2. Mara
MARA
I've been in love with my dead husband's best friend for longer than I was married. If that doesn't make me a terrible person, I don't know what does.
Pope came to the restaurant last night.
Pope. After two years of avoiding me like I carried some kind of plague, he just...
showed up. Walked through my door like it was nothing.
Like he hadn't left me to grieve alone. Like he hadn't been a ghost at my husband's funeral, unable to even meet my eyes when they lowered Marco into the ground.
I dice the garlic too hard, the knife thudding against the cutting board with more force than necessary. Gina glances over from where she's folding napkins, but she's smart enough not to comment.
Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days of waking up alone in a bed that still smells faintly like Marco's cologne because I can't bring myself to wash the pillowcases.
Seven hundred and thirty days of running this restaurant into the ground because I don't know how to do anything else.
Seven hundred and thirty days of waiting for someone—anyone—to show up and tell me it's okay to stop pretending I have this under control.
And when someone finally does, it's him.
The one person I needed most. The one person I couldn't have.
I scrape the garlic into the pan and watch it sizzle, the sharp scent filling the kitchen. My eyes sting, but that's the onions. It's always the onions.
The worst part isn't that Pope stayed away.
The worst part is that underneath all the anger, all the hurt, all the abandonment—I was relieved to see him.
My heart actually leaped when I looked across the street and saw him sitting on that bike like some kind of dark angel, watching me with those eyes that see too much.
I'm a widow. I should be mourning my husband.
Instead, I'm thinking about the way Pope said my name. Like it cost him something. Like it meant something.
God, I'm a terrible person.
The memory surfaces before I can stop it—the one I've buried so deep I almost convinced myself it never happened.
Three years ago. A party at the clubhouse, back when Marco was still alive and I was still pretending my marriage was everything I'd dreamed it would be. The room was packed, loud with music and laughter and the rumble of men who'd seen too much trying to forget for one night.
Marco had wandered off to talk to Diesel about something—club business, probably, the kind of thing he never shared with me. I was standing alone near the bar, nursing a drink I didn't want, feeling like an outsider in my own husband's world.
Then Pope appeared beside me.
"You need rescuing?" His voice was low, meant only for me.
"From what?"
"Hammer's about to start telling war stories. Trust me, you don't want to be within earshot."
I laughed—a real laugh, the kind I didn't give Marco anymore—and Pope's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. He put his hand on my lower back to guide me through the crowd, and I—
I felt more from that single touch than I had from months of Marco's affection.
His palm was warm through my dress. His fingers splayed across my spine like he was claiming something. And when we reached the other side of the room and he dropped his hand, I felt the loss of it like a physical ache.
I didn't look at him for the rest of the night. Couldn't. Because if I did, he might see the truth written all over my face.
Marco was safe. Marco was kind. Marco was the steady warmth of a fireplace on a cold night.
But Pope was the fire itself. And I was terrified of getting burned.
The afternoon crawls by. I send Gina home early—no point paying her to stand around when we both know tonight will be dead—and start setting up for the memorial myself.
Tomorrow, this place will be full of people who loved Marco, sharing stories and raising glasses and pretending that grief has an expiration date.
I'm draping a black tablecloth over the main table when the front door opens.
"We're closed for—"
The words die in my throat.
Pope stands in the doorway, afternoon light silhouetting his broad shoulders. He's wearing the same leather cut as always, the President patch catching the light. But something's different today. The hard lines of his face look softer. Uncertain.
"Came to help," he says. "With the setup."
I stare at him. "You came to help."
"If you'll let me."
A thousand responses crowd my tongue. Where was this help six months ago? A year ago? Two years ago when I was drowning and you couldn't be bothered to throw me a rope?
But I'm tired. So goddamn tired of being angry, of being alone, of carrying everything by myself.
"Fine," I hear myself say. "Tablecloths are in the back."
We work in silence for the first hour.
It should be awkward—two people with this much history, this much unspoken tension, moving around each other in a space that suddenly feels too small.
But Pope has always been comfortable with silence.
He doesn't fill the air with meaningless chatter the way Marco used to.
He just... exists. Solid and steady and impossible to ignore.
I try anyway.
I focus on the task at hand: arranging photos of Marco on the memorial table, positioning candles, making sure everything is perfect for tomorrow.
But I keep catching myself watching Pope out of the corner of my eye.
The way his hands dwarf the wine glasses he's polishing.
The silver threading through his dark hair that wasn't there two years ago.
The controlled way he moves, like he's always holding himself back from something.
"Ladder," he says, and I blink.
"What?"
He nods toward the corner where I've been trying to hang a banner for the past ten minutes, stretching on my tiptoes and failing miserably. "You need the ladder. I'll hold it steady."
"I'm fine."
"Mara."
The way he says my name—patient, exasperated, like I'm being deliberately difficult—makes something flutter in my chest. I hate it.
