Chapter 6
EVIE
My new apartment is small enough that every object belongs to me.
Four suitcases line one wall because the closet can hold my clothes or preserve the ability to close its door, not both.
My portable tools occupy the table beneath the front window.
The Belleroque bracelet rests beneath its task light, platinum links open along the unfinished section while rain needles the glass behind it.
Sienna sits cross-legged on the floor with a screwdriver between her teeth, assembling a narrow shelf she claims did not come with enough hardware. The six extra screws beside her knee suggest either dishonesty from the manufacturer or a dangerous level of confidence from my sister.
“If that collapses and damages something important,” I tell her, “I'm putting your name on the insurance claim.”
She removes the screwdriver. “It won't collapse. It may lean with conviction.”
“That's what people say about structures immediately before litigation.” I adjust one link beneath the light. The metal has no interest in my domestic crisis. Heat it correctly, support it at the joint, and it will accept repair. My hands know what to do with damage that follows rules.
My phone vibrates inside the open tool case.
Then again. The hockey-wife message thread has been running since the photograph appeared, women I know in private turning careful in writing because screenshots live longer than sympathy.
Thinking of you. Do you need anything? Has Keegan explained?
One of them asks if Chloe is still traveling with the team.
Sienna follows my eyes. “Want me to throw it out the window?”
“The window sticks.”
“Give me ten minutes. I have a screwdriver.”
I leave the thread without answering and block it. A second group goes next, then two individual messages from women who have never once asked about my work but apparently require immediate clarification on the state of my marriage. The screen quiets beneath my thumb.
Sienna fits another shelf pin into the wrong hole. “All of them?”
“I don't want updates from the arena disguised as concern.” I return the phone to the case and close it beneath the tools. “If something matters, my lawyer can tell me.”
“Or Keegan can show up and knock until the neighbors call the cops.”
The tool in my hand slips against the platinum. I set it down before I mark the link. “He doesn't know where I am.”
Sienna's gaze rises to mine. “Let's keep it that way.”
The answer comes too quickly. I do not want Keegan here. I also hate the idea that he can move through the day without knowing where I took the life that used to be beside his.
Sienna studies me for another second, then turns back to the shelf. “You said he and Chloe talked. How much talking?”
“Six months.”
Her hands stop on the metal frame. “Six months?”
I lower my eyes to the jewelry links. “Texts after games. Drinks. About our arguments. He told her when he slept in the guest room.”
“He made another woman the archivist of your marriage.” Sienna's voice is calm now, which is when she is most dangerous. “And then told you she understood him better.”
“She understood hockey better.”
“That correction does not improve the sentence.”
“I know.” I pick up the tool again. The tips meet with a clean metallic click. “I asked him to stop. He told me I was reading into it.”
Sienna looks toward the cases against the wall, the new sheets visible through the bedroom door, and the single plate drying beside the sink. “Does he know you filed because of that too?”
“He heard me say it.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
The bracelet blurs beneath the task light. I blink until the open link sharpens again. “No. I think he believes the photograph pushed me out.”
Sienna drives the final screw into place and tests the shelf with both hands. It holds. “Then he can spend some time being wrong without you translating.”
She stays until the rain thickens and the apartment begins to smell like butter and warm sugar from the bakery below.
We put my books on the shelf, stack plates in the one cabinet that closes cleanly, and wedge the larger suitcases beneath the bed.
When Sienna leaves, she checks the lock once and makes me demonstrate the chain as if I have never encountered a door.
The unfamiliar quiet settles differently here.
At the estate, silence expanded until it occupied rooms I was not using.
Here it stops at the walls. A delivery truck groans in the alley.
Pipes knock behind the bathroom. Someone below laughs, and the sound rises through the floorboards with the smell of tomorrow's bread. I work until the platinum link closes.
In the morning, rain streaks the front window silver. I dress for the studio, secure the Belleroque piece in its case, and carry my coffee down the narrow stairs. The bakery is not open yet, but ovens radiate through the shared wall and warm one side of the landing.
A white tulip lies on the top step beyond the glass door.
No wrapping. No card. Just one closed bloom with rain beaded along the stem, pale against the wet concrete.
I know who chose it because Keegan remembers I like tulips before they open, when the petals still seem capable of keeping something for themselves.
I unlock the outer door and pick it up. Keegan is standing on the sidewalk in a gray hoodie and black athletic pants, three feet back from the bottom step.
Rain has flattened his hair across his forehead and darkened the shoulders of the sweatshirt.
No truck idles at the curb. No tailored coat makes this look like a meeting he expects to control. His hands hang open at his sides.
My pulse strikes once, hard enough to move the coffee in its lid. “How did you find me?”
Keegan does not climb the step. “You never turned off location sharing.”
The answer presses cold between my ribs. We enabled it years ago—road trips for him, late nights at the studio for me. A safety line between spouses. He used it after I stopped wanting to be found.
“You tracked my phone.”
“Once.” His voice is rough but clear. “I didn’t ask Sienna. I didn’t send anyone after you.”
