Page 11 of The Maine Event (Romancing the Workplace #2)

The yard itself looks like a work in progress, wild beach grasses sway in the breeze, and clusters of lupines bloom near the house, their vibrant purples contrasting with the rugged landscape.

The rhythmic sound of waves breaking on the shore completes the scene, giving the property an air of serene isolation, yet it feels warm and lived in, as though I’ve known this place all my life.

What the hell is this? I’m nostalgic for a place I hadn’t set eyes on twenty-four hours ago?

“You alright?” Dan asks.

I can’t quite believe I agreed to this. Dinner? At his place? Again. I’m here for work, not to socialize. But the promise of a functional printer is too tempting to resist.

“Sorry, yeah, I’m good. You have a beautiful home.”

“Thanks.” Dan points up to the front door. “Shall we?”

We slip off our shoes in the front hall and head through to the living area. He gestures for me to take a seat at the kitchen island.

“I’ll just fire up the printer and get those copies started for you,” he says, taking the flash drive.

I sit down and pick up one of Chloe’s math textbooks, flipping through the pages.

Part of me doesn’t want to even attempt any of the questions in case I don’t know the answers.

If there was one subject that made me nervous in school, it was math.

Of course, I use mental arithmetic every day at work.

Whether it’s budget planning or market research on total addressable markets, I know my way around numbers, but there’s something about algebra and quadratic equations that still makes me shiver.

“Three copies of each enough?” Dan shouts down the stairs.

“Yes, that would be great.”

Dan skips down the stairs with the printouts in a neat plastic sheet-sized envelope. He places it on the table.

“At a dime a page, you’re in nearly two dollars. I don’t usually offer credit to new customers.”

“Oh. Right, of course. Sorry, let me Venmo you now.” Embarrassed that I didn’t even think to offer, I pull out my phone and start searching for the payment app.

“I’m kidding, Rachel.” Dan laughs.

“I don’t want you to be out of pocket.”

“I’m not. It’s there to be used.”

“Thank you.”

Dan heads over to the kitchen and immediately starts to fill a pan with water and begins chopping some cured sausage into tiny chunks.

“I hope you’re hungry,” he says over his shoulder as he starts finely chopping a clove of garlic. “I tend to meal prep on the weekend, so I only seem to be able to cook huge portions now.”

“I’m pretty hungry, actually. It smells amazing,” I admit. And it does.

Dan smiles as he stirs the ingredients in the pan. He sprinkles the grated cheese with a flourish and then pours in the egg.

“Chloe not around?”

“She’ll be back later. Thursdays she goes home with her friend Zara after school. Ostensibly to study, but I’m not sure the textbooks ever make it out of her backpack.”

“Ask no questions, get told no lies?” I offer.

“Something like that. They’ve been friends since kindergarten. Zara’s mom will drop her off soon. I think it’s important she can, you know, talk girl stuff or whatever. Sometimes dad’s the last person she wants to confide in, especially at her age, if you know what I mean.”

Dan sets a plate of steaming pasta in front of me, the rich, creamy sauce still bubbling. “Dig in. But just to be clear, this is strictly not a date,” he says with a wink.

I laugh, feeling myself relax a notch. “Duly noted.”

As we eat, our conversation flows easily, jumping from work to books to ridiculous childhood stories. I’d almost forgotten how nice it could be, just sharing stories, not trying to sell something.

“You confident? About your meeting, I mean,” Dan says, looking at my documents in the plastic folder. “Did you want to run through your pitch? I’d be happy to listen, maybe offer some feedback.”

I’m tempted, but I shake my head. “Thanks, but I should probably go over it on my own. Back at the motel.”

“Of course. I always rehearsed in private too.”

I nod, wondering if I should go there. “Why did you stop? Acting, I mean.”

A pained expression dances for a second across Dan’s face.

He stands and reaches to take our empty plates.

But he catches himself, and sits back down.

“When Rebecca. That’s Chloe’s mom. When she died, I took a long hard look at myself and knew I needed to make some changes. For Chloe as well as myself.”

“But what about the income?”

“No point earning it if you can’t spend time with your family enjoying it.”

“Rebecca and I were practically strangers by then. She was bringing Chloe up by herself while I was on the other side of the country eating the aforementioned takeout food for the forty-ninth time.”

“But what about when you weren’t filming?”

