Chapter 37
Carly
The thing about making coffee is that it’s very hard to cry while steaming milk.
Not impossible, obviously, but it’s hard. There are temperatures to watch, espresso shots to pull, cups to label, customers to smile at like your life didn’t crawl into a gutter four weeks ago and die there.
So I make coffee.
I make oat milk lattes and extra-hot cappuccinos and iced Americanos with light ice. I wipe counters. I restock syrups. I pretend the hiss of the machine isn’t doing most of the work of keeping me from thinking.
Zoe keeps calling me a natural, and that is far too generous and also technically a lie. I was a barista in high school, back when my biggest problems were calculus, curfew, and who I was going with to homecoming. I’m not exactly untrained.
Muscle memory is weird. My hands remember how to tamp espresso even when my brain is busy trying to crawl out of my skull.
“Carly,” Zoe says from the register. “Two vanilla lattes and an oat dirty chai.”
“On it.”
I turn, grab cups, and fill in the labels in Sharpie with hands that barely shake anymore.
Progress, maybe.
It’s late morning, slow enough that the line comes in little waves instead of one long, merciless river. Between customers, I keep my phone open on the counter, job listings glowing on the screen like a punishment.
Junior Designer.
Assistant Apparel Designer.
Freelance Technical Sketch Artist.
Remote Contract Position, six months.
Nothing pays what Sparkks paid. Nothing looks like Sparkks. Nothing feels like the job I had fought my way into before it got tangled up in Grayson and his house and Penelope’s little hand in mine.
I refresh the page anyway.
Because looking for a job is better than hoping for something that won’t happen.
Grayson hasn’t texted since that night, and I haven’t texted him.
The one day I managed to force myself to walk into Sparkks to collect my sketchbooks, my belongings from his house were sitting at my desk, and I’d tried not to have a breakdown in the middle of the office as I dragged two suitcases behind me.
Zoe appears beside me with a tub of clean spoons when I’ve finished the drinks and turned back to my phone. “Any luck?”
“Nope.” I click into another listing, skim the requirements, wondering when ten years of experience became entry-level. “Unless I want to move to Omaha and design corporate fleece vests.”
“Omaha might be nice.”
I look at her. She winces.
“Okay. Sorry.”
I huff out something almost like a laugh and reach for a towel. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m standing and I’m currently not crying.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It’s all I've got, Zo.”
Zoe sets the spoons down and studies me with that careful expression she’s been wearing for three weeks, like I’m glass, like one wrong sound might shatter me all over her tile floor. She's not exactly wrong. “You could try talking to him again,” she says gently.
My stomach twists so hard I have to look away. “Stop.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. He made up his mind.”
“He was hurt.”
“He accused me of using him.” My voice stays low, but something sharp creeps into it anyway. “He accused me of pretending to care about him and about Penelope. He’s not going to suddenly think his version of events is acceptable.”
Zoe sighs like she’s tired of having this conversation forty times a week when she’s the one who's always bringing it up.
I wipe at an invisible spot on the counter. “He’s probably already moved on anyway.”
Zoe gives me a flat look. “Carly.”
“What?”
“You really think Grayson processed a major emotional event in three weeks and moved on like a healthy adult?”
I hate that I almost smile. Almost.
“He hasn’t.” The voice comes from the front of the shop.
Male, familiar, and deep enough to make my spine go stiff before my head even lifts. For one breathless, idiotic second, I hope it’s him.
But I look up and see Maddox walking in with Cole right behind him. My stomach sinks like a damn stone.
Zoe’s expression changes immediately. “Who…?”
Cole looks around the empty stretch of shop, then back at me. Maddox has his hands in his jacket pockets, his face unusually serious.
I straighten behind the counter, my body thankfully still remembering how to act professional around men connected to Grayson, even while wearing an apron with a coffee stain across the stomach.
“Zoe, this is Cole and Maddox. Friends of Grayson’s,” I say, hating the way my throat closes in a little on his name. “What can I get you guys?”
Cole’s mouth pulls to one side. “We’re not here for coffee.”
“Shame. It’s really the only thing I’m offering right now.”
Zoe makes a soft noise beside me. Warning or sympathy, I’m not sure.
Maddox steps closer to the counter. “He hasn’t moved on.”
I grip the towel in my hand until my fingers ache. “Okay, and?”
Cole frowns. “Carly.”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask, irritation bleeding into my voice. “Congratulations? That’s sad? I’m not exactly thriving either.”
