The money's coming, Marcus said. On the right terms. I'm not worried about the money. She was quiet in a way that had warmth in it. You know they're going to run a proper process and offer it to you anyway.
Yeah. And I'm going to be ready to respond to that offer on its actual merits. He paused. Which is different. You're a very specific kind of stubborn, she said.
Yes, he agreed. A pause, not uncomf- -fortable. The kind of pause between two people where neither of them needs to fill it, but something is being said in it anyway. Then Claire said, "Marcus, I want to ask you something. And I want you to answer me the way you always do, honestly.
Even if the honest answer is complicated." "All right," he said. "What do you want?" she asked. "Not from the company.
From this, from whatever this is that's been happening between us for the past few months. What do you actually want?" Marcus sat with that. He'd known it was coming. He'd been thinking about his own answer for weeks.
And still, hearing it out loud, in her voice, in the quiet of his kitchen at 8:47 at night. It had weight that the thinking hadn't fully prepared him for. "I want to do this right," he said finally. "Whatever this is. I don't want it to be something that happened because of circumstances, because we were in the right place at the right time, or because things got complicated and that made them feel significant.
I want to know it's real because we chose it with clear eyes. Not because it's convenient or complicated, or because there's some story it fits." "That's not a simple answer," she said. "No," he agreed, "it's not. But it's the honest one."
A pause. "Then what would choosing it look like with clear eyes?" "It would look like this," he said. "Like talking on the phone after Amara's asleep. Like being honest about what we don't know yet.
Like not un-shing anything because neither of us has anything to prove." He paused. "And it would look like me meeting you somewhere that isn't your car or your apartment or your office building. On level ground." Silence on the line.