Chapter 7 - No More Locked Doors
Six months later, Mave sat across from another plate of pasta.
This time, it was hot.
Silas entered the apartment carrying wine.
He checked his watch.
“Six fifty-eight.”
Mave looked at the clock.
“You’re bragging about arriving two minutes early?”
“I have a complicated history with dinner deadlines.”
“Fair.”
He kissed her cheek.
Not because he assumed.
Because months earlier, after they had slowly started over, Mave had told him he could.
Their second relationship was different from their first.
There were no private entrances.
No pretending to be strangers.
No unexplained disappearances.
And no locked rooms in Silas’s life that Mave was expected to ignore.
His phone buzzed.
Mave looked at it.
Silas turned the screen toward her automatically.
VIVIEN: Divorce celebration anniversary next week. Drinks?
Mave laughed.
“Your ex-wife wants us to celebrate your divorce.”
“She has a strange sense of humor.”
“I like her.”
“I’m aware.”
“More than you sometimes.”
“I’m also aware.”
Mave poured the wine.
Silas placed a small box beside her plate.
She immediately narrowed her eyes.
“No.”
“You haven’t opened it.”
“Boxes from you have historically complicated my life.”
“It isn’t a ring.”
“Good.”
Silas paused.
“That sounded unnecessarily enthusiastic.”
“Open communication.”
He sighed.
“Apparently I created this monster.”
“You absolutely did.”
Mave opened the box.
Inside was a silver pepper grinder.
She stared at it.
Then at him.
Silas maintained a completely serious expression.
“The old one disappeared.”
“I threw it away.”
“I know.”
“You deserved it.”
“I know.”
She picked up the grinder.
Engraved along the side were four words:
TOO MUCH PEPPER ANYWAY.
Mave burst out laughing.
Silas watched her.
“What?”
“That was the last thing I said about your dinner that night.”
“I know.”
Her laughter faded.
“You remember?”
“I remember everything about that night.”
“So do I.”
Silence settled between them.
Not uncomfortable.
Just honest.
Silas reached across the table, then stopped before touching her hand.
Even now.
Even after six months.
Mave noticed.
She turned her palm upward.
Silas took it.
“I nearly lost you because I thought loving someone meant protecting them from every truth that might hurt them,” he said.
Mave squeezed his fingers.
“You nearly lost me because you were an idiot.”
“That too.”
“And technically an adulterous idiot.”
Silas frowned.
“Can we retire that phrase?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“Absolutely not.”
He sighed.
Mave smiled.
Then the television behind them switched to the evening news.
Silas glanced toward it.
Mave did too.
Six months earlier, that screen had destroyed the life she thought she had.
Tonight, a business report mentioned Vivien Creel expanding Creel Shipping under her own leadership. No Carbone name followed hers.
Mave smiled.
“Good for her.”
Silas nodded.
“She earned it.”
The report changed.
Mave reached for the remote and turned the television off.
Silas raised an eyebrow.
“No breaking news?”
“I already know who you’re having dinner with.”
His expression softened.
Mave stood and walked toward the balcony.
Manhattan glittered below them.
Silas joined her but kept enough distance that she could close it herself.
She did.
“You know what the strangest part is?” Mave asked.
“What?”
“The night I found out about Vivien, I thought the marriage was the biggest lie.”
Silas waited.
“It wasn’t.”
“What was?”
“The biggest lie was you thinking you had to control everything before anyone could love you.”
Silas looked across the city.
“My father taught me control kept people alive.”
“And what did you learn?”
He looked at her.
“That sometimes it only keeps them far away.”
Mave nodded.
“Better.”
“Do I pass?”
“This isn’t an exam.”
“It feels like one.”
“You’d still be on probation.”
Silas almost smiled.
Then he reached into his pocket.
Mave immediately pointed at him.
“If that’s another key—”
“It isn’t.”
“A ring?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Again, Silas looked offended.
Mave laughed.
He produced a folded piece of paper.
She opened it.
It was a reservation confirmation.
A small restaurant in Brooklyn.
Next Friday.
Two seats.
Under both names.
Silas Carbone and Mave Holloway.
Mave stared at it.
Such a small thing.
Six months earlier, they had never used both names anywhere.
Silas had loved her behind private doors.
Now there was nothing hidden about the reservation.
“You put my name on it.”
“Yes.”
“Your real name?”
He gave her a look.
“I only have one.”
“With you, I had to check.”
He smiled.
Mave folded the paper.
“Seven o’clock?”
“Seven.”
“You’ll be there?”
“Before you.”
“You better be.”
Silas became quiet.
“Mave?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
There had been a time when those words made her angry because they had arrived wrapped in secrets.
Tonight there was nothing attached to them.
No demand.
No promise designed to control tomorrow.
Just the truth.
Mave leaned closer.
“I love you too.”
Silas kissed her.
When they returned to the table, the pasta had started getting cold.
Mave sat down.
Silas reached for the silver pepper grinder.
She slapped his hand away.
“Absolutely not.”
He stared at her.
“It needs pepper.”
“It does not.”
“Mave, this is Italian food.”
“It was Italian food before you arrived.”
“That’s debatable.”
She laughed and pushed his plate toward him.
Silas looked around the apartment.
No guards in the room.
No cameras outside the windows.
No secret wife waiting in another part of the city.
No woman sitting alone until three in the morning wondering whether he would come home.
Just dinner.
Two glasses.
Two names.
And a door neither of them needed to lock against the truth anymore.
For a man who had spent his entire life building walls, it turned out the happiest ending Silas Carbone could give Mave Holloway was surprisingly simple.
May you like
He showed up.
And this time, he had nothing left to hide.
