne, Ava, even Jared—they understood irony. Virality. They got it.
But Fiona? You had to explain things to her. She was just... less cynical. Slower to catch the subtext. He had to remember that. Not everyone could read a room the way he could.
She could’ve been in on the joke if she’d let him guide her through it. But instead, she’d taken it personally. Like it meant something it didn’t.
Now she felt humiliated, running away to Sweetwater.
And Dean—Dean was left here. Alone. Heart pounding. Appetite gone. Trying to fix coffee he wasn’t even sure he’d drink.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
He checked his phone again. No answers to his texts. No returned calls.
His jaw flexed. The silence felt like punishment.
Didn’t she realize this hurt him too?
The kettle shrieked. Dean turned it off and poured the water, watching it bloom over the grounds. He’d automatically grabbed two mugs.
He stood there a long moment, staring at the cups on the counter.
She was his wife. She’d stood under a canopy of imported orchids and promised him forever in front of two hundred guests and a wedding planner with a six-month waitlist. To love and to stay and to talk things through—not bolt the second things got hard.
And what—he was supposed to be the villain now? For what? For having a sense of humor? For finding the things she said charming ?
She knew he worked in advertising. She’d always said she admired how his brain worked—how he could find the heart of a message and make people feel something. Well, that’s what he’d done. He’d bottled her weird, lovable brain and shown it to the world.
If she couldn’t see that—if she was too sensitive to take a joke, too dramatic to stay and work through this like adults—well, that wasn’t on him.
Dean slammed one of the mugs into the sink. It clattered against the porcelain but didn’t break. Just echoed too loudly in the empty kitchen.
Maybe she liked being the victim. Maybe she wanted people to feel sorry for her. Run home to Sweetwater, where everything was soft and slow and no one ever challenged her. Let her sister fuss over her, bake some cookies, play the heartbroken martyr for a few days.
He picked up his phone again. Still nothing. No apology. No explanation. No "I'm sorry for walking out."
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, pacing now.
Instead, she left him here. Made him the abandoned one. Like he was the problem.
Dean stared out the window, jaw tight, the city already awake and humming below. He’d built a life for them here. A good one. Stylish apartment, great job, interesting people. He’d given her a seat at a table most people would kill to be invited to.
And she threw it away over some online captions ?
He shook his head. It wasn’t a big deal. She’d be back.