Chapter Thirty
Roommates
Emmie
The silence is killing me.
Not the literal silence—there’s plenty of noise in the apartment. Murphy meowing for dinner. The hum of the refrigerator. The muffled sounds of Dallas traffic ten floors below. But the space between Crew and me has become this vast, echoey thing, filled with all the words we’re not saying.
I can’t live like this anymore.
So on a random Wednesday evening, when I hear his keys in the door, I do something stupid.
“Hey,” I call from the kitchen. “I made too much stir fry. You hungry?”
He freezes in the entryway. I can see him calculating—the risks of saying yes, the awkwardness of saying no. The way his eyes flick to the door like he’s considering making a run for it.
“You don’t have to,” I add quickly. “I just thought… we live together. We could try to be normal. Or whatever passes for normal with us.”
A long pause.
“Yeah,” he finally says. “Okay.”
He sets down his bag and washes his hands at the kitchen sink while I plate the food.
His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, forearms flexing as he scrubs, and I have to look away before I do something stupid like remember what those hands felt like on my skin.
We move around each other carefully, like dancers who’ve forgotten the choreography.
No accidental touches. No brushing of shoulders. A precise, painful distance.
We sit at the kitchen table—the same table where we played questions, where I taught him to fold egg whites, where he looked at me like I was something worth looking at.
I try not to think about that.
“This is good,” Crew says after his first bite.
“Thanks. New recipe. Trying to get the sauce ratios right for the book.”
“It’s good,” he repeats, because Crew has never been great at elaborating.
We eat in silence for a few minutes. Murphy weaves between our chairs, hoping for scraps.
“So,” I say, because someone has to. “How’s the cabin coming?”
He looks up, surprised. “You want to hear about the cabin?”
“We’re being normal roommates, right? Normal roommates ask about each other’s weekends.”
Something flickers in his expression. He sets down his fork. “It’s coming along. Got the porch finished. Replaced most of the windows. Kitchen’s still a disaster, but I’m building new cabinets.”
“Building them? Like, from scratch?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“YouTube tutorials.” The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “And a lot of trial and error. Mostly error.”
“What’s the inside like now?”
“Still rough. Floors need to be refinished. Fireplace needs to be rebuilt from basically nothing. Plumbing works, but barely.” He shrugs. “It’s a lot.”
“Sounds like it.” I twirl noodles around my fork. “What made you buy it? A cabin in Oklahoma seems kind of random.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I needed something to do with my hands.”
The honesty of it catches me off guard. I wait, and after a beat, he continues.
“When my brain gets loud, it helps to have something physical. Something I can fix. Something with clear problems and clear solutions.” He stares at his plate. “The cabin has a lot of problems. Could take years to fix them all.”
Years. Like he’s planning to need this escape for a long time.
I don’t say that. Instead, I ask, “What’s it like out there? The area?”
“Quiet. Lots of trees. There’s a lake about a mile away—I haven’t been yet, but the previous owner said it’s good for fishing.” He pauses. “You can see the stars at night. Really see them. No light pollution.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It is.”
More silence. But it’s softer now. Less jagged.
“You should eat more,” I say, nodding at his half-finished plate. “You’ve lost weight.”
“I’m fine.”
“Crew.”
“I’m fine, Emmie.”
The way he says my name—tired, gentle, sad—makes my chest ache.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “I’ll put the leftovers in the fridge. Blue container. In case you get hungry later.”
He looks at me, and for a second, the walls come down. Just a flicker—there and gone. “Thank you. For dinner.”
“You’re welcome.”
We finish eating. He clears the plates before I can stop him, washing them with the same precision he applies to everything.
I lean against the counter and watch him, trying not to remember all the times we stood in this kitchen together, laughing, bumping hips, stealing bites of whatever I was cooking.
His shirt stretches across his shoulders as he scrubs a plate, and my fingers itch with the memory of touching him there. Of being allowed to touch him at all.
“Emmie.”
“Yeah?”
He turns off the water but doesn’t turn around. “Are you… are you okay? Generally?”
The question is so unexpected I don’t know how to answer.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Are you?”
“I’m asking about you.”
“And I’m deflecting. It’s what we do now, apparently.”
He turns then, leaning against the sink, arms crossed. The defensive posture I know so well.
“The guy,” he says. “The one you’ve been seeing. Is he… is he good to you?”
My heart stutters. “You know about that?”
“Sorry, I overheard you on the phone with Sadie.”
I could lie. I could tell him Reece is amazing, that we’re getting serious, that I’m totally over whatever this was between us.
Instead, I tell the truth.
“I’m not seeing him. It was just one date. It didn’t work out.”
Something shifts in Crew’s expression. Relief? Guilt? I can’t tell.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Are you?”
He doesn’t answer.
Murphy chooses this moment to jump onto the counter, and Crew scoops him up automatically, settling the cat against his chest. Murphy purrs, the traitor.
“It’s getting late,” Crew says. “I should—”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Neither of us moves.
“This was nice,” I say. “Dinner. Talking. Being semi-normal.”
“Yeah. It was.”
“Maybe we could do it again sometime. If you want.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, scratching Murphy’s ears.
“I’d like that,” he finally says.
“Okay then.”
“Okay.”
More silence. The kind that used to be comfortable and now just feels heavy with everything we’re not saying.
“Goodnight, Emmie.”
“Goodnight, Crew.”
He sets Murphy down and disappears into his room. I hear the door close—not a slam, just a soft click—and I’m left standing in the kitchen alone.
It wasn’t a breakthrough. It wasn’t a reconciliation. It was just two people who used to be something trying to figure out how to be nothing.
But it was also dinner together. Conversation. The first real words we’ve exchanged in weeks that weren’t written on Post-it notes.
It’s not enough.
But maybe it’s a start.
I wash the last of the dishes, put away the leftovers in the blue container, and go to my room with Murphy padding along behind me.
That night, I fall asleep thinking about a cabin in Oklahoma, and stars you can really see, and a man who builds things with his hands because it’s easier than fixing what’s broken inside him.
I wonder if he knows I’d help him fix that too.
If he’d ever let me.