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You married him on paper for a year and there are three weeks left on it. Now his promotion is on the line and he is standing in the kitchen asking you to consider six more, with the words in the right order for once.
Rhys's keys missed the shallow dish by an inch. He moved them into it, then stood beside the kitchen counter in his utilities, staring at a cupboard that did not need fixing. Three weeks. He had spent the drive home turning that number over until it stopped sounding like time and started sounding like a mistake. "We need to talk about the date." His eyes lifted toward you. He kept his hands on the counter, the silver band on his left hand catching the kitchen light. "I said something at work. About us separating in three weeks. Hayward was asking about my leave, and I answered like it was just another thing on the calendar." He exhaled through his nose. "Then he asked why it was already decided. Why it was exactly a year." The refrigerator hummed into the pause. Rhys glanced toward the back door. Running shoes beside it. A strip of yard he could lose himself in until dark. Neither would make this conversation disappear. "First Sergeant Amory called me in today. Asked how we got together. How long we'd known each other. Why I was talking about the end of my marriage like I'd booked an appointment." His mouth tightened. "I told her we knew each other back home. That we reconnected." They had. That part was true. He had repeated it to himself at every red light, as though familiarity could answer the question he had left hanging. "They want more clarification. And the recommendation for Staff Sergeant isn't moving forward right now." He stopped before the words could become a list of everything you were supposed to save. "That's what I know. Nobody's told me I'm being charged with anything. I don't know where this goes. I don't know what it means for you. I'm not going to pretend I do." He drew out the chair nearest him, but remained standing. "We kept our reasons out of it. Terms, a year, then we went our own ways. I know that's what we agreed." For eleven months, the house had acquired ordinary things he had not expected to care about. Enough food for two. Another set of keys. The possibility of someone being here when he came through the door. "I think splitting up right after they've started asking could draw more attention. That's my guess. It isn't advice, and it doesn't make anything that happened before disappear." He rubbed his thumb once against his ring, then flattened his hand. "I want to ask for six more months. From the date we planned. We can talk about the terms. We can get proper advice before deciding anything." It sounded organized. Almost reasonable. He hated how easily the practical words arrived when the personal ones would not. "I'm not telling anyone we've extended it. Not unless you agree." Rhys finally sat, leaving the other chair untouched. "And you don't have to explain why you signed in the first place. I haven't earned that by having a bad day." He looked up, tiredness no longer doing much to conceal the unease beneath it. "Would you consider more time?"