Chapter 33
Jade
I wake up to sunlight streaming through Carlos’s bedroom window and the smell of coffee brewing. His side of the bed is empty, the sheets still warm.
After unpacking, we went over to his place to stay the night. It makes more sense because of Izan. We spent the entire night just the two of us, mostly in bed, exchanging I love yous so often I should be sick of hearing it. But I’m not.
That should terrify me.
Instead, I’m lying in Carlos’s bed, in his T-shirt, listening to him move around the kitchen, and I’m . . . happy.
I grab my phone from the nightstand. The group chat is active, as always.
Emma
Morning check-in! How’s everyone?
Sara
Chris is still asleep. I’m having tea on the balcony. London is gray but beautiful.
Tessa
Luc and I are at the market. He’s arguing with a vendor about tomatoes. It’s very French.
Emma
Jade?
Jade
Still in bed. Carlos is making coffee.
Emma
Swoon.
Tessa
Agree.
Also we want updates on the permanent position!
Jade
Meeting with Rebecca today. Fingers crossed.
I read back through the chat—Tessa’s tomato argument, Sara’s gray London morning, Emma asking after everyone before she’s even had coffee—and something settles in my chest. Twelve months of this.
Different cities, different time zones, different lives, and still the first thing we do in the morning is find each other.
Jade
Just so you all know. I’m keeping you forever. That’s non-negotiable.
Emma
Obviously.
Sara
Was that ever in question?
Tessa
We’re keeping YOU. There’s a difference.
I set my phone down and pad barefoot into the kitchen. Carlos is at the counter, pouring coffee into two mugs. Izan is sprawled by his feet, hoping for breakfast scraps that won’t come.
“Good morning,” Carlos says without turning around.
“Morning.” I wrap my arms around him from behind, press my face between his shoulder blades. “You’re up early.”
“Izan needed to go out.” He turns in my arms, hands me a mug. “And I couldn’t sleep.”
“Nervous about us?”
He turns and kisses me on the lips. “No. Excited. I tried to distract myself with that podcast you recommended but then I got too invested and had to stay up to see if they arrested the stepbrother.”
“Carlos!” I cover my ears. “I wasn’t finished!”
I pretend to be angry with him, but it’s easier to match his excitement instead.
Even on a Sunday, Rebecca responded to my email request for a meeting.
“Rebecca likes you. She’ll find something.”
I stand on my toes and kiss him. “I hope so.”
“I know so.” He smiles. “What time is your meeting with Rebecca?”
“Four. She doesn’t know if she’ll have an answer yet, but we’ll see.”
“Nervous?”
“A little.”
“It will be fine.” He kisses my forehead. “And tonight, we celebrate.”
“Deal.”
Rebecca greets me warmly in her office, her hair done up in a chignon and her emerald-green dress hugging every curve.
“Jade!” She stands, gesturing to the seat in front of her desk. “Come in, sit. How was Monaco?”
“It was amazing.” I grin. “Kind of glad to be home though.”
“So I heard.” She grins. “If you’d told me earlier this year that the two of you would have ended up together, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’m glad. You’re good for him.” She settles back into her chair, her smile dimming a little. “Which makes what I’m about to tell you harder.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
“I don’t have a permanent position for you in Madrid.”
The words hit like a physical blow. “What? But you said—”
“I know. And I tried, Jade. I really did.” Rebecca spreads her hands. “But the Madrid office is actually contracting, not expanding. Budget cuts from corporate. We’re losing two research positions, not gaining them. I’m sorry.”
I can’t breathe. “Then what happens?”
“Austin needs you back. Your position there is still open. They’ve been holding it, expecting you to return.” She slides a folder across the desk. “I have transfer paperwork. You’d go back to your old team, same salary, same role. It’s a good position, Jade.”
“In Austin.”
“In Austin.”
I stare at the folder like it might bite me. “When?” I ask stupidly, like this hasn’t been the plan all along, like somehow, it’ll change.
“The Madrid office closes for the summer break anyway, so there’s no reason to keep you here.” She pauses. “And they need you in Austin by the first of August at the latest.”
Two weeks. I knew that was what I had, but I was still hoping . . .
