Authors: Lily Maxton
Or maybe I did know. It might have had something to do with the easel and blank canvas I’d set up in the corner of the living room. I shouldn’t have brought it out from the closest, thinking today might be the day I’d get back to what I used to love. Looking at all that empty white made my heart ache.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
My gaze arrowed to the door. I must have been in a strange frame of mind (possibly brought on by the rain and cold and eerie gray of the day), but my first thought was of “The Raven” by Poe—I imagined myself opening the door to find some otherworldly bird waiting with a disturbing message.
You will paint … nevermore.
Tap. Tap.
I edged forward, watched my hand as it reached for the knob and pulled on the door.
“Hi,” Drew said.
I stared at him. He’d forgotten his umbrella, his dark hair was plastered to his head, black from moisture. “Can’t you knock louder?”
He frowned. “What?”
I shook my head. He must have followed a resident into the building; a little warning from the intercom would have been nice. “Never mind. What is it?”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I said, and then I remembered my hospitality. “I’ll get you a towel.”
Drew sat on the floor next to the couch so he wouldn’t get the furniture wet. I perched on the edge of the cushion next to Princess, who eyed our guest with an evil glint.
I watched as Drew scrubbed his face and hair with the towel. “So it’s raining pretty hard?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Um … what are you doing here?”
“I told you I didn’t like the way we left things.”
I folded my hands on my lap. An uncertain gesture. Something to focus on. “You want to be friends?”
“At least.”
I looked up, startled. “At least?”
Drew stared at the blank television. “Since we broke up, I’ve been thinking about how good things were at first. I think … I’d like to try to get back to that. It’s my fault that we grew apart. I’ve been so focused on my job I let our relationship take a backseat.”
My mouth literally fell open. After a moment of stunned silence, I said, “But you’ve been dating other people.”
“I’ve been trying to date other people. I think of you a lot.”
“So what … you just needed to date other people—or have sex with other people—for a month, and now your restlessness is curbed and you want to get back together?”
“No,” he shook his head. “It’s not like that. Dating other people made me realize I miss you.”
It was difficult not to note he didn’t address the sex comment. “But you didn’t miss last-six-months Dani, you missed end-of-college Dani?”
“What does that mean?”
I picked at one of my fingernails. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re just a fair-weather kind of guy.”
His mouth pinched. “I’m not,” he insisted. “Or if I was, I didn’t realize it. That’s not who I want to be.”
My shoulder lifted. “Maybe it was for the best though. People grow apart for a reason.”
“We grew apart because I didn’t try,” he insisted. “Because I didn’t realize what we had. Is this hesitation because of the guy I saw you talking to?”
“No,” I shook my head. My throat felt tight when I thought about Evan. Particularly when I thought about Evan and Natalie and all the things they might have done together. Had he touched her the way he’d touched me?
Was Natalie lying?
I didn’t like that my hopes seemed to hinge on a chance. It shouldn’t even matter what Evan did in his free time. Or who.
Drew moved closer to me. He knelt between my legs, placing his hands on my knees. I felt the familiar, solid weight of them through my pants. “We could just take things slow. Hang out. See if we can get back to what we were.”
“I don’t know. I—”
“Look who I ran into—” Alyssa’s voice filled the room, halting on a surprised note.
Evan stood behind her.
Of course he did. Of course fate would jump at another chance to make me fumble. I was starting to think fate had some kind of grudge against me.
His eyes flicked to Drew, to his hands on my knees, and then to my face. I don’t know how I looked—puzzled, frazzled, nauseous? His expression was oddly calm.
Until I noticed a muscle in his jaw twitch. Like he was gritting his teeth. Or keeping a rein on his temper. I hadn’t seen Evan angry before; was it a simmering, contained sort of anger or more explosive? For some reason, I was curious to see what he was like at his worst.
“I didn’t know you had company,” Alyssa squeaked.
“It’s fine,” I said. Even though I was a little pissed that I had no privacy and that my roommate had such bad timing. And I was pissed at the emotion churning in my stomach—guilt. Even when I had absolutely nothing to be guilty for.
