Page 56 of Until the Storm Breaks (The Midnight Men #1)

MAREN

The festival is everything I imagined and more.

The Washington State Convention Center buzzes with the kind of energy you only get when hundreds of people who love words gather in one place.

Conversations about craft and process spill out of session rooms. The air smells like coffee and new books and possibility.

I’m anonymous here, just another person with a tote bag full of books and a head full of stories.

No one knows I’m the woman from Calvin Midnight’s viral poem.

No one cares that I have his words tattooed on my ribs or that I just left him standing in his empty apartment with my own poem to decipher.

I feel good. Heartbroken but good. Like I’ve reclaimed something Calvin’s leaving tried to steal.

This is my space too, these words, these stories.

I belong here just as much as any MFA graduate or published author.

And maybe, if Calvin shows up, if he chooses us over his fear, we can navigate this world together.

But even if he doesn’t, I’m here. I’m choosing this for myself.

The morning panel on “Women’s Voices in Contemporary Fiction” is standing room only. I squeeze into a spot near the back, notebook ready. The panelists are brilliant, all women who’ve fought for their place in a literary world.

“The thing about writing as a woman,” one panelist says, “is that you’re always writing against the expectation that your work is smaller, more domestic, less universal. As if men’s internal lives are inherently more important than ours.”

I write until my hand cramps, filling pages with ideas and observations. These women aren’t writing about storms as metaphors. They’re writing about the actual experience of weathering them. About choosing yourself even when the world tells you to choose others first.

Between sessions, I browse the book fair. Tables and tables of stories, each one a world someone built from nothing but words and determination. I run my fingers over covers, read first pages, sample sentences like wine. So many voices, so many perspectives.

And maybe, eventually, mine could be here too. Not as Calvin Midnight’s mysterious muse, but as myself. Maren Strand, who writes about storms and surviving and small-town women who pour drinks and guard secrets. Who loves a complicated man but won’t disappear into his shadow.

I buy three books I can’t afford from a small press that publishes experimental fiction. The seller, a woman with silver hair and knowing eyes, asks if I’m a writer.

“Trying to be,” I say.

“You are or you aren’t,” she says, but not unkindly. “Do you write?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re a writer. The rest is just paperwork.”

I carry her words with me to the coffee stand where I pay seven dollars for a latte that would make the Black Lantern customers riot.

Find a quiet corner to read while waiting for the next panel.

“The Memoir of Place” starts in twenty minutes, and I want to learn how to write about Dark River, about the bar, about the way a place can save you and trap you simultaneously.

My phone buzzes. Lark checking in.

Lark: How’d it go?

Me: Gave him the poem. Ball’s in his court.

Lark: And you’re okay?

Me: I’m at a literary festival surrounded by people who love words as much as I do. I’m better than okay.

Lark: That’s my girl.

I smile at her message. Life goes on. Even if I still love him. And God help me, I do still love him completely. But love doesn’t mean waiting. It doesn’t mean shrinking. It means being whole people who choose each other, again and again.

CALVIN

I head for the door. I’m done choosing fear. I’m choosing her.

The elevator takes forever. I punch the button three more times even though I know it won’t help. When it finally arrives, the descent feels like slow motion. First floor can’t come fast enough.

I burst through the lobby doors onto the Seattle street. The convention center is eight blocks away. Sunday afternoon traffic is always a nightmare downtown, and parking near the festival will be impossible. Running will be faster.

So I start running.

A light fall drizzle has started, the kind that makes the city smell like wet concrete and coffee. The sidewalks are slick and crowded with Sunday afternoon shoppers, but I weave through them, picking up speed. My shirt is soaked through by block three. I keep running.

People stare as I sprint past coffee shops and tourists, past the normal life I’ve been sleepwalking through for years. A man in a rain-spattered button-down running through downtown Seattle like his life depends on it.

Maybe it does.

The convention center finally looms ahead, its glass and steel facade reflecting the gray sky. People stream in and out with their tote bags and conference badges, moving at normal human speed while my heart pounds against my ribs.

I push through the main doors, already scanning the crowd. The lobby is chaos. Final day energy, everyone trying to squeeze in one more panel, one more book signing. Where would she be? What panel? Which room?

“Oh my god, Calvin Midnight!” A woman grabs at my sleeve. “The sexy professor! Can you sign my—”

“Sorry,” I say, sidestepping her, still moving. “I need to find someone.”

But I’m already heading deeper into the convention center, water dripping from my hair onto the polished floors. More people recognize me now. The author who knocked out that other author and read that viral poem. Who’s currently soaking wet and clearly desperate. Phones come out.

I check the session schedule board. Three panels happening simultaneously. “Women’s Voices in Contemporary Fiction.” “The Memoir of Place.” “Publishing in the Digital Age.” She could be in any of them. Or the book fair. Or the café. Or already gone, deciding I’m not worth waiting for.

