He helped her with a math worksheet. He cooked. He cleaned. He fell asleep on the couch watching the Falcons game and woke up at midnight with a crick in his neck. Normal, good, even.
He did not text Olivia. There was nothing to text her about. They didn't have that kind of relationship. He had dropped off a folder. She had given him coffee.
They had talked. That was the complete contained story of it. On Wednesday night, he was doing inventory on the shop's part supply, a job hub that required spreadsheets and concentration and was about as far from anything emotional as a human being could get. When his phone buzzed, he looked at it. Unknown number.
He almost let it go to voicemail. Then he answered, "Hello." "Hey, a pause. It's Olivia." He felt something move in his chest. He ignored it. "Hey," he said.
"How'd you get my number, Daniel?" Another pause. I hope that's okay. I should have I probably should have asked first. I just She stopped the washer, she said. I tried the 60-second reset.
Marcus waited. It worked. She said, "I did two loads of laundry tonight. I don't know the last time I did laundry in my own house. And it didn't involve a crisis.
A short, quiet laugh. I just I wanted to say thank you. You saved me probably $300. Just needed a reset, he said. Yeah.
She paused. So did I. Honestly. Saturday. I mean, that was It was a good conversation.
Another pause. Smaller. I don't have a lot of those. Marcus was standing in the back of his shop holding a clipboard with inventory numbers he no longer cared about looking at a wall of organized parts that blurred slightly at the edges. "Me either," he said.
The silence that came after that was the particular silence of two people who are both thinking the same thing and both deciding in real time how honest to be about it. "I'm going to be in your neighborhood Thursday," Olivia said finally. There's a patient I follow up with on Whitmore. Would you want to? I don't know.
Lunch maybe if you're free. Marcus thought about Daniel. He thought about his rules. He thought about sitting in his truck at 11:48 at night, staring at the ceiling for 45 minutes and how he hadn't done either of those things in years. I'm free Thursday, he said.