7. Rhodes
— ? —
Rhodes
The plumbing issue is worse than anyone told me.
That’s the first thing I think when I walk into the Denver venue, not about the architecture, which is stunning, or the views, which are exactly what the design team promised.
I think about water pressure and pipe fittings and the fact that someone signed off on this without checking whether the building could actually handle the demand of a full-capacity event.
“It’s fixable,” Rachel says beside me. “The contractor says three days, maybe four.”
“We don’t have three days. The soft launch is in two weeks.”
“Then we’ll push the soft launch.”
“We can’t push the soft launch. We have people flying in from Singapore.”
“Then we’ll fix it faster.”
I turn to look at her. Rachel has the expression she always wears during crises, calm, focused, already running calculations I haven’t thought to make yet. Ten years of working together and I still don’t know how she does it.
“How?” I ask.
“I have some ideas. Let me make some calls.”
She disappears into the hallway, phone already at her ear. I stand in the middle of what will eventually be a ballroom and try not to think about how much money is currently flowing down faulty drains.
The inspection takes six hours. By the end of it, I know more about pipe gauges and water pressure regulations than any reasonable person should, and I’ve made the decision to stay another night.
Calling Maren is harder than it should be.
She picks up on the third ring, and when I tell her I have to stay another night, she just says okay.
That’s it. No disappointment, no frustration, none of the emotional texture I’ve come to expect from these conversations.
The word lands flat, and somehow that’s worse than any fight we’ve ever had.
I push. I ask her to be angry, to yell, to give me something, because at least anger would mean she still cares enough to be upset.
But she’s already past that. I can hear it in the silence, can picture her standing in the shop surrounded by flowers, her face gone carefully neutral the way it does when she’s decided there’s nothing left to fight for.
She tells me she’s tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. Tired of being disappointed, of expecting me and adjusting when I don’t show up, of having the same fight on a loop and never getting anywhere. She says she doesn’t have the energy to be angry anymore. She just has acceptance.
That’s worse, I tell her. And she agrees, which somehow lands harder than if she’d screamed it.
I want to say something that matters. Something that proves I’m different from the version of myself she’s given up on.
But I’m standing in a building with broken pipes, and there’s a contractor waiting for my signature, and Rachel’s waving at me through the glass door with an expression that says urgent.
So I tell her I love her, because it’s true and because I don’t know what else to give her from four states away.
She says it back, tells me to come home when I can, and hangs up before I can respond.
Rachel appears at my elbow. “Problem with the HVAC now. The contractor needs to show you something.”
“Of course there is.” I pocket my phone. “Lead the way.”
The hotel is nice enough, one of the boutique places we partner with when we’re scouting new markets. Room 1408, corner suite, the kind of accommodations that would have seemed absurdly luxurious ten years ago and now just feel like standard operating procedure.
I order room service and eat alone, scrolling through emails while the food goes cold. There’s a message from Julian about the numbers. A request from the PR team for approval on additional gala materials. A reminder about the presentation Rachel’s putting together for the anniversary celebration.
I think about calling Maren again. Tell her about the HVAC crisis, the contractor who tried to blame the previous owner, the way Rachel talked him down with nothing but spreadsheets and a voice that could cut glass. The boring parts, the way I promised.
But it’s late back home, and she’s probably asleep, and I don’t want to wake her just to prove a point.
I’ll tell her tomorrow. I’ll tell her everything tomorrow.
The knock comes at 6:15 a.m.
I’m already awake, barely slept, actually, between the jet lag and the anxiety about today’s emergency meeting with the construction team. I’m still in yesterday’s clothes, the ones I was too tired to change out of before collapsing on the couch for a few hours.
“Coming.”
Rachel’s standing in the hallway with two cups of coffee and a folder thick enough to make my heart sink.
“Please tell me that’s not all urgent.”
“Good morning to you too.” She hands me one of the cups. “The contractor sent over revised estimates at 5 a.m. I need your sign-off before the meeting at seven.”
“And you couldn’t email them?”
“I tried. Your response was ‘ok’ with no punctuation. I took that as a sign you hadn’t actually read them.”
She’s right. I barely remember responding.
“Come in.” I step back to let her through. “Show me what we’re dealing with.”