The book fair is closest and biggest. I head there first, pushing through the double doors into a massive hall filled with publishers’ booths and tables stacked with books. The smell of new paper and ink hits me as I move through the aisles, scanning every face, every corner.

She’s here somewhere. She has to be.

Row after row of books and bodies. People stop to stare at the drenched author walking too fast, looking too frantic, clearly searching for something or someone. I ignore them all. Nothing matters except finding her.

I’m halfway through the hall, starting to panic that maybe she left, maybe I’m too late again, always too late, when I see her.

She’s at a booth near the back, talking to someone about submission guidelines. Her hair is down, still damp from the rain. She’s wearing that sweater and holding a business card like it’s something precious. She looks beautiful and whole and like she belongs here completely.

My heart feels like it might actually burst. Everything in me screams to call out, to run to her, to drop to my knees and beg her to forgive me for being such a coward.

I start moving toward her, no longer running but walking fast, drawn to her like I always have been. Like I always will be.

MAREN

I’m tucking a literary magazine editor’s card into my notebook, imagining actually submitting my work, when I hear someone call my name.

“Maren.”

I turn, and there he is.

Calvin’s walking toward me through the crowded book fair, and he looks like something straight out of a movie.

He’s taller than almost everyone here, his dark hair wet from the rain, water droplets on his tan skin.

His shirt is damp and clinging to him, and he’s impossibly beautiful. My heart stops, then starts racing.

He stops right in front of me, close enough that I can see his chest rising and falling hard from running. The crowd parts around us, but his eyes stay locked on mine.

“I read your poem,” he says, his voice steady despite being out of breath. “Sat with it for hours. I wanted to come straight here, but I also wanted you to have your time at the festival.”

Rain drips from his hair onto his collar. He doesn’t wipe it away.

“But I couldn’t wait any longer. I’m done overthinking this. Done needing space. I want to be with you, Maren.”

People around us are starting to notice, recognizing him, but he doesn’t seem to care. I realize I don’t care either. All I can really see is him.

“I know we both made mistakes,” he continues. “The tattoo, me leaving, all of it. But sitting in that apartment reading your words, I realized none of that matters as much as this. I love you. And I want to figure out the rest as we go.”

My eyes are filling with tears now. “You’re sure?” I need to hear it.

“I’m sure. We both owned our mistakes. Now let’s move forward.”

“Together?”

“Together,” he confirms, reaching for my hand.

“I want you. The woman who’s funnier and smarter than anyone I know.

Who sees through all my bullshit and calls me on it.

” His voice gets rough. “I want all of it. Morning coffee, debating books, reading every word you write. I want to spend my whole life discovering new things about you. All of it, if you’ll have me. ”

The tears are falling now, and I can’t stop them. My heart feels like it might burst.

“I love you,” he says. “I’m in love with you. Completely.”

“I love you too,” I manage, and then his mouth is on mine.

The kiss is overwhelming in the best way.

His hands tangle in my hair, pulling me closer, and every nerve ending in my body lights up at once.

I melt into him, my hands fisting in his damp shirt, holding on like I might float away if I let go.

He tastes like rain and coffee and home.

Like all the mornings we should have had, all the nights we lost, all the future we might still have.

He kisses me with a tenderness that makes my chest ache, then with a passion that makes me forget we’re in public, forget everything except the feel of his mouth on mine, his body pressed against me.

My whole body feels electric, alive, like I’ve been sleeping and have suddenly woken up.

I can feel his heart racing against mine, can feel how much he needs this, needs me, needs us.

It makes me dizzy with want and relief and love so big it feels like it might crack me open.

When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together. I’m vaguely aware that people around us exist, that we’ve probably caused a scene, but I don’t care. All I can see is Calvin, looking at me like I’m his whole world.

“You ran here,” I say, touching his rain-soaked shirt, still trying to catch my breath.

“Eight blocks through the downpour,” he says. “Nearly got hit by a taxi.”

“All that for me?” The question comes out soft.

He frames my face with his hands, looking at me with such certainty it makes my heart stutter. “I’d run a thousand blocks for you, Maren.”

Then he kisses me, so soft and tender and full of love that my knees actually weaken. This kiss is different from the desperate one before. This is a promise, a vow, a coming home. My throat goes tight with emotion.

“Take me home,” I whisper against his lips.

He pulls back just enough to look at me, and the smile that spreads across his face is pure joy. “Home,” he repeats, like it’s precious. “Yes. Let’s go home.”

I can’t help but smile back, probably looking ridiculous with tears on my cheeks, but I don’t care. We’re both grinning like idiots, standing in the middle of a crowded book festival, him soaked from the rain and me completely in love.

Because home isn’t a place anymore. It’s not Dark River or Seattle, not the cabins or his apartment. Home is wherever we’re brave enough to stop running and start staying. Home is choosing love over fear, even when the storm is raging.

Home is us.