Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Madison
He was sitting on the floor outside my door with his back against the wall and a bag of groceries beside him. It was so entirely Tom that I stopped in the corridor for a second, just looking at him.
He looked up when he heard me. "Hey."
"How long have you been there?"
He shrugged. "Not long." He stood and picked up the bag. "Figured I'd cook."
I looked at the bag, then at the groceries I was carrying. "I just bought—"
"I can see that." He eyed the premade pasta bake on top of my bag. He had the diplomatic expression of someone who held strong opinions but was choosing to keep them to himself. "Mine's better."
"Yours is always better."
"Yes," he said simply. He waited while I found my keys.
Inside, he took over the kitchen the way he always did: quietly and without fuss. He found things in my cupboards he’d located months ago and never mentioned. I changed out of my work clothes and came back to find him already at the stove, with a glass of red wine waiting on the counter for me.
"Sit," he said.
I sat.
It was a good evening. That was the thing.
Tom was easy company, the kitchen was warm, the wine was the good kind and there was enough of it.
He told me about a conference in Denver he'd been asked to speak at, something about a paper he'd co-authored.
I listened and asked the right questions.
By any reasonable measure, I was present.
"Oh," he said at some point, plating up. He said it like he'd just remembered it, which meant he'd been waiting for the right moment. "Went ahead and booked the wine tasting."
I looked at him.
"I know you've had a rough few weeks." He set a plate in front of me. "Figured you could use something to look forward to. The lodge had a cancellation so I grabbed it." He sat down across from me and smiled. "Friday."
The word landed flatly in the middle of the table.
Friday.
"Tom—"
"It's the good package, the dinner included." He picked up his fork. "I thought we could drive up Thursday evening, make a weekend of it."
"Tom." I set my fork down. The metal clinked against the plate, sounding far too loud in the quiet kitchen. "I'm so sorry. I can't do Friday."
He looked at me. He didn't drop his fork or look shocked. He just waited.
"I completely forgot about the tasting. I should have told you sooner. I'm sorry."
"What's Friday?" he asked. Steady. Just asking for the missing piece of the schedule.
"I ran into them. At the supermarket. Lily Henley—Cassie's daughter. She kind of..." I stopped. I took a breath and started again. "I got roped into dinner."
He was quiet for a moment. "The Henley girl."
"Yeah."
"And the uncle."
It wasn't a question. I held his gaze. "Yes."
He nodded and looked at his plate. He picked up his fork and turned it in his hand, watching the light catch the silver.
"Tom, I'm sorry. I'll pay you back for the—"
"It's fine," he said. "Don't worry about the money."
"We can rebook for next month."
"Sure." He took a bite. He chewed slowly, methodically. "How's she doing? The little girl."
"Better," I said. "She seems... she’s a tough kid."
"Good." He nodded. "That's good." He paused. "And the uncle?"
I looked at him.
"You knew him," Tom said. "Before." Not an accusation. Just placing it.
"We were together," I said. "A long time ago. Three years."
He nodded slowly. It was the way he processed data in a lab: taking it in, weighing it, refusing to react until the results were clear. "And now he's back."
"He's back because his sister died, Tom. It’s not—" I stopped myself. "It was a long time ago."
"I know," he said. And he did know, I could see it—he wasn't suspicious, wasn't building a case. He was just a man who'd been handed a piece of information and was deciding what to do with it. He looked at his glass. "Does it feel like a long time ago?"
I didn't answer that.
Does it feel like a long time ago?
I didn't know how to answer that.
He looked at me for a moment. Then he set his fork down and leaned back in his chair, and something in his face settled into something quieter than what had been there before.
"You haven't been yourself," he said. "Since Cassie died. Since he came back." He hesitated, then continued. "I noticed."
"Tom—"
"I'm not—" He shook his head. "I'm not saying it to make you feel bad." He looked at his glass. "I like you, Maddie. I really do. You know that." He paused for a beat. "But we both know what this is. What it's been."
He said it gently, which made it land harder.
He was right. We both knew it. The dinners, the easy evenings, the never quite getting around to the next thing.
Tom had been married once, briefly, years before I’d known him.
He had come out of it careful in a specific way that matched my own caution so neatly that we’d never had to talk about it.
It had been convenient. It had been good. It had not been the thing that kept me up at night.
"Whatever is or isn't happening," he said, "don't factor me in." He looked at me steadily, his gaze clear and remarkably kind. "I mean that."
"Nothing is happening," I said.
He smiled at that. It was a small, slightly sad smile that didn't reach for an argument. "Okay," he said.
He picked his fork back up. I did the same.
We finished dinner in a quiet that felt different—thinner, somehow—and then he washed the dishes.
He kissed me at the door and said goodnight.
I watched him walk down the corridor and stood in the doorway until he had turned the corner and the sound of his footsteps had faded completely.
Then I went back inside. I stood in the kitchen looking at the two plates in the rack and the half-empty bottle of wine on the counter.
Nothing is happening.
I’d said it like it was true. I’d almost believed it while I was saying it.
Almost.