I stood up, nearly knocking Drew over in the process. “Hi,” I said to Evan.
“Hi.”
We stared at each other. I could feel Alyssa and Drew staring at us. I shoved my hands into my blue jean pockets and pretended all these intent looks were really normal, even though I was on edge.
“Can I talk to you privately?” Evan asked, cocking his head toward the door.
“Dani,” Drew muttered as I moved forward.
“I’ll be right back,” I told him, trying not to let my irritation ring through in my voice. Evan followed me out into the hall, and I turned to face him. I noticed the hair that curled around his nape was wet and dark, little drops of water threatening to fall.
“You forgot your umbrella too,” I said stupidly.
“I let Alyssa use it,” he said.
Ah, that sounded more like him. Helping someone in need instead of forgetting. “She saw you in the parking lot?”
“Yeah, I’d just pulled in, and she saw me as she was getting out of her car. She came over to introduce herself.”
“What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer. “That’s your ex-boyfriend.”
I nodded, even though it wasn’t much of a question.
“The position you were in didn’t look very ex.”
“He said he wants another chance.”
He stared down at me for a long time. “And you’re going to give him one?”
“Maybe … I don’t know.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “Not if he was stupid enough to let you go in the first place.”
“But you don’t understand,” I said helplessly. “We were together for quite a while. He was my first boyfriend.” I winced after I said it; revealing I hadn’t had my first boyfriend until I was twenty-two didn’t exactly make me look like less of a loser.
“He’s a security blanket.”
“What?” I blinked. “No. What does that even mean?”
“You’re smart,” he stated, voice flat. “Figure it out.”
He started to walk past me. I put my hand on his arm, nearly shivered at the heat of his wet skin. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“You can’t—not until you tell me what you meant.”
He gently extricated himself from my grasp. I felt the loss of his warmth a little too keenly. “The way you were looking at him when I walked in, like you didn’t want to be there … I don’t think you love him. So if I’m right; if you don’t—why did you stay with him so long? And why are you thinking about getting back together now?”
It must have been a rhetorical question. Evan didn’t stay to hear me answer it. And I stared at his back as he strode down the hallway, wishing I’d never asked.
I slammed my door on the way back in, channeling my anger into one hard swing that resounded around the apartment. “You should leave,” I immediately told Drew, who was still kneeling on the floor. Alyssa had made herself scarce.
“What did he say to you?”
“That’s none of your business. This isn’t the 1800s—I’m not your property.”
The belligerent angles of his face softened as he stood, stepping toward me. “I’m sorry. I just don’t like the thought of you with someone else.”
“I’m not
with
him,” I said, stepping back. I pressed my hands to my cheeks. “Can you just leave?” I asked; my voice sounded as frayed as a well-worn pair of jeans.
“Is this a no?”
I stared at him, helpless. And reluctant to take the final step—the step that would push him out of my life forever. “It’s not a no. Just give me more time.”
“Okay,” he said. He placed his hand on my shoulder, leaned toward me, his eyes on my lips, but at the last second his mouth changed direction and grazed my cheek. A dry, gentle pressure. Had he felt me tense? I thought I might have.
“Later, Dani.” I locked the door behind him, safeguarding against anymore unexpected visits, and then rested my back against it.
“Are they gone?” Alyssa asked, creeping out of the hall that went to her bedroom.
I straightened. “No thanks to you.”
She lifted her hands in supplication. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know Drew was here or I never would have let Evan in. So what’s going on?”
“Drew wants to get back together.”
Her eyes widened. “What will you do?”
I answered honestly. “I have no idea.”
Evan’s sturdy black umbrella slanted against the wall of my cubicle. Alyssa had forgotten to give it back to him, so I’d brought it with me to work, planning on going over to him like a mature adult and handing it over.
Then I could go back to ignoring him. I could go back to dating Drew. I could go back to a life I was familiar with, a life that felt safe, emotions and desires that were even-keeled and easy to handle.