“Congratulations on clearing a bar that's underground.” I set my coffee on the railing, pull out my phone, and end the connection. “You won’t have the option twice.”
His jaw tightens. He nods. “You’re right.”
I close the door behind me and keep one hand on the rail. “How long have you been standing here?”
“Long enough to know the bakery starts work before dawn.” His gaze drops to the flower in my hand and returns to my face. “Not long enough to qualify as a public nuisance.”
“Your definition may differ from the landlord's.”
The corner of his mouth tries to lift. It fails before it becomes the smile that used to rearrange rooms for him. “Probably.”
Rain taps the metal awning above me. Keegan looks exhausted in a way sleep cannot repair.
Scruff shadows his jaw, and the skin beneath his eyes is bruised with it.
The last time I saw him, he was leaving me in the kitchen because practice could not wait.
Now water runs from his sleeves and gathers at his shoes while he waits for permission to move.
I lift the tulip. “What is this supposed to do?”
“Nothing.”
“Flowers generally come with an objective when delivered by estranged husbands.”
“It isn't an agenda.” He keeps his eyes on mine. “It's a tulip.”
“Thank you for the botanical clarification.”
His breath leaves in something too damaged to be a laugh. “You're welcome.”
I step onto the top stair. Keegan's weight shifts forward by reflex.
“Stay there.”
He stops.
The obedience is immediate enough to hurt. Keegan has always used distance as something to cross: a room, a crease, the strip of mattress between us after a fight. My body knows the force of him closing in. It does not know what to do with a few feet of wet pavement he refuses to take.
“I have work,” I say.
“I know.” His gaze touches the locked case beside my leg. “The Belleroque.”
My fingers tighten on the handle. “You learned the name.”
“I should have learned it when you tried to tell me.” The rain runs over his brows, but he makes no move to wipe it away. “I should have stayed when you asked.”
“Yes.”
He absorbs the word without reaching for a defense. His shoulders settle beneath the soaked cotton. “Jake came over. I saw the team physician. I called someone about the drinking.”
“Someone?”
“Recovery support. I have a schedule. Jake is part of it.”
I search his face for the shine of last night's liquor and find only rain, fatigue, and the pale green eyes I have trusted often enough to know trust is not self-renewing. “When was your last drink?”
“The night you left. After I found the petition.”
“So your response to me leaving because you made yourself blackout drunk was to make yourself blackout drunk.” My voice stays low. It cuts better there.
His jaw locks, then releases. “Yes.”
“And now you want credit for stopping after one day.”
“No.” Keegan takes the hit without stepping closer. “I want you to know I stopped. Credit would require time I haven't put in.”
The answer is better than I want it to be. I turn the tulip stem between my fingers, using the cold wet leaves to keep my hands occupied. “Are you here to ask me to withdraw the petition?”
“No.” The word comes hard. “I'm not going to pretend I want the divorce. I don't. But I came to tell you that I heard what Jake made me say out loud.”
“How romantic. Another man provided subtitles.”
“Apparently I needed them.” His voice drops. “I told Chloe about the guest room. Our fights. I made her the person I went to after games, then treated your pain like a misunderstanding because I hadn't touched her.”
The tulip dips in my hand. Then I remember his phone lighting the kitchen, Chloe knowing where he slept, and his back disappearing through the front door after I asked him to stay.
“Understanding the indictment does not dismiss the case,” I say.
“I know.”
“Do you?” I descend one step. Keegan remains exactly where I put him. “Because you are standing outside my apartment less than two days after I left it. You brought a flower. You're telling me what you did right, and some part of you is waiting for me to reward the improved performance.”
His eyes close for one beat. When they open, whatever answer he prepared is gone. “Some part of me is waiting for you to come home.” Brutal truth, finally stripped of strategy.
“I'm not coming home.”
Keegan's hands flex at his sides. “Then tell me the distance.”
“Three feet until I reach the corner. After that, you turn around.” I step down again, bringing us level without bringing us closer. “You do not come upstairs. You do not buy the building. You do not send anyone to watch me. You do not use the playoffs as an emergency that overrides what I say.”
His gaze moves over my face as if memorizing a rule he expects to be tested on. “Three feet. No stairs. No building. No one watching you. No hockey emergency.”
“And no promises you expect me to believe because they sound good in the rain.”
“Then I'll give you the days instead.”
The old Keegan would have reached for my waist by now.
He would have lowered his voice and crowded me until anger became heat, then mistaken my body's response for agreement.
This man falls into step behind me, close enough that I can hear his shoes strike wet pavement and far enough that I never feel his hand.
At the corner, I stop beneath the traffic light. He stops three feet away.
“This is where you turn around,” I say.
Every line in his body resists. His shoulders square. His hand closes once, empty, before he pushes it into the pocket of his hoodie. “I love you.”
“That was never the question.”
Keegan holds my eyes for another breath. Then he turns. I cross the street without looking back until I reach the opposite curb. When I finally do, he is walking away through the rain exactly as I ordered.
His obedience hurts worse than pursuit.