"Fine," I mutter, and go get the ladder.
He positions it beneath the banner, one hand braced against the frame while I climb. The rungs creak under my weight, and I'm suddenly very aware of how close he is. If I fell, he'd catch me. I know that with absolute certainty, the same way I know the sun will rise tomorrow.
I reach up to hook the banner into place, stretching further than I should, and the ladder wobbles.
Pope's hand clamps around my hip.
"Careful." His voice is rough.
I freeze. His fingers are warm through my jeans, steadying me with an easy strength that makes my pulse stutter. I can feel the heat of his body behind me, close enough that if I leaned back, I'd be pressed against his chest.
I don't lean back. But I want to. God help me, I want to.
"Got it," I manage, and practically throw myself off the ladder.
He lets me go immediately, stepping back like he's been burned. The distance between us feels both necessary and unbearable.
"I should finish the kitchen prep," I say, not looking at him.
"I'll handle the rest out here."
We retreat to opposite sides of the restaurant like fighters going to their corners. But the ghost of his touch lingers on my hip for the rest of the afternoon.
By the time we finish, the sun has set and the restaurant is empty except for the two of us. The memorial setup looks beautiful—Marco would have loved it, all warm candlelight and photos of him grinning at the camera, surrounded by the people who mattered most.
I should feel proud. Instead, I just feel hollow.
Pope finds me behind the bar, pouring myself a glass of wine I probably shouldn't have. He doesn't say anything, just settles onto the stool across from me, his presence filling up the space.
"Why did you really come today?" I ask.
"Told you. To help."
"Bullshit." The word comes out sharper than I intended. "You've spent two years avoiding me. You had Hammer and Diesel check in, but you? Never. So why now? Why today?"
He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is low. "Made a promise to Marco."
"It's been two years. You've kept your distance for two years." I lean forward, searching his face for something—anything—that explains the man in front of me. "What changed?"
"You're leaving."
The words land like stones.
"So that's it? I announce I'm selling the restaurant and suddenly you show up?" I laugh, but it sounds bitter even to my own ears. "Unbelievable. Two years of nothing, and the thing that finally breaks through is me leaving."
"Mara—"
"No." I set down my wine glass hard enough that it sloshes over the rim. "You don't get to 'Mara' me. You don't get to show up now and act like you care when you couldn't be bothered to—"
"I couldn't be near you!"
The confession cracks through the air like thunder. Pope's jaw is tight, his hands clenched on the bar, and for the first time since I've known him, he looks... undone.
"What?"
"I couldn't be near you," he repeats, quieter this time. "After Marco—every time I looked at you, all I saw was him. Dying. Bleeding out while I—" He stops, shakes his head. "I stayed away because I couldn't handle it. Not because I didn't care."
The anger drains out of me, leaving something raw and aching in its place. "Pope..."
"You want to know why I'm here now?" He meets my eyes, and the intensity in his gaze pins me in place. "Because you said you're leaving. And I realized that staying away didn't protect either of us. It just meant I'd lose you without ever—"
He stops. Looks away.
"Without ever what?"
Silence. The kind that says more than words ever could.
I should let it go. Should accept the half-truth and move on, pretend I don't feel the electricity crackling between us, don't notice the way his eyes keep dropping to my mouth.
But I'm tired of pretending.
"If you're going to watch me leave," I say quietly, "at least give me something real to take with me."
His head snaps back toward me. "Mara—"
"I mean it." I move around the bar, closing the distance between us until I'm standing right in front of him, close enough to touch. "I've spent two years wondering what I did wrong. Why you couldn't stand to look at me. If there was something—"
"There was nothing wrong with you." His voice is raw. "There's never been anything wrong with you."
"Then why—"
He kisses me.
Or maybe I kiss him. Maybe we meet somewhere in the middle, two people who've been circling this moment for longer than either of us wants to admit. All I know is that one second we're talking, and the next his mouth is on mine, and everything else disappears.
It's not gentle. It's not sweet. It's two years of tension igniting all at once, his hands fisting in my hair, my back hitting the bar as he crowds into me.
He kisses me like he's starving, like I'm the only thing that can save him, and I kiss him back just as desperately because I've wanted this—him—for so long that I'd convinced myself I'd imagined the wanting.
I didn't imagine it. This is real. His hands on my hips, his tongue sliding against mine, the groan that rumbles through his chest when I arch into him. Real and overwhelming and everything I shouldn't want but do.
Then he tears himself away.
"This was a mistake." He's breathing hard, his lips swollen, his eyes wild. "I can't—Mara, I'm sorry."
Before I can respond, he's gone. The door swings shut behind him, and I'm left standing alone in my dead husband's restaurant, lips still tingling, heart still racing, more confused than I've ever been in my life.
He kissed me like I was air and he was drowning.
Then he walked away like I was the thing killing him.
And I still don't know which one of us is more broken.