32
Maeve
I GOT HOME LATER than I’d planned.
It had been nearly nine when I finally unlocked the front door, the weight of the day settled deep into my bones.
It was a heavy, sluggish kind of exhaustion, the sort that lingered long after my mind had stopped paying attention to it.
My private client had overrun by nearly an hour, and I had spent most of that extra time smiling politely while internally counting down to the moment I could finally be alone in the quiet.
On the drive back, the city had blurred past the window in soft streaks of gold and grey.
Streetlights smeared across the glass, and every now and then the glow of a passing car washed briefly over the dashboard before disappearing.
My thoughts had barely stayed on the road.
They had drifted instead to the shower I still needed to take, something hot in my hands, and the bag sitting by my front door like a small accusation.
By the time I reached the flat, I was moving almost entirely on autopilot.
That was why it took me nearly a full minute to register that my best friend was home. A day early.
She was curled into the corner of our sofa with her laptop balanced across her thighs, one socked foot tucked beneath the other leg.
A mug sat on the coffee table beside her, steam rising in slow, lazy spirals, as though it had nowhere urgent to be.
The sight of her softened something in me that I had not realised had been wound so tightly all day.
She looked up, and her entire face changed. It was more than recognition. Something warmer moved through her expression, immediate and instinctive, as though the room itself had finally exhaled.
“Finally.”
The word had come out half-scolding, half-relieved, and it made something in my chest loosen.
I let out a small laugh, tired but genuine. “Sorry.”
She pushed herself upright, and the laptop slipped slightly on her thighs as she shifted. “I was beginning to think your client had kidnapped you.”
The way she said it was dry and teasing, but I caught the way she watched me for a moment longer than necessary, taking stock. That made me smile properly.
“She nearly did.”
That earned me a sharper look.
I dropped my bag beside the door with a dull thud. The sound seemed too loud in the quiet flat, but I barely noticed. I walked over to her without thinking about it, and she opened her arms before I had even reached the sofa.
There was no hesitation, no question about whether I needed it. Just instinct.
I went straight into them.
The hug had felt like warmth after cold.
It was not dramatic or overwhelming. It was simply steady, familiar, and exactly what I had needed.
Her arms wrapped around me with such effortless familiarity that my shoulders dropped without permission, as though my body had been waiting for her all day without bothering to tell me.
I felt her exhale against my shoulder, and something inside me finally loosened.
I had missed this.
I had missed her. I had missed home, although not the place itself so much as the feeling of it. The kind of familiarity that did not ask questions before it held you.
She squeezed me once, firm and grounding, then pulled back just enough to look at me.
“Right.” Her eyes narrowed almost immediately. “Explain this.”
I frowned, still half caught in the warmth of the hug. “Explain what?”
She did not answer. Instead, she pointed towards the coffee table.
My gaze followed her finger.
The locker-room key was sitting there in plain sight, looking as though it had always belonged in our living room.
My stomach dropped slightly.
“Oh.”
The sound escaped before I could stop it.
Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”
I sank onto the sofa beside her, the cushions dipping beneath my weight as the exhaustion of the day finally caught up with me. “That.”
I picked up the key automatically, turning it between my fingers. The metal was cold and indifferent, ordinary in a way that did not match the story attached to it.
“Very helpful,” she muttered.
“I know he didn’t break in, but I still needed to make sure the locks were updated in case he decided to come back.”
Her expression changed at once. The teasing disappeared, replaced by confusion and then concern.
“Maeve.”
I sighed.
It was not because I did not want to tell her. I did. That was almost the problem. I knew exactly what it would sound like once I said it aloud. So I told her everything.
I told her about the door and the way it had not felt like a break-in at first, only a wrongness in the air that my body had recognised before my mind had caught up.
I told her about Roland, and what he’d done.
About how Rihaan had arrived, helped me, given me a space to wind down…
before I packed up a bag and left him like a scared cat.
When I finally stopped speaking, the silence between us felt dense.
She stared at me for a long moment before she spoke.
“You need to press charges.”
