21. Theo
THEO
I stood behind the counter and checked the clock for the fifth time in ten minutes.
The diner was finished. Every piece of it.
The deep green leather of the booths gleamed under the overhead lights, reflecting the shine I'd polished into them over three separate evenings when I couldn't get the colour exactly right.
The chrome stools bolted to the floor caught the reflection of the blond wood counter I'd sealed and polished myself.
The floor tiles were clean, the grout scrubbed white.
I'd painted the lower half of the walls that warm cream colour Lena used to talk about, left the old plaster visible above it.
The kitchen behind me had new stainless steel, a newly installed stove, shelving I'd put in with my own hands.
And on the wall, where anyone walking in would see it first, the menu hung in its frame.
Her handwriting. Younger, rounder, the capitals underlined twice, the little fork and knife sketched in the corner.
The crease down the middle, the faint coffee stain.
I'd carried it for months, kept it in my pocket next to the ring, pulled it out on nights I couldn't sleep and traced the letters she'd written when we still planned things together. When we were still a we.
Now it was here. The first thing she'd see.
If she came.
Marcus had told her. Told her about the diner, about what I'd been doing, about Bianca being finished. He'd said she listened, said she didn't walk away.
But he hadn't said she'd come.
I wiped my palms on my jeans and checked the clock again. Adjusted one of the stools. Straightened a napkin holder.
The door opened.
Lena stepped inside and stopped just past the threshold. Her gaze swept the room, taking in the booths, the counter, the walls. Then her eyes found the framed menu and she went very still.
I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. I stood there and watched her cross to the wall, watched her lift one hand and press her fingers to the glass over her own handwriting.
"You kept it," she said.
"I kept everything." My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. "Everything that mattered."
She turned to face me. Her hand dropped to her side and I saw the bare finger where her ring used to sit.
"Theo—"
"I love you."
The words came out before I could think them through. They just came.
"I love you, Lena. I've loved you since the day you seated a line cook with grease on his shirt and didn't look at him like he didn't belong.
I loved you when we sat in this place over soggy fries and came up with a dream I was stupid enough to think mattered more than sitting across from you.
And I love you now, standing here in the middle of what I should've been doing all along—paying attention to what you needed instead of what I wanted to build. "
She opened her mouth but I kept going because if I stopped I'd lose my nerve.
"I'm sorry." I stepped out from behind the counter, kept my hands at my sides even though I wanted to reach for her.
"I'm sorry for every night you ate alone while I was in some kitchen halfway across the city.
I'm sorry for every time I walked past you with my phone in my hand and my mind already at the next restaurant, the next city, the next thing that wasn't you.
I'm sorry I let someone cut at you in your own home and I just stood there like I didn't even notice. "
Her eyes were bright. A tear slipped down her cheek but she didn't wipe it away.
"I'm sorry I didn't see it," I said. "I'm sorry it took losing you to figure out I'd already lost you years ago, one dinner at a time, one moment at a time when I chose the work over you and told myself it was temporary.
It wasn't temporary. It was who I'd become.
And I'm sorry for that, Lena. I'm sorry for all of it. "
"Theo." Her voice broke on my name.
"Words aren't enough." I took another step toward her, stopped when I was close enough to see her hands shaking.
"I know that. I know I can't just say I'm sorry and have it fix twelve years of neglect.
So I'm telling you now—I'll keep doing the work.
Every day. Not the restaurants, not the show.
The work. The work of being the man you deserved all along. The work of showing up and staying."
She stared at me. The silence stretched out between us.
"What do you need from me?" I asked. "Tell me what you need and I'll do it."
Lena drew in a breath. Let it out slowly. When she spoke her voice was steady and clear.
"I need you to sit down and eat with me.
" She held my gaze. "Not taste something standing up in the kitchen.
Actually sit down at the table and stay there for a whole meal without jumping up to check on something or take a phone call or leave for the next meeting.
I need you to be there, Theo. Present. With me. "
I nodded. "Okay."
"I need you to tell me things first," she said.
"Before Marcus, before your producers, before anyone else in your world.
When something happens—something good or bad or something you're excited about or worried about—I need to be the person you come to.
Not the person who hears about it later because someone else already knows. "
"You will be," I said. "I promise."
"I need you to defend me." Her chin lifted and I saw the steel in her that I'd fallen in love with, the steel I'd spent twelve years ignoring.
"When someone cuts at me, when someone treats me like I'm in the way or like I don't matter, I need you to see it and do something about it.
I need you to stand with me, Theo. Not just stand there. "
"I will." The words came out fierce. "I swear to God, Lena, I will."
"And I need your work to not come before me when I actually ask for you." She held my gaze. "Not when I need you to be present. I know the work matters, I know it's part of who you are. But when I ask you to stay, when I need you there, I need you to choose me. Every time."
