Chapter 36
VALENTINA
There were a few things they didn’t tell you about getting your shit together.
One: It was exhausting.
Two: Nobody clapped for you.
Three: No matter how much you fixed, there was always something left to unravel.
It had been a weird couple of weeks.
I’d been keeping my head down—which, let’s be honest, wasn’t exactly my specialty.
I’d gone to my AA meetings like a good little recovering disaster, even if I still spent half of them silently judging everyone in the room, including myself.
I made it through the meetings without slipping, without talking too much, without snapping at Greg when he asked how I was really feeling.
But mostly, I’d gone because I hadn’t wanted to go.
I figured that had to mean something, but Jesus, nobody had warned me how quiet life got when you stopped drowning it out.
It turned out getting sober meant getting clear, and getting clear meant having to look at your life.
And honestly? It wasn’t exactly a masterpiece.
The past two weeks had felt like living inside someone else’s reality—someone more responsible, more boring, more mature. Someone I barely recognized.
Someone I think I liked.
Honestly, I’d underestimated how exhausting it was to be good. All the hours I used to spend avoiding everything that mattered now stretched out in front of me, waiting for me to actually fill them with something useful.
And Marco.
God—Marco.
I still wasn’t sure what was happening there, but whatever it was, it was undoing everything I thought I knew about myself.
About relationships. About boundaries. He was careful with me—sometimes infuriatingly so.
He’d text me random reminders, little things like telling me to drink water or just checking in with one-word messages that somehow managed to be annoyingly endearing.
It bothered me how much I liked that.
Want to know what else bothered me? The fact I still didn’t have a mirror to use.
I’d spent the past few weeks walking around all day without knowing if my hair looked insane or if my eyeliner was straight. Last night I’d finally snapped and told him as much, pacing in front of him while he sat quietly on the couch pretending not to find my irritation amusing.
“I can’t keep living like this, Marco,” I’d complained dramatically. “I’m walking around with the blind hope my eyeliner is even remotely symmetrical. This is cruel and unusual.”
He’d stared up at me, eyebrows raised slightly. “You seem to be managing just fine.”
“I’m not,” I insisted stubbornly. “I’m barely holding it together here.”
He shook his head and returned his attention to whatever he’d been reading on his laptop, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “dramatic.”
But when I got home today, something felt different. The house was quiet, which was nothing new, but the hallway was cluttered with cardboard.
I followed the trail down the hall, trying not to step on sharp things or accidentally sabotage whatever project Marco had apparently taken up without telling me. The mental image of him doing anything even remotely handyman-ish was worth it.
And then I found him. He was kneeling on the floor next to something that was maybe fifty percent assembled, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair doing that unfairly attractive thing where it fell over his forehead. I stopped. I stared. I forgot whatever I was about to say.
I finally recovered enough to speak. “Um . . . what exactly is happening here?”
He looked up. “I’m ensuring I never have to hear you complain about eyeliner again.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, don’t worry—I’ll find something else to complain about, just for you.”
“Naturally,” he muttered, calmly twisting a screwdriver into place. “You wouldn’t be you without a new crisis every five minutes.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned against the doorway. “At least every ten. Come on.”
He paused just long enough to give me a dry look. “Generous estimate.”
Since he wasn’t paying attention, I decided to make myself comfortable, sprawling dramatically across the bed and propping myself up on one elbow. Might as well enjoy the view. Plus, this was way more entertaining than television, or anything Pauly D had to say.
“You know, I’m kind of surprised,” I said. “You could’ve let me suffer a little longer.”
He sighed, not even trying to hide his smile. “Believe me, I considered it.”
I watched him a little longer, silently deciding watching Marco assemble furniture was officially my new favorite hobby. Which was a problem. Because liking Marco this much wasn’t in the plan.
It was inconvenient.
Dangerous, even.
For the next hour, I talked his ear off while he quietly worked on finishing the vanity, stopping only occasionally to give me one of his patented dry looks or a quick remark.
Honestly, I was pretty sure at some point he just tuned me out completely, but he never told me to shut up, so I took that as full permission to keep going.
And keep going I did.
I rambled through basically my entire life story, sharing random childhood anecdotes, the absolutely tragic list of crappy jobs I’d worked, and even that one time Isabel and I nearly got arrested because some genius had mistaken our Uber for theirs and tried to report us for grand theft auto over a single bottle of tequila.