“I did.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“I went to the station once I came back from Ediburugh.”
“And?”
I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve, suddenly unable to look at her directly. “He was already there.”
She blinked. “What?”
“He had turned himself in.”
The words hung between us, strange even as I said them.
“Roland?” she asked more slowly. “The guy who’d mocked you for not being able to touch him?”
I nodded.
“He had been arrested for fraud, theft, and selling drugs. They added my statement to everything.”
Samyra leaned back slightly, as though she physically needed a little more space to process it.
“That’s…”
“Strange?” I supplied.
“Very.”
I nodded once. “The police said he came in on his own. Apparently, he confessed.”
Her expression tightened. Whatever relief I had expected from that news was nowhere to be found.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Me neither.”
She reached across then and covered my hand with hers. Her touch was warm and steady.
“At least you’re not carrying this alone.”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
Her fingers squeezed mine once.
“And the hearing?”
“They’ll need me as a witness.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
I could already see her mind moving ahead, building questions and outcomes and consequences. I gave her a faint, tired smile.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
She did not look away. “What?”
“That you’re going to ask if I’m scared.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Are you?”
I looked down.
The answer came too easily.
“Yes.”
It surprised me how honest it felt.
She did not rush to fix it or tell me that I would be fine. She simply squeezed my hand again, acknowledging the fear instead of trying to erase it.
Then, after a moment, she tilted her head.
“So.”
The shift was immediate.
I groaned under my breath. “No.”
Her mouth twitched. “You’ve told me about the burglary. Described it in heavy detail. Now I need more than just the cliff notes about Edinburgh.”
I stared at her. “There is nothing to talk about.”
“That’s a lie.”
A weak laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Okay.”
She tucked both legs beneath herself properly and turned towards me. Her attention sharpened in a way that made it clear there was no chance of escape.
“Tell me everything.”
So I did.
I did not give her the version I had rehearsed in my head, the neat version that made everything sound simple and contained and safe.
I told her about the cabin and his mother.
I told her about the room we had both avoided naming and the journals that had felt far too personal, as though I were reading someone’s thoughts before they had learned how to hide them.
I told her about the letters and the photograph of him as a baby, the one that had made him go completely still, as though something inside him had shifted and had not returned to its original place.
I told her about the rain that never really stopped, the breakfasts that had become routine without either of us agreeing to make them one, and the books he had bought me without asking.
I told her about the ridiculous animal facts he used to throw into conversations just to make me laugh when I had become too quiet.
I told her about the movie arguments that had never really been arguments and the Scrabble game that had felt like a trap, a joke, and something else entirely. And eventually, reluctantly, I told her about the kisses I had not planned for and had not known how to stop thinking about afterwards.
Samyra’s eyebrows had risen higher with every detail. She looked like she was watching a story whose ending she already knew but had not yet decided whether she believed.
“And you stayed there for how long?” she asked finally.
“Nearly a week.”
“Maeve.”
“I know.”
“And you just…left?”
“Yes.”
“Have you tried calling him since then?”
“No.”
She stared at me.
I stared back.
Then she covered her face with both hands.
“Oh my God.”
A laugh slipped out of me, helpless and small. “It sounds worse when you say it like that.”
“It sounds exactly as bad as it is.”
I pulled my knees towards me, suddenly needing something solid to hold onto.
“There was nothing bad about it.”
She lowered her hands and looked at me more seriously.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Her expression softened.
“It sounds like you were happy.”
The word landed differently from everything else she had said. It did not hurt. It simply felt true.
Happy.
I looked down at my hands.
“I was.”
Samyra watched me carefully, as though she were afraid the next question might do more damage than she intended.
“Are you still?”
I did not answer.
I did not have to.
The silence did it for me.
“You shouldn’t have left.”
The words landed harder than I expected. Not because they were new, but because hearing them spoken aloud made them feel suddenly real.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You did.”
I shook my head immediately. “No.”
“You chose to leave.”
My throat tightened.
“Because he didn’t want me to make him a secret.”
She went quiet.
