“I was sick for a while,” he explains. “And then when I finally started feeling better, I was so behind on work that I’ve been pulling all-nighters trying to catch up. And what with my most active team being halfway across the world…I think my body finally gave out.” He grimaces. “I realize I never responded to your messages. I’m sorry. I kept meaning to, and then I’d get stuck putting out another fire.”
I frown, my annoyance flaring when he confirms that he did, in fact, ignore me.
“You realize I’m not the best girl to use the ‘I’m busy’ excuse on, right?” I say. “It would’ve taken two seconds for you to text me back.”
“I know, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” Julian says. He drapes himself onto the table, looking up at me with pitiable brown puppy eyes. “And if it does, you should break up with me immediately. I’ll deserve it.”
“Break up with you?” I scoff. “Didn’t realize it was that serious.”
Julian straightens, affronted, and I realize that he was neither joking nor using a figure of speech.
“It isn’t? But weareonly dating each other, right?” he asks, gesturing between us. Another revelation falls over his face, and it folds into an expression that is one part horror, one part hurt. “Wait. I’ve been calling you my girlfriend. What have you been calling me?”
“Hold on,” I say. “You’re joking, right?”
“Why would I be joking?”
Julian crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, and the look he’s giving me is accusatory, as if I’m the one in the wrong. And hell if I’m going to allow him to put me under the spotlight right now.
“Um, maybe because you took me on a date, brought me home, and then didn’t talk to me for a week?”And after what we’d discussed, I almost add, but I feel too raw to let him that close again. “That’s not exactly how you treat a girlfriend. If Leila hadn’t asked me to check on you, I would’ve assumed that was a message in and of itself and blocked you.”
I tug my robe closed and turn toward the twinkling Chicago skyline. I’m not sure where my accumulated hurt went in the last several hours, but it’s back now, squeezing my chest so tight that it’s hard to breathe deep and even harder to face him. With it comes anger. Anger at myself, because how could I still sleep with him after he treated me so poorly? Why haven’t I walked away? Anger at him too, formaking me question my own carefully rebuilt self-worth. And anger at the universe, for bringing a person into my life whose soul seems to resonate so beautifully with mine, but in the form of such aboy.
There’s a creak and groan: Julian pushing his chair back and making to stand. I listen to his footsteps as he circles the table, curl my fists tighter when his torso enters my peripheral vision.
“Sean,” he pleads. When I don’t budge, he drops to his knees in front of my chair.
I’m too shocked by the gesture to notice that he’s succeeded in regaining my attention until it’s too late.
“I’m sorry. It was wrong of me not to respond to you,” Julian says. He peels my hands off the table and closes them between his. “I reasoned that the next time we spoke, it should be about, well, us. And I didn’t feel like I was in the physical or mental space to have that conversation, and so I avoided it altogether. And with every day that went by, it felt even more impossible, because I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I, erm, never really know what to say to you.”
His honesty stuns me temporarily into silence.
“Yes you do,” I say. “You always say the right things.”Practiced, I’d thought, when we first met.
But Julian is shaking his head.
“No, I don’t,” he insists. “I genuinely don’t like people. But I like you. And that makes me skittish, and foolish, because I want to do things therightway with you, but I don’t know what the right way is.” He pauses, chuckles nervously. “What we got up to tonight probably wasn’t it, though.”
“I have no complaints about anything we did tonight,” I interject. I don’t add what I’m thinking: that if he gave me one inkling that he’s down for a second round, I would drag him back to his bedroom myself.
The light comes back into Julian’s eyes.
“You’ve already forgiven me, haven’t you,” he says, just a little wickedly.
I pout and look away, but after his little admission, it’s taking genuine effort to stay upset. The online dating gurus were clear as day about situations like this:Don’t let a man show you he doesn’t want you more than once.But none of them have beheld Julian’s face, felt his grip dimple their thighs. They might allow him a couple more tries if they did.
Recognizing victory, Julian grins, bracing himself on the arms of my chair to place a kiss on the corner of my mouth, my cheek, my forehead. When I scrunch my nose, he goes for the kill, grabbing my face between his hands to rain a torrent of noisy kisses on my face as I squeal and twist out of his grasp.
“You’re a terror,” I whine in between giggles.
“And you have a horrible savior complex, turning up with a whole medicine bag even though I’d just done you wrong,” he says, ending his offensive by pulling me into an embrace.
I twine my arms around his neck, let him rest his head on my bosom, and breathe him in.
“You can’t just charm your way out of this, you know,” I say, knowing damn well that he already has.
Julian’s quiet laughter rumbles through my chest.