Page 22 of Split Decision

I don't know which one it is yet.

"Thank you for your time," I say.

After I hang up, I stand in the kitchen for another minute.

Let her think she's been redirected.

Brandon said it like it was useful advice, which it was. He also said it as if he had already learned it from experience.

ANDI

December is pressing in from all sides now—shorter days, colder mornings, the distinctive exhaustion of a month that asks you to be festive while the rest of your life is asking something else entirely.

I slip out of bed before the sun, heavy-eyed but unbothered. This hour belongs to us in a way the rest of the day never will. We take it seriously—not because it’s rare, but because it’s ours. Two chairs at the kitchen table, held open on purpose, where nothing is required, and nothing intrudes.

This morning, he's already at the stove when I come downstairs. He doesn't hear me at first, and I stand in the doorway for a moment and watch him—the way he moves in the kitchen, unhurried and competent, like a man who has made peace with the routine of it. He hates a lot of things, but he has never once complained about making breakfast.

"You're up early," he says without turning around. He always knows.

"Couldn't sleep." I pull out my chair and fold into it. "How was training yesterday?"

"Mack tried to kill me." He sets the bowl in front of me—he made enough for both of us without being asked, which is so Luke, I feel it in my chest a little. "Then he told me I wasn't hitting hard enough, which I took to mean I should hit harder, which he then told me was not what he meant."

"What did he mean?"

"Apparently, I'm hitting with anger instead of intention." He sits across from me. "He spent twenty minutes explaining the difference. I'm still not entirely sure I got it."

"Did it make you better?"

He considers my question for a moment. "Probably."

I smile into my coffee. Outside the kitchen window, Atlanta is going gray at the edges—November dark giving way to December dark, which is a different kind of dark, colder and more final-feeling.

"Travis called about the rehearsal schedule," I say. "They want to push the first full run-through to Thursday. Katelyn has a venue conflict onWednesday."

"Katelyn." He says it the way he says anything he's reserving judgment on.

"She's very good at her job," I say. "She's also extremely unpleasant about it."

"Those are not mutually exclusive things, I'm learning."

He's thinking about Marin. I'm thinking about Marin. Neither of us says her name.

"The statement went out," he says, after a moment.

I look up.

"I modified it." He holds my eyes. "Your name is in it. One line. No elaboration." He pauses. "I know it wasn't what Marin recommended. But it was what I decided."

Something shifts in me—not relief, not exactly. It’s quieter than that. More complicated. The strange awareness of watching someone I love show up exactly as I need them to, at the precise moment I didn’t want to need anything at all.

"How did she take it?" I ask.

"Professionally." A pause. "Perfectly."

The word lands between us. We both know what it means, and neither of us unpacks it.

"Thank you," I say.