Then she said, very gently, “Well, can you blame him?”
I looked at her sharply.
“He didn’t want you to make him a secret.”
“I know.”
“No,” she said, her voice firm despite its softness. “I don’t think you do.”
My chest tightened. “Samyra…”
“Look at everything he has told you.”
She began counting on her fingers, slow and deliberate.
“His father. His family. The lies. The things people hid from him. His mother leaving. Everything he found out afterwards. He has spent his whole life surrounded by secrets. Especially, when it comes to being a hidden away like a dirty little secret.”
“What does that mean?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“About what?”
“Ishaan?”
I paused. “What are you talking about?”
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Okay. I thought when you opened up his whole history with him, you might’ve found out. But, apparently not.”
“Samyra…”
“Ishaan is Rihaan’s half brother. Their had had an affair with Ishaan’s Mum for basically the entire time he was married to Rihaan’s Mum. But their dad didn’t tell anyone about Ishaan’s existence. And I’m talking, none of them knew about Ishaan being their half brother up until two years ago.”
I paused. “Rihaan said that after we’d met, his family was going through something big that had taken over completely.”
She nodded. “They haven’t—and from what I know—are never going to tell the truth to the world. It’s not what Ishaan wants, or their dad. So when you told him you wanted whatever you did a secret…”
“I know.”
“You basically offered him the one thing he told you he didn’t want.”
My eyes burned before I could stop them.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know you didn’t.” Her voice softened. “But that doesn’t mean he heard anything different.”
My fingers moved restlessly over my thumbnail.
“I don’t know if there’s a way to…fix this. Or even if I want to.”
I looked towards the window. Outside, the sky had turned the same dull grey London seemed to wear so often, as though it had forgotten there were other colours.
“Why not?”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
My voice dropped. “Everything.”
The word seemed to settle between us.
“My dad. My career. Losing the position I have worked my entire life for.”
I swallowed.
“And maybe losing him. I’m scared that if I pick him completely, there might come day I’m not enough. I’d given up everything for that.”
Samyra’s expression softened completely, like she understood the thought far deeper than someone else could.
“So you chose the one thing you could control.”
I looked at her.
“My career.”
“You chose certainty.” She said it quietly, but the words hit cleanly. “You chose the thing you already knew you would have because you had spent your whole life earning it.”
I rubbed my palms together, suddenly aware of how tense my body still was.
“And he was right.”
“About what?”
“That I was finally getting somewhere.”
Her brows pulled together. “What?”
“My relationship with my dad.” I hesitated before continuing. “He had started trusting me. He was giving me more responsibility. I was finally in the position I had worked for all those years.”
“And you didn’t want to lose it.”
“No.”
My voice cracked slightly on the word. “If I left the team or asked for a transfer, I would be throwing all of that away.”
She nodded slowly. “And if you stay?”
I looked down. “There isn’t a way around my rule.”
“So there’s no point.”
The sentence sounded final as soon as I said it. Empty, too, as though I had already decided the outcome and was merely explaining it to myself.
“There isn’t,” I said.
Samyra stared at me for a long moment. I forced a small smile, but it did not reach anything.
“Maeve.”
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Convincing yourself that because something is difficult, it’s impossible.”
I looked away, my chest tightening painfully. “I can’t lose everything again.”
“You wouldn’t be losing everything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” She reached for my hand again.
“That’s different.”
I squeezed her fingers, needing something solid to anchor me, and repeated the words firmer. Like the decision was made. “I don’t want to wake up one day and realise I ruined my career for someone I couldn’t even keep.”
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she spoke carefully.
“And what if you wake up one day and realise you walked away from the person you loved because you were too scared to find out whether you could keep both?”
I stared at her.
The question no longer felt like a question. It felt like something that had already been living inside me, waiting for someone else to say it aloud.
Maybe that had been the problem all along.
I wanted a world where choosing him did not cost me anything, where love could fit neatly around the life I had spent years building. But I had spent my whole life learning that the things that mattered most always came with a price.
I just had not decided yet how much I was willing to pay.