Dean nodded slowly, eyes cast down.
“But,” she added, “it would’ve been nice if you’d answered the phone.”
“I know,” he said, no defensiveness in his tone. “I’m really sorry. I’ve realized… I haven’t been the best husband.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to correct him. Because he hadn’t been a bad husband—not by anyone’s outside standards. He was reliable. A good provider. They had a house, two cars, retirement savings, and college savings for Nora. She’d been able to disappear for nearly two months and not once worry about the bills.
Dean wasn’t cruel. He didn’t yell, hit, or overdrink. But he was absent. Emotionally. And sometimes physically. He had been a ghost in his own marriage.
She said none of that. Instead, she watched him. Wanted to see what he thought he’d done wrong.
“I want to do better,” he said. “I want to make an effort.”
He ran a hand through his hair—a move she’d seen a thousand times—but it felt different now, barefoot and bare-faced in the doorway. Vulnerable. Human. A far cry from the starched-shirt version of himself she’d come to expect. And yet, somehow, all the more attractive for it.
After a brief pause, he said, “Nora’s leaving soon.” His voice was quieter now. “And then it’ll be just us. You and me. In this house.”
He didn’t say it like a promise.
He said it like a question.
A question she wasn’t sure yet how to answer.
“You are right. There are a lot of things that need to change,” Dean said quietly, his voice thick with something like resolve. He tugged at the hem of his T-shirt. “And I’m starting with this.”
He gave a small, almost sheepish shrug. “I want to be more casual with you, Leanne. More open. Honest. This”—he gestured down at himself—“this isn’t just about clothes. It’s about showing up. Being real. Stripping away all the armor.”
Leanne’s chest ached. He’d never talked like this before.
“There’s a reason we fell in love,” he continued. “There’s a reason we got married. And I think…I think we need to find it again. I love you. I always have. But I know I’ve neglected you. And I’ll spend the rest of my life making that up to you if you let me.”
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t even had to say a word—Dean just knew. All the things she thought she’d have to fight to get across, he was already holding in his hands like fragile glass, careful not to drop.
“I like the sound of that,” she whispered, stepping into his arms. She wrapped herself around him and pressed her lips to his, soft and slow. Their first real kiss in longer than she could remember.
They had never been perfect. But what they had was real. However flawed. While bent in places, their foundation had weathered storms. They had endured.
For better or worse, Leanne decided she was the kind of woman who stayed. Who fought. Who held on when the world told her to let go. Because she loved Dean. Even after everything—even after the silences, the distance, the growing pains—that truth remained. And that love was worth fighting for, if they were both willing.
They had lost sight of each other somewhere along the way. Forgotten how to be partners, how to be friends. But love wasn’t just in the remembering. Love was in the choosing.
And standing there, arms around him, heart cracked wide open, Leanne chose them. Again.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Saying goodbye sucked.
Nora had never been good at it—probably because she hadn’t had much practice before this summer turned into one long, slow farewell tour. Goodbye to high school friends who swore they’d write but wouldn’t. Goodbye to teachers who looked relieved to be rid of students for the summer. Goodbye to her sleepy little town, the one she used to think she’d escape from but now realized had a grip on her like an old, worn but comforting quilt.
Goodbye to music that stretched from sunrise to midnight, to guitars strumming under wide-open skies, to the indulgence of days with no real beginning or end—just a continuous loop of sound, laughter, and possibility.
And now, the hardest goodbye of all. To the house where she had learned to walk, to read, to dream. To the walls that held her childhood in their quiet corners. To the two people who had always been there, standing in the doorway, watching her leave—smaller now, somehow, as if they were the ones being left behind.
And then there was something—someone—else.
Joe Dumas.
Joe had been a highlight at the concerts. Scribbling in his notebook and writing himself right into her summer and her heart. They had shared long nights of whispered conversations about the world, about music, about all the places they wanted to go. His typewriter and her wild ideas. His ambitions and her rebellion. And then, just like that, the summer had ended, and possibly so had they.