“We know,” Maddox says.
“No, you don’t.” The words come faster now, sharp enough that even I flinch a little.
“You know whatever version of it you’ve heard from him.
You don’t know what it felt like to have him look at me like I was trash.
You don’t know what it felt like to be accused of using him and his daughter as temporary housing. ”
Cole purses his lips. “He was wrong. We know that much.”
That stops me. For one stupid second, there’s a flicker of hope in my chest, but then it dies. Cole saying it doesn’t mean that Grayson thinks that.
“Yeah, well, maybe someone should tell him that.”
“We have,” Maddox says.
“And?”
He glances at Cole.
That glance tells me everything.
I laugh once, brittle and miserable. “Right.”
Cole rests both hands on the counter, leaning in a little. “He’s in bad shape, Carly. He’s not, uh, coping well.”
My throat tightens. I don’t want to care. God, I don’t want to care, but my stupid heart is apparently a weak, feeble thing, and it grips onto that before I can stop myself. “Is Penelope okay?” I ask.
Cole’s expression softens. “Yeah. Dana and I have been watching her when Gray can’t. She misses you.”
That hits me directly in the ribs.
Maddox’s voice is gentler when he speaks again. “He needs to talk to you.”
My throat closes. “No.”
Zoe goes still.
Cole exhales. “Carly—”
“No,” I say again, and this time the wobble in my voice hardens into something else. “I am not the problem. I’m not going to go to him and beg to be heard again.”
The answering silence makes my ears ring.
“I wasn’t the one who accused him of lying,” I continue. “I didn’t decide the worst possible thing about him and then treat it like fact. I didn’t shut him out. I didn’t send a two-sentence text ending everything. He did.”
Cole’s jaw flexes.
I stare at him, needing someone in this room to understand. “I love him. I love Penelope. I loved my job, at Sparkks and at home. I loved all of it. And he decided none of that mattered because I had a backup plan from before he ever made me feel safe enough not to need one.”
Maddox looks down, exhaling awkwardly.
Cole drags a hand over his mouth. “I know. You’re right.”
I nod, but it doesn’t feel good. Being right feels awful, actually.
“He’s just... stubborn,” Cole says.
“I don’t care.” My voice cracks. “He can be stubborn alone. I’m not going to beg him to believe I’m not a bad person.”
“None of us think you are,” Maddox says.
My mouth pulls into a sad little smile. “That’s nice. But you’re not the one who mattered most.”
Another customer opens the door, the bell above it jingling too brightly for the mood in the room. Some guy in a CU hoodie steps inside, waltzes up to the counter, and asks Zoe for a hazelnut cappuccino.
I untie my apron with shaky fingers. “I’m taking my lunch.”
“Carly,” Zoe says softly.
“I’m taking my lunch,” I repeat, begging her with my eyes to just let me go.
She doesn’t argue.
I grab my phone and walk out from behind the counter without looking at Cole or Maddox again. Neither of them stops me.
The walk back to Zoe’s apartment is short, but it feels longer when my chest is caving in the whole way. By the time I get inside, my hands are shaking again. I drop down on the couch, kick off my shoes, and stare into the void.
Do not cry.
Do not cry.
Do not cry.
My eyes burn anyway.
I pull my phone out because I need a distraction more than anything. The jobs board is still open, and I refresh again.
A new listing pops up near the top.
Apparel Designer. Colorado Springs. Full-time. Competitive salary.
I click it before I can think too much.
The job description is fine. Better than fine, even. Sportswear-adjacent. Not Sparkks, obviously, but nothing is Sparkks, and maybe that’s the point. Maybe I need something that doesn’t feel like Grayson.
My vision blurs, and I blink hard to try to clear it.
“Stop it,” I whisper to myself.
I attach my existing resume, add my portfolio link, and let AI type out a cover letter so generic it should probably be illegal. My finger hovers over submit.
Colorado Springs isn’t another planet. It’s not even that far. But it is far enough to become a different life. Far enough not to pass Sparkks Sports occasionally. Far enough not to wonder if Grayson is in the next room, behind the next door, around the next corner.
Far enough to stop hoping.
I press submit.
The confirmation screen appears. Thank you for applying. I drop my phone immediately and press both palms against my eyes, trying not to let the tears overwhelm me.
But then my shoulders start to shake, and my throat closes, and the tears come whether I want them to or not. And half of it is probably because I know now that across town, Grayson is hurting too.
And I still can’t make him hear me.