“Jade, I’m so sorry. If there was any way to keep you here, I would. But my hands are tied.”
I nod numbly. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course. Take a few days. But—” She pauses. “The Austin position won’t stay open forever. If you don’t take it, they’ll need to hire someone else.”
“I understand.”
I leave her office in a daze. Carlos is in the hallway, waiting. He takes one look at my face and his expression falls.
“What happened?”
“There’s no position. Madrid is contracting. They want me back in Austin.”
“When?”
“Before the August closure.”
He pulls me into his arms right there in the hallway, and I let him. I let myself fall apart just a little bit against his chest while the reality sinks in.
I had hoped so much that this would be our ideal solution, keeping my job and getting all the time I want with Carlos. Building a life that worked for both of us.
Now what?
At the end of the day, when we get home to Carlos’s apartment, I collapse on the couch. Izan immediately sniffs me in concern, sensing my distress in that way dogs do.
Carlos brings me tea and sits on my other side.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“There’s nothing to say. The position in Madrid doesn’t exist. I have to go back to Austin.”
“So we go to Austin.”
“No, I mean—” I sit up, look at him. “Carlos, your family is here. Your job is here.”
He scrubs his hand over his face, then steeples his fingers against his chin, thinking. The tension stretches until I have to break the silence.
“We can figure some—”
He holds up his hand. “I’ll retire.”
I’m surprised, for a moment, pleasure surging through my veins that he would upend his simple life for me, but then I remember the other, bigger problem.
“But your family—”
“I’ll see them. And they can visit. And we can visit them.
Jade, we’ll figure it out. You’d have your job, and I’ll have you.
I’ve been thinking about it vaguely for years—I’m fifty-six, I’ve had high-paying jobs for three decades.
I have savings, investments, Fernando and Diana don’t need my financial support anymore.
My little apartment is well within my means. ”
I shake my head. “It’s not fair. You’d give up your career and you’d have to give up living in Madrid? Near Fernando and Diana and Carmen? You’re giving up time with your granddaughter.”
“For you? Yes.”
The certainty in his voice makes my chest ache. “Carlos—”
“Jade, listen to me.” He takes my hands. “I chose this. I chose you. I don’t care where we live as long as we’re together. Madrid, Austin, anywhere. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I whisper. “I don’t want you to resent me five years from now because you gave up everything and I gave up nothing.”
“You’re giving me your heart. That’s not nothing.”
“It’s not the same.”
We’re quiet for a moment. Izan sighs heavily, his head on my lap.
“I wish I could quit,” I mutter.
Carlos blinks, then reaches across to push a strand of my hair back behind my ear. “Oh carino. You could.”
“What?”
“I could take care of us, Jade. But you love your job. This is so important to you. I couldn’t ask you to quit for me.”
“I love you more.”
His eyes soften, but he shakes his head. “No. I won’t let you give up your career for me. Not when you’ve worked so hard for it.”
“Then what do we do?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, thinking. Then: “What if we go to Austin? Work your notice period properly. Help them find your replacement. But while you’re there, you look for positions in Europe.
Spain, Portugal, Italy—anywhere you want to be.
Something that would let you do the work you love but be based here. ”
“That could take months. Maybe longer.”
“Then it takes months.”
“But we’d be apart.”
“Not entirely. I’ll split my time. I’d visit. You’d visit. We’d make it work.” He cups my face. “Jade, I’m not asking you to sacrifice your career. I’m asking you to trust that we can figure this out together, even if it takes time.”
I want to argue. I want to say it’s not fair, it’s too hard, we just found each other and now we have to be apart.
But he’s right. I do love my job. And giving it up entirely, depending on him financially—that’s not who I am. That’s not who I want to be.
“It’ll take time to find a job that doesn’t break my non-compete clause.
And I’ll be very busy trying to find a new job and then training a replacement.
I might have to give three months’ notice?
Maybe longer? That’s almost a year, Carlos.
Plus we’d have to figure out how to get you legally in the US, which is . . .”
“I know.”
“And you’d wait?”
“I’d wait forever if I had to. But I don’t think it will take that long.” He smiles slightly. “You’re very good at your job. Someone will want to hire you.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “You have a lot of faith in me.”
