He said. She said. Then she said, "Do you want me to come over?" He considered it. It's late. He said, "It's 8:45." She said.
He almost said no. He almost said it was fine. He was fine. He just needed to sleep. He almost did the thing he had always done, which was to accept the help.
Less than he needed it in order not to feel like a burden. Instead, he said, "Yeah, come over." She was there in 25 minutes. Maya was already in bed. Olivia came in quietly, took off her shoes at the door without being asked, and sat on the couch next to Marcus with a cup of tea she'd made herself without asking if he minded. She knew where the kettle was.
She knew which cabinet had the mugs. She'd been here enough times now that she had her own spatial logic in his apartment. And seeing her move through his space like she belonged. There did something to Marcus that he decided he was not going to analyze right now. They sat on the couch.
They didn't talk about Sandra, not directly. They watched half of something on television that neither of them was actually watching. At some point, Olivia leaned her head back against the cushion and turned to look at him and said, "What are you thinking?" that this is what I want," Marcus said. "This exact thing, this couch, this quiet, this," he looked at her. She held his gaze.
"Then you have it," she said. He reached over and took her hand. She let him. They sat there in the quiet of his apartment, his daughter asleep 20 ft away, the city moving outside the windows, and Marcus Williams held Olivia Coleman's hand, and felt for the first time in a very long time that the weight he was carrying had somewhere to go. That was the night he knew.
Not suspected, not hoped. Knew the complications though were not finished arriving. 2 Days after Sandra's visit, Daniel called Marcus on a Sunday afternoon and the first thing he said was, "I need you to be honest with me about something." Marcus's internal alarm went still not loud, not panicked, just present always. He said, "Olivia called me last night." Daniel said, "We talked for a while. She sounded different." Good.
Different, but different. A pause. She told me she's in love with you. Marcus did not move. He was standing in his kitchen and he did not move.
She told me she hasn't said it to you yet, Daniel continued. And she probably would kill me for telling you, "But I needed to. I needed to have this conversation with you, man. Because I've been thinking about what you told me in the diner, and I need to know where your head is, where this is actually going." Marcus set his hand flat on the kitchen counter. She said that he said not a question.
She said that Daniel confirmed the kitchen was very quiet. Where my head is, Marcus said slowly. Is that I have not felt about anyone what I feel about Olivia since Renee. And I'm not comparing. They're two completely different things.