The long beat of silence had me sweating.
“Then maybe it’s the place for you.”
I opened my eyes and stared at Marcus. “What?”
He shook his head. “I know I’m not exactly practicing what I preach on this front, Max, but honestly, family should always come first. I don’t know what I’d do without Clara and the boys. I’m a shitty husband and father sometimes thanks to this job, but I try to be there for them when they need me.”
He gestured around. “Am I proud of what I’ve built here? Hell yes, I am. I’m proud of what you’ve done here, too, and I think you could do a lot more. But I’ll be proud of you whether you stay or go, Max, because I know that wherever you are, you’ll always do good work. Being happy, though? That’s not a given in life for anyone, but you deserve to be happy.”
It meant more than I could say for Marcus—more of a father figure to me now than my own father ever could be—to tell me he had that kind of faith in me. Not just in my work, but in my decisions. It made the next part a little easier. “Then I think I need to go.”
Not just for Dominic, as hugely as he factored into my decision. I needed to go back to Edgewood for Hal and the girls, too. But mostly for Dominic.
What if I just made him uncomfortable, though? What if my coming back was a huge imposition? Moving to Edgewood felt like the right thing to do, in my heart at least, but I didn’t want to make the wrong call again, to screw things up without meaning to.
I needed to talk to Dominic, and I had to do it face to face. Over the phone wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t plead my case well enough like that, not when the result was something that could change the entire arc of my life.
“Tell you what,” Marcus said, getting up from the chair. “Why don’t you take an actual vacation for a week and go get your questions answered? I’ll hold off the other partners until you make a final decision.”
That was more generous than I’d ever hoped for. I rushed to my feet. “Are you sure?”
“It beats watching you have some kind of nervous breakdown before the age of thirty.”
That was more like the mentor I knew.
“I have to…”
I had to get back to my apartment, I had to pack, and I had to get on the road. If I hurried, I could make it back to Edgewood before midnight, and then…
“You’ve got to go.” Marcus jerked his thumb in the direction of the door. “So get out of here already.”
I went.
Chapter Fourteen
Dominic
A full week had gone by since Max left, but it felt like ten times that. I walked around like a zombie, able to play at being a real person, but not quite animated enough to pull it off. I was grateful things were quiet on the job front, or I would’ve been fired for inattention or some sort of reckless endangerment. I got all of nothing done at my house—I should have finished the drywall; it was the last thing I needed to do in the living room before I could put baseboards up and start texturizing and painting—but I couldn’t even look at my tools without remembering Max. Everything seemed impossible—too big, too hard, too hopeless.
I was 100 percent moping.
Hopefully, Hal wasn’t aware of it—he’d gone back to work after Christmas Day with a vengeance, and I spent every spare second I had looking after the girls, who were still on their holiday break. They’d spent most of this past week with Phee, who helped them teach Baby enough basic tricks that the girls were convinced she was a genius dog. I couldn’t say they were wrong, either. With them, she was barky and jumpy and cheerful, but with me, when we had a few moments alone, she settled in against my side on the couch or at my feet and set her head on my knee. It was almost like being back overseas, in the quiet moments in the evening when we were all in the tents together and the dogs, freed from their work personas, flopped down on the nearest person and begged for pets. Those nights were some of my happiest memories—some of my only happy memories—from my time in the army.
If I couldn’t have Max—and I knew I couldn’t—then a compassionate dog was obviously the next best thing.
The hardest place to be was patrolling with Lauren. Her eagle eyes and perceptive mind didn’t miss a thing. It was part of what made her such a good cop and an undaunted mom. She could see an SUV run a red light or a kid sneak a candy bar before dinner from a mile off, and there was no way to hide from her when we were separated by nothing but a gear shift for hours on end.
The sidelong glances were bad enough, and by New Year’s Eve, she finally put her foot down and brought up the topic of my mood. “You’re pining.”
“I’m fine,” I said, even when my shoulders were practically up to my ears out of defensiveness.
“You’re pining. You’ve been out of sorts all week, Nicky. What’s going on?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lauren eyed me speculatively. “Maybe you need to talk about it. I promise not to push if you don’t want me to, but you’re my partner, and I hate seeing you look so sad. We could go to Dinah’s to chat, if that’s easier. I’ll get you some pie.”
“Oh, no. No way.” If Dinah caught wind of what was going on with me, then everyone in the entire diner would know in a matter of minutes. That meant everyone in the town would know within a few days.
Lauren twisted in her seat. “How about this? I go in and get some pie, we eat it in the car, and you can tell me what’s up in the privacy of your own Jeep.”
I half smiled at her. “Sounds like you just want some pie.”
“Are you kidding? Of course I want pie. You think I can keep that kind of thing around the house for more than a day? Work pie is the only kind of pie I don’t have to give away.”
I considered stonewalling her, but…what good would it do? At least this way, I got some pie, too. “Okay.”
I drove to Dinah’s, careful on the road. It was almost eleven at night, a time when the diner was usually closed. Dinah was hosting the town’s New Year’s party, though, which meant it would be full of parents with babysitters out enjoying their evening, single people who didn’t think a full Netflix queue was a good enough reason to stay at home, and civil servants who had to be there.
I parked at the far end of the parking lot and turned off the headlights. Lauren sighed. “Really?”
“It’s not even snowing,” I pointed out. “And I don’t want to be convenient in case someone decides to come out and ask me how I am.”
“Yeah, God forbid you interact with someone else in a positive way on New Year’s Eve.” She got out of the Jeep and headed for the diner. I watched her go then stared down at my hands. I didn’t glance at my phone. There was no point. Hal and the girls were undoubtedly in bed now—he’d sent me a picture of them having an “early toast” with glasses of sparkling cider three hours ago—and the one person I was dying to hear from was probably living it up in Times Square.