We work at the table by the window, coffee cooling between us while Rachel walks me through the numbers.
Revised timeline, increased costs, risk assessments for each of the three possible solutions.
She’s already color-coded everything, because Rachel color-codes everything, and I find myself absurdly grateful for her efficiency.
“Option two is the safest,” she says, “but option three gets us back on schedule with minimal delay to the soft launch.”
“And maximum risk.”
“Calculated risk. The contractor’s done this before.”
“The contractor also signed off on the original plumbing specs that are currently flooding our basement.”
“Fair point.” She makes a note. “We could split the difference. Start with option two, have option three ready as a backup.”
“That’s more expensive.”
“But less likely to blow up in our faces at the worst possible moment.”
I sign the papers. All of them. Rachel organizes them into her folder with the same precision she brings to everything else.
“The team’s waiting downstairs,” she says, checking her phone. “We should head down.”
“Give me five minutes to change.”
“You have three. And Rhodes?” She pauses at the door. “Try to look like someone who slept last night. Everyone gets nervous when you look worried.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
She leaves. I spend three minutes putting on a clean shirt and convincing my reflection that everything is fine.
The meeting goes better than expected. The contractors are apologetic, the timeline is manageable, and by noon we’ve agreed on a solution that won’t bankrupt us or delay the opening more than a week.
Rachel handles most of the talking. That’s how we’ve always worked, I do the vision, she does the execution, and somehow it comes together into something neither of us could have built alone.
“Good work today,” I tell her when we’re done. “I mean it.”
“I know.” She’s already checking her phone for the next crisis. “Your flight’s in four hours. I’ll handle the follow-up.”
“You’re staying?”
“Someone has to make sure they actually fix the pipes instead of just promising to fix them.”
“I can stay-”
“Go home, Rhodes. Your wife is waiting.”
The words hit differently than she probably intends. Maren’s waiting. Maren’s always waiting.
“I’ll call her from the airport,” I say.
Rachel nods, already moving on. “Safe flight.”
I head back to the room to grab my bag. The contracts are still on the table, Rachel’s coffee cup beside them. Room service left the breakfast dishes I forgot to put outside the door.
Normal work trip things. Completely unremarkable.
I don’t think about any of it twice.
The flight is delayed two hours. Then three. By the time I land back home, it’s almost midnight and Maren will definitely be asleep.
I text instead of calling: Landed. Coming home. I love you.
No response. Either she’s asleep or she’s done responding to late-night messages. I can’t tell which is worse.
The house is dark when I get there. I let myself in quietly, leave my bag by the door, and climb the stairs with the bone-deep exhaustion of someone who’s been running on adrenaline for two days straight.
Maren’s asleep. Curled on her side of the bed, facing away from me, breathing steady and slow. The champagne bottle with the ranunculus is still on her nightstand, catching what little light comes through the curtains.
I shower, change, slide into bed beside her. She stirs slightly when I pull her close, murmurs something I can’t quite catch.
“I’m home,” I whisper.
“Mmm.”
“I’m sorry it took so long.”
She doesn’t respond. Already back asleep, or maybe just done having this conversation.
I lie awake for a while, listening to her breathe. Thinking about pipe fittings and contractor estimates and the way Rachel handled everything while I signed papers and looked worried.
Tomorrow I’ll tell Maren about the trip. All the boring parts, all the stupid details, the way I promised. Tomorrow we’ll have the dinner I keep rescheduling. Tomorrow will be different.
I fall asleep believing it.
My phone wakes me at 7 a.m. Not an alarm, a call. Julian, which is unusual enough to make my stomach drop.
“What happened?”
“Have you been online?”
“I just woke up.” I’m already reaching for my laptop, already dreading whatever made Julian call before his second cup of coffee. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a photo. It went up about an hour ago. Some gossip site got ahold of it.”
“A photo of what?”
Julian is quiet for too long.
“Rachel,” he says finally. “Coming out of your hotel room. Yesterday morning.”
I stop breathing.
“It’s already spreading. The caption makes it look… well. You can imagine what the caption makes it look like.”
I pull up the site. The image loads in pieces, the hallway, the early morning light, Rachel stepping through the door of room 1408 while I’m presumably inside.