I didn't hesitate. "I will. All of it. Everything you just said—I'll do it. No excuses, no negotiations. You tell me what you need and I'll be there."
She searched my face like she was looking for the catch, the place where I'd backtrack or justify.
There wasn't one.
"Okay," she said softly.
I held out my hand. Just held it there between us, the same hand she'd pulled away from in her sister's kitchen, the same hand that had closed on empty air while I stood there and felt something break.
Lena looked down at my hand. Then she reached out and took it.
Her fingers laced through mine and I felt the warmth of her palm, and I wanted to pull her close, wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go.
But I didn't. I held her hand and let her decide what came next.
She stepped closer. Close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her eyes, close enough that I could smell the faint scent of her shampoo. She tilted her face up and I leaned down and kissed her.
It wasn't desperate. It wasn't frantic. It was soft and slow, and it tasted like coming home after years of being lost.
When we pulled apart she was smiling. Actually smiling.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you too." I said it quietly, just for her. "I love you, Lena."
I let go of her hand long enough to reach into my pocket and pull out the ring.
Plain gold, smooth all the way around, the engraving on the inside that said Always.
The ring she'd worn for twelve years, the ring she'd taken off and left on the table at Adriatico, the ring I'd found and carried every day since.
I held it out to her.
"Marry me," I said. "Again. Marry me and let me spend the rest of my life proving I meant every word I just said. Let me be the husband I should've been from the start."
She looked at the ring in my palm. Looked at me. Then she reached out and took it from my hand and slid it onto her finger herself.
"Yes," she said.
I kissed her again. Longer this time, deeper, my hand cupping the side of her face while she leaned into me and I felt the ring press against my jaw where her hand came up to rest against my cheek.
When we finally broke apart I was breathing hard and so was she.
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
She blinked. Laughed a little. "What?"
"Are you hungry?" I nodded toward the kitchen. "I've got everything ready."
"You're going to cook for me? Here?"
"That was the plan." I took her hand again, tugged her toward one of the booths. "Sit. Let me do this."
She slid into the booth and I went into the kitchen and started cooking. Not plating something someone else had prepared. Actually cooking, my hands on the ingredients, my attention on the work in front of me.
I made the burger the way I used to make it when we came here after shifts, back when I still sat across from her and we talked about everything and nothing. Smashed thin on the griddle, the edges crispy and dark, cheese melted over the top.
I made the fries. Let them get just crispy enough on the outside, soft on the inside.
When it was ready I brought it out on two plates, set one in front of her and one across from her, and slid into the booth.
I sat down.
Lena stared at me.
"What?" I asked.
"You're sitting."
"Yeah." I picked up a fry, bit into it. "I'm sitting."
Her eyes went bright again but this time she was smiling through it. "You're actually sitting down to eat."
"I am." I reached across the table and took her hand, the one with the ring back on it. "And I'm staying. The whole meal. No phone calls, no emergencies, no running off. Just you and me and a basket of fries."
She laughed. It was the sound I'd been chasing for months without realizing it. She laughed and squeezed my hand and picked up her own fry, and we sat there together in the diner I'd rebuilt for her.
And I didn't get up.
Not when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Not when I thought of something I should check on. Not when the instinct kicked in to move, to do, to go somewhere else.
I stayed.
I sat across from her and ate my meal and listened to her talk about her day at the restaurant, about Maggie's latest attempt at a new dessert that had involved far too much cream. About the supplier who kept showing up twenty minutes late.
I asked questions. I listened to the answers. I ate my fries and let some of them go cold because I was paying attention to her instead of the food.
She told me about the new hire who kept forgetting to label the prep containers. About the customer who'd left a fifty-dollar tip on a twenty-dollar check. About the regular who always ordered decaf but never said so until after she'd poured the regular.
Small things. Ordinary things. The kind of things I'd missed a thousand times because I was already thinking about the next kitchen, the next city.
I picked up my burger. Took another bite. It had gone lukewarm but I kept eating. She reached across and stole a fry from my side of the basket, mid-sentence about the supplier.
My phone buzzed again. I left it in my pocket.
The urge came—to get up, to check something, to move—and I let it pass. I kept my attention on her face, on her hands when she explained something, on her voice.
The basket between us gradually emptied. The paper lining showed through.
I stayed until both our plates were empty and the fries were gone and the burger was just a smear of ketchup on the paper lining the basket.
"This is it, isn't it?" she said quietly. "This is what I was trying to tell you. This is what I missed."
"Yeah," I said.
She laughed, and I laughed with her and reached for her hand, and I felt something settle in me that hadn't been settled in years.
"I meant it," I said. "Everything I promised you. I'm going to keep showing up, Lena. Every night. Every meal. I'm going to sit down and I'm going to stay."
"I know," she said.
And the way she said it—steady, certain, like she actually believed me—I thought maybe this time I could be the man she deserved.
This time I wouldn't mess it up.