“I do. More than you have in yourself, apparently.”
I lean into him, let him hold me while my mind races. Austin for six months, maybe more. Carlos and me living there temporarily until I can find a job I love as much as this.
It’s not the plan we made. It’s messy and uncertain and exactly the kind of situation I would have run from a year ago.
But I’m not running.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?”
“Okay. We’ll go to Austin. I’ll work my notice, find a replacement, look for positions in Europe.” I pull back to look at him. “But Carlos, if I can’t find anything—”
“You will.”
“But if I don’t—”
“Then we figure out something. But Jade—” His thumbs stroke over my cheeks. “We’re not giving up. Not on this. Not on us.”
“Even if it’s hard?”
“Especially if it’s hard.”
I kiss him, pouring all my fear and love and determination into it.
Saturday we have dinner at Carlos’s son’s apartment. It’s awful. We tell them we’re together and then immediately break the news that I can’t stay.
Fernando’s face falls. Diana reaches across to squeeze my hand. Carmen, oblivious, continues smashing rice on her tray.
“We had our hopes up,” Diana says. “But we support you both doing what you have to do to stay together. We will be here whenever you can visit.”
“We’ll visit as much as we can, I promise,” I tell them.
“We’ll just have to take advantage of every minute we have with you both,” Fernando says. Then he smirks. “We’ll put a guest bed in Carmen’s room so Grandpa can spend every minute with her when he’s visiting.”
Carlos looks at his granddaughter with a fond smile. “A sleepover,” he adds.
She’s so young, and my heart aches. I don’t want her to forget her grandpa.
I have to find a job over here, fast.
“We’ll visit, too,” I say. “We’ll spend Christmas here. And Thanksgiving.”
I get six weeks of PTO. I’ll use every one of them to make Carlos happy.
Plus, I’ll get my friends to come visit us in Madrid. Carlos can spend time with his family while I spend time with mine.
Diana smiles at me as if reading my thoughts. “Your family will be here for you when you come back.”
She means her family. She’s giving them to me.
My throat tightens. “Thank you.”
Carmen chooses that moment to throw her spoon on the floor, demanding attention. Fernando picks it up, hands it back to her, and the moment breaks.
But the promise remains.
Family. Here. Waiting. They love me for who I am, not who they think I should be.
Finally.
Later, back at the apartment, Carlos and I lie in bed, not ready for sleep yet.
“Are you scared?” he asks. He’s on his side, facing me, hand on my cheek.
“Terrified,” I admit. “But I’m going to find something.
” I’m determined. I’m not going to tell Carlos this just yet, but if I don’t find anything over here in six months, I’ll take him up on his offer to support us.
Hopefully it’ll be temporary. But there are other options—the nonprofit sector, patient advocacy .
. . “I don’t want you to lose your home, your family. ”
“I won’t.” He pulls me closer. “Jade, home isn’t a place. It’s a person. You’re my home. Madrid, Austin, anywhere—if you’re there, I’m home.”
“That’s very romantic.”
“It’s also true.”
I’m quiet for a moment, then: “Carlos?”
“Mmm?”
“Can I say something without you trying to fix it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m really angry. At Rebecca, at corporate, at the universe. We finally figured this out and now it’s all falling apart.”
“I know.”
“And I know you’re being supportive and patient and wonderful. But I’m allowed to be angry, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Because I am. I’m furious.”
He kisses the top of my head. “Be furious. I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“What if I’m furious for six months?”
“Then I’ll be here for six months.”
“That’s very patient of you.”
I kiss him, deep and desperate, trying to memorize the feel of him. We have months of uncertainty ahead of us.
But we’ll make it work. Somehow.
We have to.
Because the alternative—giving up on this, on us—is unbearable.
“I love you,” I whisper against his lips.
“I love you too, carino.”
“Even when I’m angry and scared and trying to push you away?”
“Especially then.”
We make love slowly, tenderly, like we have all the time in the world instead of one short week.
And after, tangled together with Izan snoring beside us, I let myself believe it.
That we’ll make it work.
That this isn’t the end.
That distance and uncertainty and bad timing can’t break something this strong.
One day at a time.