“Right,” Mary agreed, the word sounding incomplete. “Friends.”
If Bert noticed her tone, he didn’t comment. He just hung up the towel and headed for the door. “What are you making? It smells incredible.”
“It’s just stir-fry. Nothing fancy.”
“Your cooking is always fancy to me,” Bert replied with a grin that made her heart skip. Then he was gone, the door closing behind him, leaving Mary alone with her vegetables and her complicated feelings.
She finished prepping dinner, her mind turning over the past months, remembering her times with Bert. At times, she could swear that he felt the same way she did. The way his eyes would linger on her face when he thought she wasn’t looking. The careful way he’d hand her things, their fingers brushing in a way that felt deliberate. The time she’d fallen asleep during a movie and woken to find him watching her with an expression so tender it had made her chest tight.
But then he’d pull back and reinforce the boundaries of their friendship, leaving Mary wondering if she’d imagined the whole thing.
The weeks turned into months of a parade of small moments that laid the foundation for a friendship, even as Mary longed for more. Late nights on her front porch, wrapped in blankets against the chill, talking about everything and nothing. Bert’s stories about his military days, carefully edited but still revealing. Mary’s memories of growing up in Montana, the ranch, the horses, and the wide-open spaces she’d missed during her years away.
During the holidays, the entire team gathered at Logan and Vivian’s house for a celebration that was loud and warm and filled with the kind of camaraderie that made Mary grateful for her chosen family. She and Bert had sat next to each other, as they always did, and if her heart ached every time his arm brushed hers, well, that was her problem to manage.
They spent time with her family, and Bert was accepted as one of her close friends. From the sadly hopeful glances her mother would send, Mary could tell her mother thought more might be coming. But the fatigue of longing for something not progressing was exhausting.
One particular night stuck in Mary’s memory with painful clarity. They’d been sitting on her porch, the air crisp and cold enough to see their breath, sharing a bottle of whiskey Sisco had given Bert as a housewarming gift. The compound had been busy with back-to-back missions, and they were both exhausted and pleasantly buzzed.
“Tell me about your family,” Mary had said, emboldened by the whiskey and the intimacy of the darkness around them. “You never talk about them.”
Bert had been quiet for so long that Mary thought he might not answer. Then he’d taken a drink and said, “Not much to tell. Parents are both gone. Mom died when I was sixteen. Got sick, and it turned into pneumonia. We didn’t have insurance, so she went too long before seeing a doctor. By the time Dad took her to the ER one night when it had gotten so bad, she never left the hospital. Three days later, she was gone. Dad died of a heart attack when I was twenty-two.”
“I’m sorry,” Mary had said softly.
“Good people, just working hard and never getting ahead. They always tried to make my brother and me feel like we had enough, but I saw the times she put food on our plates and then said she’d eaten earlier. I was older before I realized she was just going hungry.”
Mary didn’t offer platitudes, knowing they didn’t help and wouldn’t change the past. She reached over and placed her hand on his.
“It was a long time ago.” Bert’s voice had been carefully neutral, but Mary heard the pain underneath. “I have a brother. Two years younger than me. He’s married, has two boys. They live in Tennessee, near where we grew up.”
“Are you close?”
“We were.” Bert had paused, looking down at their linked hands. “But the military kept me away for so long, and now with this job... we talk a few times a year. I see them when I can. They’re good people, living good lives. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to have a family like that. But that’s not the path life chose for me.” He paused and sighed.
Something wistful in his tone had made Mary ache. He’d said that wasn’t the path chosen for him, instead of saying he hadn’t chosen that path. The difference was significant, but she had no idea what he meant. She’d wanted to reach out, take his hand, and ask who had made him believe that love wasn’t his path. But she’d held back, respecting their invisible boundaries.
She encouraged him to take time for the family he had left, and much to her surprise, he planned a trip to Tennessee to see his brother’s family after the holidays. She wished he’d invited her to go, but instead, the offer never came. She’d missed him much more than she could have imagined, which was ridiculous, considering they saw each other nearly every day. But the house across the street had been dark and empty, and Mary had felt his absence like a physical thing.
Now, sitting in her kitchen, Mary felt the weight of all those accumulated moments pressing down on her. She and Bert had been dancing around each other for so long, and she was exhausted from it. She’d come to realize that this was all they’d have. Friendship, companionship, the comfort of having someone who understood her and cared about her well-being. That was much more than many people experienced.
It would have to be enough, even when it felt like it wasn’t.
They ate at her dining table, talking about work and the upcoming missions, the equipment orders that needed to be processed, and the budget review Logan wanted completed before the end of the month. It was comfortable and easy, the kind of conversation that came from working together closely and knowing each other’s professional rhythms.
But underneath it all, Mary felt the longing like a constant ache. The wanting for more that she couldn’t quite suppress, no matter how hard she tried.
After dinner, Bert helped her clean up despite her protests, and then he walked to her front door with her rolling beside him. As had become their habit, he held her hand and leaned over to place a feather-soft kiss on her forehead. After he promised to see her at work the following morning, Mary watched him cross the street to his house, observed his lights turn on one by one, and felt the familiar mix of contentment and frustration.
She had his friendship. She had his time, attention, and care. It was more than many people had.
They were stuck in this comfortable, maddening limbo, and she didn’t know how to break free of it without risking the friendship she valued so much.
14
One Month later
Mary rolled into her kitchen to find Willow already at the table, her own wheelchair positioned perfectly under the lowered counter section, a cup of coffee steaming beside her laptop.