“That’s just it. As soon as the series wrapped, I’d take on small roles in indie films, voice-over work, anything my agent could sign me up for. I had this arbitrary figure in my head of how much I wanted to earn, and I just went for it. At the expense of everything else.”

“What happened? To Rebecca. If you don’t mind me asking.”

Dan considers the question as he lines the salt and pepper shakers up on the table. “I’d just finished shooting a supporting role in an indie feature. Had been home less than forty-eight hours when the producer called. I needed to do some ADR down in Florida.”

“ADR?”

“Sorry, it’s when you go into a studio to record some of the lines of dialogue again if they’re not clear, or you need to add something new because they’ve edited something out, which means that scene no longer makes sense.

Anyway, it was the week before Thanksgiving, so everyone wanted to finish up before the holidays.

Producer was begging me on the phone, really laying on the guilt.

If I didn’t do it right then, they weren’t going to hit their deadline, and the film would miss its release window. ”

“So, you went.”

“Yep. Rebecca was furious. She had planned Thanksgiving down to the last minute. I don’t just mean the day itself, I mean the whole week. My mom was coming to stay with us to look after Chloe, and we’d RSVP’d to various gatherings in Portland. And I got on a plane to Tampa.”

Dan stands, resting his hands on the table.

“When I landed, I had a missed call from Portland PD. Rebecca had been killed in a car accident on the way back from dropping Chloe at school.”

“I’m so sorry.” The words sound hollow. Not enough. Sometimes this language of ours simply isn’t adequate.

“It should have been me driving that morning. I always took over the school run when I was back. But I wasn’t here, I was in Tampa, and my wife was dead.”

I let his words hang in the air, thick and heavy like the fog rolling in from the water.

Part of me wants to tell him that it wasn’t his fault—that none of it was his fault—but I know that’s not what he needs.

Sometimes, no matter how many times people tell you it wasn’t your fault, it doesn’t make the guilt any easier to bear.

He glances at me, his jaw tensing, like he’s bracing himself for judgment. I surprise myself by moving closer, reaching out to put my hand on his forearm.

“Dan,” I say softly, choosing my words carefully. “You did what you thought was right at the time. We all make choices we think we can fix later. Sometimes, we just don’t get the chance.”

He looks down at my hand, his gaze lingering like he’s not quite sure it’s real. “I wanted to give them everything,” he says. “A good life, a secure future. But I was too focused on being the provider and not enough on just… being there.”

I nod, understanding more than I’d like to admit.

“You know, I used to think that success meant proving everyone wrong. Proving I could do it on my own. But sometimes, in the middle of the night, when it’s too quiet to ignore my own thoughts, I wonder if I’ve just been running from the things that really matter.

Like I’m so scared of standing still that I keep moving just to avoid looking back. ”

He looks up then, his expression softer. “It’s hard to know where the line is,” he says. “Between ambition and obsession. Between wanting to do the right thing and losing sight of why you’re doing it in the first place.”

The weight of his confession presses down on both of us, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m just as guilty of letting life slip through my fingers while I chase something I’m not even sure I want anymore.

Dan’s lips quirk into a half-smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I never thought I’d end up here, living in my hometown, raising a kid on my own, wondering how the hell I got it all so wrong.”

“You didn’t get it all wrong,” I say firmly. “Look at Chloe. She’s amazing. Funny, smart, confident. You’re raising her to be exactly the kind of person the world needs. That’s no small thing.”

He gives a shaky laugh. “Maybe. I just… I don’t want to mess her up, you know? She deserves better than a dad who doesn’t always have his shit together.”

“Join the club,” I say, nudging his arm. “None of us have our shit together. We’re all just pretending we do.”

Dan’s laugh this time is more genuine, and something loosens in my chest—like maybe he’s not the only one who needed to hear that.

The front door opens. “Hey, Dad,” Chloe chirps from the hall as she kicks off her sneakers. “Oh, hey, Rachel.”

“Hi. Did you have a good evening?” I ask with a smile, hoping she can’t sense the mood in the room.

“The best!” She drops her school bag and starts shedding layers of clothing as she skips towards the stairs, leaving them where they fall. “Dad, can I get five bucks for Toca Boca?”

“For what?”

“For my Toca World account. I need an upgrade.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Dan looks visibly perplexed.

“Dad!? The app. Zara’s got the Bohemian house pack. It’s so cool. I think I’ve moved on from my cottagecore phase, and I’m really feeling the Bohemian aesthetic.”

Dan turns to me mouthing aesthetic in mock reverence.