She looked down at the coffee cup. When she looked up again, her eyes were brighter than they should have been. the kind of bright that means someone is working hard to hold something back. Okay, she said. Okay, he said and that was all. But it was a great deal.
It was Devaroo who brought it up first, which Marcus should have anticipated because Devaroo had a gift for timing that bordered on the supernatural. They were running diagnostics on a signal relay at the South Station Switching yard on a Wednesday afternoon. The kind of methodical work that left too much room for the mind to wander when Devo said without looking up from his panel. You know what I've been thinking about? I never know what you're thinking about.
Marcus said, I've been thinking about how a man can look at something he needs, clearly see that it's good, clearly see that it's available, and still find 12 reasons not to reach for it. Deo turned a dial. Interesting psychological phenomenon, Dev. I'm speaking generally. You're not speaking generally.
The woman, Dearu said, abandoning the pretense. Emily, when are you going to stop acting like what's happening between you two is just a commuter friendship? Marcus focused on his own panel. It's complicated. What's complicated?
Everything. He exhaled through his nose. She's going through something serious with her father. I'm not trying to to what? Be there for her. to make something about me when she has enough to deal with.
Devou put down his tool and turned to face Marcus fully, which was his signal that what was coming next was not going to be gentle. Marcus, listen to me. I have known you for 9 years. I was at Renee's funeral. I watched you hold Amara with one hand and shake hands with every person at that reception with the other.
And I watched you not cry until you thought everyone had gone and I was still in the parking lot. He paused. You have been alone for three years, not because you had to be, because you decided that needing someone was a kind of weakness. Because you decided that the work of being a father was all the self you were allowed. Marcus' jaw tightened.
That's not strength, Dro said. That's just fear with a better name. The word sat in the air between them. Marcus turned it over. He wanted to reject it.
He assembled several arguments against it. He looked at each one carefully and found that it was weaker than the one before. And by the time he'd gotten to the last one, the last one had nothing left in it at all. She lost her mother when she was 16. Dear said more quietly now.
Did you know that? Marcus looked up. How do you know that? Because I talked to Ranata in HR who knows Emily who mentioned it once. He shrugged.