Page 53 of Until the Storm Breaks (The Midnight Men #1)

MAREN

It’s late afternoon at The Black Lantern, and I’m hiding in the storage room, sitting on a case of Rainier, trying to hold myself together. So much for moving on.

I saw the video this morning. Calvin punching Adrian at some rooftop party last night.

The internet was having a field day with it.

“Sad Boy Author Throws Hands,” “Literary Festival Fight Night.” The comments ranged from defending him to calling him unhinged.

I’d watched it once, then closed my laptop, unsure what to feel about any of it.

Adrian definitely deserved it, knowing him. But watching Calvin defend someone else—was it that woman grabbing his arm?—just made me wonder. Was he defending her honor now? Being the hero for someone new?

I’d typed out a text: Saw the video. Hope your hand’s okay. Deleted it. Typed: That looked like it hurt. Deleted it. Typed: Why are you fighting people in Seattle when you couldn’t fight for us here? Deleted that too.

He was the one who left. He was the one who packed his things and drove away. If he wanted to talk, he knew where to find me. Three hours away isn’t the moon.

I stare at my phone, at his name in my contacts that I can’t bring myself to delete. His keynote reading is happening in just a few minutes. I know because I looked it up yesterday like an idiot, torturing myself with details about his life without me. They’re livestreaming it.

I shouldn’t watch.

But my finger hovers over the browser anyway. The festival site loads, and there it is: “Calvin Midnight LIVE - Starting Now.”

I click before I can talk myself out of it.

The connection takes a moment to load, and then there he is. The event space is packed, standing room only. Calvin’s at the podium, and even through my phone’s small screen, I can see something’s different about him.

“Thank you for coming,” he starts, and there’s something hollow in his voice. “I was supposed to read from my essay collection today. The one about grief, about loss, about finding meaning in the storm. But I’m not going to do that.”

He pulls out a piece of paper, folded so many times the creases have gone soft.

“As many of you know, I haven’t published anything new in years.

I’ve spent a lot of that time trying to figure out why.

Why the words stopped. Why the sentences dried up.

Why I couldn’t find the ending I thought I was writing toward. ”

The audience has gone quiet now. This isn’t what they came for. They want the Calvin Midnight who has answers, who turns pain into Instagrammable quotes. Not this uncertain version.

“I went home recently. Dark River, Washington. My mother died.” He pauses, swallows. “While I was there, I reconnected with someone I’d met a handful of times, but hadn’t gotten to know. And when things got complicated, when things got real, I left. Because that’s what I do. I leave.”

I stop breathing. He’s really doing this. In public. On a livestream.

“But leaving doesn’t make the feelings go away. It just makes everything quiet. Empty.” He unfolds the paper fully, glances at it once, then looks directly at the camera as if he can see me through it. “I wrote this sitting alone in that silence. It’s the most honest thing I’ve written in years.”

Then he recites from memory:

The storm started the night you said

you could love me,

and we promised to lie still, intertwined,

until it passed.

Not lightning

only a slow, relentless rain.

Softer than truth,

harder than leaving.

Now I drink silence like whiskey.

Slow, sharp,

haunted by the echo

of what I didn’t say.

But I’ll sit here,

in the quiet wreckage of what we almost were,

and wait.

Until the storm breaks.

Or until I do.

The poem ends. Silence stretches through the auditorium, uncomfortable and raw. Then scattered applause starts, tentative and confused, but Calvin’s already walking off stage. No bow, no thank you. Just gone.

The livestream cuts to a confused moderator trying to fill dead air, but I’m not listening anymore.

That night in the storm after the memorial.

When we told each other we loved each other.

He wrote about us and stood up in front of hundreds of strangers to declare it.

Calvin Midnight, who guards his privacy like a fortress, who never likes to talk about his personal life, just told the world he loves me.

The tears come without warning, hot and overwhelming. My hands are shaking as I replay his words in my head.

Until the storm breaks.

Or until I do.

He’s waiting. Not running, not hiding behind metaphors. He’s sitting in what he calls the wreckage, waiting for me to decide if we have a chance. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever seen him, and he did it in front of everyone.

My chest feels too tight, like I can’t get enough air.

