“Aren’t you supposed to be in Austin?” I ask.
“I will be,” Julian supplies. “Flight leaves in the afternoon. I figured I could sneak in a visit.”
I hum, kissing the corner of his mouth, then the center.
“And while it is very appreciated, you need to stop showing up at my work unannounced,” I chide. “One day I’m going to just leave you in the waiting room.”
Julian looks down at me from below his eyelashes.
“Do you want me to text you before?” he asks.
“Please,” I say. I run my hand over his shoulder, down the solid curve of his triceps until I’m cradling his elbow in my palm. “The surprises are nice. But I would prefer that, yes.”
“Noted,” he says. I wait for the excuse, for him to argue that this way is more romantic orjust his way of showing affection, but he doesn’t give that. Instead he drops his forehead to mine.
“My team is meeting with Jared soon,” he tells me. “He sent me an email, you know. Not long after we ran into him at the art center. It was full of praise for you.”
The mention of my ex’s brother throws me for a bit of a loop, and I blink away, hoping the knot in my chest loosens.
“Was it?” I say.
I can feel Julian’s gaze on the side of my face. He nudges me back to his eyes, and I meet them.
“Yes,” Julian says. “You’re an incredible woman, and you make an impact on others. It was just nice to see evidence of that.”
I snatch my gaze back. I feel like a live wire, exposed and poised to spark. I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me the way that he does, with such naked adulation that it makes me squirm. It’s a reverence reserved for miracles and gods. I’m too small, too human, I think, to be regarded with such worship.
“Yeah, you have to leave,” I say.
I feel Julian smirk. He presses a final kiss to my lips, then reaches around me for the card on my desk.
“Remember that you signed this,” he says. “So you’re going to have to get used to me. I’ll be much harder to get rid of.”
His declaration gives me pause because it sounds more like an admission. Like he’s telling me that he’s been holding back and that I should prepare myself for who he may become now that he isn’t.
Chill, Sean, a voice suspiciously like Winny’s warns me.
“Sure, sure, but I’m getting rid of you right now. I have patients to see, I can’t be in heresimpering.” I make a show of pushing his back toward the door. He laughs, then grabs my hand for a final kiss.
“Call me tonight?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, throwing open the door. “Now scram.”
Nineteen
The thing about being properly loved for the first time is it exposes all the ways in which you weren’t before. I’d spent the last eight years of my life fearing relationships, my apprehension only affirmed after watching Winona and countless other women in my circle shrink under the weight of partners who were thoughtless at best, patriarchal at minimum, and, in the worst cases, life-threateningly dangerous. Love, I’d decided, was mostly myth, a fairy tale sold to young girls to con them into signing on to their own servitude.
But Julian spends the next three months challenging this long-held paradigm. His affection and consideration is consistent to a degree that I wouldn’t have thought possible. I end many a long day in the cath lab with a text asking when I think I’ll be making it home followed by a hot dinner waiting for me in my apartment lobby perfectly timed to my arrival, and I start many more to Julian waking up bright and early to catch me for my morning walk with Onix, with my favorite overly sweet latte in hand. The romance has ramped up too: long gone is the Sean of my twenties, who used to beg for flowers and coo over nuggets of affection. Julian delights in spoiling me; I once mentioned that I liked the look of an Anima Iris bag I’dseen on a red carpet only for him to present it to me two weeks later. But it’s the smaller, thoughtful trinkets that get me the most: a planter shaped like a pit bull for my small apartment garden, vanilla beans from his short trip to Costa Rica, reminders that no matter where he is, he’s thinking of me.
Being Julian’s is quiet. It’s soft. I don’t have to demand to be seen because he pays attention, understands that Onix is aging and comes to my apartment whenever he can, recognizes when I’ve had a tiring day at work or when one of my patients passes away and gives me the space to cry or vent or both. His busy schedule never seems to manifest as an excuse not to pour into me; we spend many evenings sitting across from each other at my dining table working in tandem, and many nights curled in each other’s arms, exchanging stories about his clients, my colleagues, the books we’re reading, the state of the world, before drifting off sweetly to sleep.
What we are not doing, however, is fucking.
“Wait, seriously?” Winona says in shock during our biweekly brunch debrief. “You haven’t slept together since then? Not one time?”
“No, Winny, not one time,” I hiss. Someone bumps my chair and I glower at them before rushing to fix my face; all my pent-up frustration is turning me feral. Winona covers her mouth to muffle her laughter, and I scowl back. “Don’t laugh! This is serious!”
“I know, I know,” Winona says, even as she dabs at her eyes. “Sorry, this is just…wasn’t this the same guy who had you in all sorts of compromising positions back in the day?”