Someone I think Iliked.
Honestly, I’d underestimated how exhausting it was to be good. All the hours I used to spend avoiding everything that mattered now stretched out in front of me, waiting for me to actually fill them with something useful.
And Marco.
God—Marco.
I still wasn’t sure what was happening there, but whatever it was, it was undoing everything I thought I knew about myself. About relationships. About boundaries. He was careful with me—sometimes infuriatingly so. He’d text me random reminders, little things like telling me to drink water or just checking in with one-word messages that somehow managed to be annoyingly endearing.
It bothered me how much I liked that.
Want to know what else bothered me? The fact I still didn’t have a mirror to use.
I’d spent the past few weeks walking around all day without knowing if my hair looked insane or if my eyeliner was straight. Last night I’d finally snapped and told him as much, pacing in front of him while he sat quietly on the couch pretending not to find my irritation amusing.
“I can’t keep living like this, Marco,” I’d complained dramatically. “I’m walking around with the blind hope my eyeliner is even remotely symmetrical. This is cruel and unusual.”
He’d stared up at me, eyebrows raised slightly. “You seem to be managing just fine.”
“I’m not,” I insisted stubbornly. “I’m barely holding it together here.”
He shook his head and returned his attention to whatever he’d been reading on his laptop, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “dramatic.”
But when I got home today, something felt different. The house was quiet, which was nothing new, but the hallway was cluttered with cardboard.
I followed the trail down the hall, trying not to step on sharp things or accidentally sabotage whatever project Marco had apparently taken up without telling me. The mental image of him doing anything even remotely handyman-ish was worth it.
And then I found him. He was kneeling on the floor next to something that was maybe fifty percent assembled, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair doing that unfairly attractive thing where it fell over his forehead. I stopped. I stared. I forgot whatever I was about to say.
I finally recovered enough to speak. “Um ... what exactly is happening here?”
He looked up. “I’m ensuring I never have to hear you complain abouteyelineragain.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, don’t worry—I’ll find something else to complain about, just for you.”
“Naturally,” he muttered, calmly twisting a screwdriver into place. “You wouldn’t be you without a new crisis every five minutes.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned against the doorway. “At least every ten. Come on.”
He paused just long enough to give me a dry look. “Generous estimate.”
Since he wasn’t paying attention, I decided to make myself comfortable, sprawling dramatically across the bed and propping myself up on one elbow. Might as well enjoy the view. Plus, this was way more entertaining than television, or anything Pauly D had to say.
“You know, I’m kind of surprised,” I said. “You could’ve let me suffer a little longer.”
He sighed, not even trying to hide his smile. “Believe me, I considered it.”
I watched him a little longer, silently deciding watching Marco assemble furniture was officially my new favorite hobby. Which was a problem. Because liking Marco this much wasn’t in the plan.
It was inconvenient.
Dangerous, even.
For the next hour, I talked his ear off while he quietly worked on finishing the vanity, stopping only occasionally to give me one of his patented dry looks or a quick remark. Honestly, I was pretty sure at some point he just tuned me out completely, but he never told me to shut up, so I took that as full permission to keep going.
And keep going I did.
I rambled through basically my entire life story, sharing random childhood anecdotes, the absolutely tragic list of crappy jobs I’d worked, and even that one time Isabel and I nearly got arrested because some genius had mistaken our Uber for theirs and tried to report us for grand theft auto over a single bottle of tequila. I thought that story would at least get a little reaction, but all I got was that slight eyebrow raise he always did, and then a shake of his head as if he’d long since stopped being surprised by anything that came out of my mouth.