I thought that story would at least get a little reaction, but all I got was that slight eyebrow raise he always did, and then a shake of his head as if he’d long since stopped being surprised by anything that came out of my mouth.
I kinda loved that about him. It was irritatingly endearing, the way he just accepted whatever I threw at him without batting an eyelash.
Eventually, I got bored of my own voice, and my attention wandered back to the vanity. Or, more specifically, the mirror.
Which reminded me . . .
“Okay,” I started, shifting on the bed, tracing random little swirls into the comforter. “I gotta know, what’s your deal with mirrors? You don’t have a single one? That’s not normal, Marco.”
He sighed as if I were asking him to explain quantum physics to a kindergartener, carefully tightening one last screw. “I just don’t need them.”
“You don’t need them?” I repeated skeptically, propping myself up on an elbow.
“Marco, everyone needs mirrors. It’s like a basic human right.
How do you know your teeth don’t have something gross stuck in them or your hair isn’t doing that weird Marco thing it does sometimes? ” I waved my hand vaguely at his head.
He paused, set the screwdriver down, and turned around fully to give me that tired look I’d grown to love way too much—the one that clearly said he was over this particular line of questioning.
I rolled my eyes so hard it honestly hurt. “Fine. Keep your secrets, lawyer.”
Marco stood slowly, dragging a hand through his hair and making it even messier—which, unfairly, only made him look better. He turned toward me, raising an eyebrow at me where I lay sprawled across the bed, shamelessly enjoying the view. “Are you done interrogating me?” he asked, mildly amused.
“Maybe,” I said, rolling onto my back and fixing my gaze on the ceiling. “I reserve the right to circle back later.”
“I’m sure you do.”
He glanced up, catching me staring, and tilted his head slightly. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said way too quickly, probably making it incredibly obvious it wasn’t nothing at all. I shrugged, trying and failing to sound casual. “Just thinking.”
“That’s never good.”
He had a point. Me thinking was rarely a good sign. Especially when I was thinking about him and how he’d just casually built me furniture because I’d complained, and how he’d listened to me babble on about nothing, and how he’d let me invade his personal space without kicking me out.
God, when had my standards become so . . . decent?
I was staring at Marco Grey as if he’d personally hung the moon, the stars, and maybe the sun, and I really, really needed to knock it off.
Like, yesterday. Before he noticed—or worse, before I did something absolutely tragic, like start blushing, or spontaneously combust from too much emotional intimacy.
I stayed sprawled across the bed watching him sort through the cardboard, way too aware of every stupid detail—the rolled-up sleeves revealing forearms I had no business noticing; the way his hair was still messy from running his fingers through it; the way he moved around as if he knew exactly where everything belonged.
Including me. Even if he’d never admit it.
I sighed, and before I could talk myself out of it, I’d slid off the bed and walked quietly over to him.
I stood close enough to touch, but I didn’t.
Couldn’t. Instead I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve and tried not to think about the fact I was basically pining over the emotionally numb lawyer.
“Seriously, though,” I started, softer now, the teasing gone from my voice, “you didn’t have to do this. I was just being—”
“Dramatic?” he finished, raising one eyebrow as if he knew the punchline before I’d even started the joke.
I rolled my eyes and nudged his side gently, just enough to make sure he was real. “Expressive, Marco. I was being expressive.”
He looked down at me, and something changed in his expression. It wasn’t quite a smile—I was pretty sure Marco’s face would break if he actually smiled—but it was softer somehow. Warmer. Almost affectionate.
And suddenly, there was that stupid fluttering in my chest again.
Like butterflies, except way more inconvenient, and I didn’t need butterflies right now.
Butterflies led to feelings, feelings led to vulnerability, and vulnerability led straight to disaster.
I was an expert at disasters, thank you very much, and I knew better than to willingly walk into another one.
But Marco had a way of undoing all my rules just by looking at me. It was annoyingly effective.
“It’s no big deal,” he said quietly, dragging me out of my own head.
“Maybe not to you,” I mumbled, looking down at my hands, “but it is to me.”
Finally, he stepped back toward the door, sliding his hands into his pockets like he was done with whatever heart-to-heart we’d accidentally stumbled into.
“Take your time with the mirror,” he called back lightly, already walking away. Then he paused and looked over his shoulder. “And for the record, your eyeliner always looks fine.”
I laughed despite myself, caught off-guard by how much I needed to hear that—even though I’d never admit it. “Oh, now you tell me.”
He shrugged lightly. “You never asked.”