I should have paid more attention to that saying about the best-laid plans.
I ended up chickening out. The umbrella remained in my cubicle the whole morning, niggling at the back of my mind like an itch I couldn’t scratch.
At 1:32 p.m. (I knew that because I’d been looking at the clock way too much that day), Evan left the office for a late lunch.
It took a few minutes of internal debate, but I grabbed my purse and the umbrella and forced myself to follow him.
He must have been walking quickly; even though I trotted most of the distance, I didn’t reach him until he was in the parking garage, pulling his keys out of his pants pocket. I heard the click of the doors being unlocked from the remote.
“Evan, wait,” I called.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, his face smooth. It made my chest ache—he looked at me like I was a polite acquaintance at most, at worst, a stranger. I didn’t want to be a stranger.
I lifted the umbrella and shook it a bit, trying to manage a smile. “You left this at my apartment.”
He threw it in the backseat. “Thanks.”
I patted my hands against my thighs. “Well, that’s all, I guess.” But something kept me from moving, some invisible force rooted my shoes to the pavement.
“Did you have sex with him?” he suddenly asked.
My lips parted on a sharp breath. “That’s none of your business.”
“You’re right,” he said, but neither of us moved.
I felt angry all of a sudden, irritated by his calmness, by the force of his gaze and how I felt like I couldn’t get out from under it. And a renewed anger filled me as I remembered his comment from the night before. “Of course, since I’m not staying with him because I love him, it
must
be the awesome sex, so maybe you shouldn’t even ask.”
His lips tightened. A line appeared at one corner. “I might be thought of as a nice guy, but you know I won’t just lie down and take it when you try to push me. Here’s what I think—”
“Maybe I don’t care what you think.”
He acted like I hadn’t spoken. “I don’t think the sex was that good. I’ve felt you respond to me; would you react like that if he’d satisfied you?”
“I don’t have to listen to this,” I hissed, furious. I stepped back, but he caught my hand. His grip wasn’t painful but it was firm.
“You’re lying to yourself, Dani.”
“How dare you—”
“You were with him so long because you thought your heart was safe. You knew he would never touch it. And right now, you’re still using him.”
“How can I be using him?” I cried. “He showed up at
my
door!”
“You think staying with him will keep you safe from me, from what you feel when you’re with me. You know you already want me more than you ever wanted him.”
I wrenched out of his grasp. “You egotistical …” Words failed me.
“You want me,” he repeated. “Things would be a hell of a lot easier for both of us if you’d just admit it.”
“No,” I said, and then was angry with myself because it sounded more like I was saying, no, I wouldn’t admit it, not no, it wasn’t true.
“You could have left the umbrella by my desk. There’s no reason you had to talk to me. And that phone call the other day … what was that?”
“What do you mean, what was that?”
Evan’s lips tightened. He was starting to look about as furious as I felt. “So you’re saying that happens to you all the time? There was nothing special about it. You just text a guy with your problems and things start to get sexual as a natural course of events?”
I shook my head wordlessly.
“Maybe there’s a list? Dani’s bored, who should she mess with today?”
“Stop it,” I said tightly, but he didn’t listen. He just kept going, each word starting to feel like a spike through the skin.
“I at least hope I’m higher on the list than he is. If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t sit around whining about how I’m not having fun with you. We’d be too busy fucking to—”
I placed my hands on his chest and shoved. Hard. He actually stepped back from the force of it.
I’d never shoved anyone before in my life.
But still, it did nothing to ease my furious breathing, or the white-hot feeling that swept down my spine.
“Coward,” he said, softly.
I gritted my teeth. I moved forward just to shove him again. That was my mistake. I put myself within easy reach of him, and he took advantage of it.
His hands circled my arms just above my elbows; he dragged me forward, and I stumbled toward him. I tilted my head up to look straight into his eyes as I said something nasty, but my words were cut off by his lips. A soft, sweet pressure.
I pulled my hand back, ready to hit him, but with one more tug I tilted, crashing into him, my breasts pressed against his chest.