The tears keep coming because hearing him say those words, seeing him be that brave, breaks something open in me.

This is Calvin saying he believes me about the tattoo, that he knows I’m not some obsessed fan.

This is him trying to bridge the gap between us the only way he knows how—through words, but honest ones this time.

The door opens and Lark slips in, her presence immediately making the small storage room feel even smaller. “Hey. It’s dead out there, everyone’s at that harvest festival in Millbrook. Thought I’d check on you. You okay? You’ve been back here a while.”

I hand her my phone wordlessly, replay the video. She watches Calvin read the poem, her eyes widening as she realizes what she’s witnessing. When it ends, she lets out a long breath and hands the phone back to me.

“Wow,” she says, sitting down on a case of beer across from me. “That’s not just a poem, Maren. That’s him telling the whole world he loves you. That’s him admitting he’s drowning without you.”

“I know,” I say, still staring at my phone. “It’s... I’ve never seen him do anything like this.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I need... I need to think about this for a minute.” I gesture to my clipboard and the produce order I’d been working on before. “I’ll finish up the weekend order. Process everything.”

Lark squeezes my shoulder. “Of course. Take all the time you need. I’ll handle the bar.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” she says at the door. “That took guts, what he did. Just remember that.”

Then she’s gone, and I’m alone with his voice still echoing from my phone.

I replay the video. Once. Twice. Three times. Thirty minutes pass, maybe more. My phone stays silent except for the sound of his poem on repeat.

But I’ll sit here,

in the quiet wreckage of what we almost were,

and wait.

Until the storm breaks.

Or until I do.

He hasn’t called. He read this incredibly personal thing about us to hundreds of strangers but hasn’t picked up the phone to talk to me directly. Why? Is he waiting for me to reach out? Is he sitting in Seattle wondering if I even saw it?

Or maybe—and this thought makes my stomach clench—maybe it wasn’t really for me.

Maybe he needed something profound for the festival, something raw and real to remind everyone why he’s Calvin Midnight.

God, what if I’m sitting here analyzing a poem that was just him giving his audience what they wanted?

Another beautiful performance from the master of turning pain into art?

The door opens again and Lark peeks in. “Still watching it?”

“He hasn’t called,” I say, setting my phone down. “Not even a text.”

“Maybe he’s terrified. Maybe he thinks you didn’t see it. Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the next move.” She studies my face. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I need time to think. To figure out what this means, what I want to say if I do reach out.”

“Come on,” she says gently. “We’re closing early. You need to get out of this storage room and process this somewhere that doesn’t smell like stale beer and cardboard.”

“It’s Saturday night, Lark. We can’t just close,” I protest, but even I can hear I’m not really fighting it.

“Jayson!” she calls toward the kitchen, ignoring my half-hearted objection. “We’re closing early. Family emergency.”

Jayson pokes his head out from the kitchen, his chef’s whites already splattered with the evening’s work.

He takes one look at my tear-stained face, then at Lark’s determined expression, and just shrugs with a small, understanding smile.

Without a word, he starts shutting down the grill and putting away his prep.

That’s Jayson for you. Five years working here and he just rolls with whatever chaos we bring, no questions asked.

Within fifteen minutes, Lark has everyone out and the doors locked.

All four customers, Eddie included, who pats my shoulder on his way past, murmuring something about how that boyfriend of mine better get his act together.

I don’t have the energy to correct him that Calvin isn’t my boyfriend anymore. At least I think he isn’t. Ugh.

“Wait,” I say as we get to Lark’s car. “I should go home to check on Laila first, play a bit of fetch, make sure she has water and—”

“We’re bringing her to my place,” Lark interrupts, already turning toward my apartment instead of hers. “We’re having wine and a girls’ night. Three girls, no boys allowed.”

We pick up Laila, who is absolutely delighted to be included in what she clearly considers an adventure. She prances between us, tail wagging, thrilled about this unexpected Saturday evening outing.

At Lark’s apartment, Laila immediately investigates every corner before settling on the couch between us, clearly pleased with this arrangement.

The whole place smells like the citrus candles Lark burns obsessively.

She puts on music, something mellow I don’t recognize, and pours us both wine without asking.