The sound of his voice is a fist closing around my throat. Squeezing off the little bit of air I have left after an exhaustive twelve-hour shift and a commute home. He pushes off the wall. The hood of his sweatshirt falls back just enough for the streetlight to catch the hollows carved into his cheeks. His eyes look wired and half-dead at the same time.
Once, a long time ago, I thought those eyes looked like my safety. Like home. Now, they look like a problem I thought I’d already solved.
I stop at the bottom step, one foot on the concrete, one on the first riser, my bag strap cutting into my palm.
“What are you doing here, Jose?”
I’m pleased when my voice doesn’t break, when it comes out flat and professional. Like I’m about to update a difficult family in the waiting room. He smiles like this is funny. Like this is fate, like he just happens to be standing outside my building at the exact time I get home.
“Can’t a man say hello to his wife?”
His head tilts, that old charming angle he used to weaponize in every argument, every apology.
Ex-wife.
The word sits on my tongue, sharp, but I don’t spit it yet. I take another step up, closing the distance just enough so my building is at my back, my door behind him in my eyeline.
“Not at this time of night. Not outside my apartment. No. You can’t.”
He lifts his shoulders, as if this is all a misunderstanding. Palms flash briefly in the streetlight.
“Relax, Sof. I’m just here, breathing air. You’re not the only one who lives in this area, you know.”
Where he lives, I don’t know, and I don’t care. The way he says my nickname makes my skin try to crawl right off my bones.
“You need to leave. Leave me alone.”
I don’t raise my voice. I learned long ago not to give him anything extra. Just those seven words.
His gaze slides over me. My scrubs under my coat, my tired face, my badge still clipped and forgotten at my neckline. Then flicks past my shoulder, to the corners where the building cameras don’t quite catch. To the empty sidewalks and dark windows. He’s checking for an audience, for backup, for what he can get away with.
My pulse spikes. A very uneasy feeling slides over my skin.
“You always get so dramatic when you’re tired.” His mouth twists into something that wants to be a grin but never quite makes it. “I saw you the other night, you know. You didn’t look so tense then.”
Ice water pours straight down my spine.
“What are you talking about?”
His eyebrows shoot up.
“Come on, mi amor. You think a car like that pulls up on this block and I don’t notice? Black, shiny doors that open like a spaceship?” His hands mimic gullwing doors, mocking. “And the way you got out of it, with him right behind you, walking you to your door like you’re made of glass.”
Massimo’s face flashes behind my eyes. The frown when he saw the old lock. The way he paced my tiny living room, and he checked every closet, every corner, every ridiculous little spot before he whisked me away to his place. To safety and security.
“That’s none of your business.” I make sure my tone is as flat as an EKG on a lost cause. “You don’t get to stand in front of my home and comment on anything you see here. Not the car. Not the man. Not me.”
“Oh, I think I do.” He pushes off the wall, takes two slow steps closer, like we’re dancing. “When some rich asshole rolls through my neighborhood, changing locks, dropping off my ex-wife at night like he’s the king of the block? That’s my business.”
My fingers curl so tight around the bag strap that I feel my nails bite my palm. Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t asked for space. Didn’t decline his text message saying he could still take me anywhere. Day or night, and we wouldn’t even have to talk. Now I regret it all.
“This is not your building. It’s not your business, remember? Divorce does that.”
He flinches at the word, just barely, then masks it with a scoff.
“Paper doesn’t change history. Doesn’t change what we had. What we are.”
“It changes what you’re allowed to do to me now.” The words come faster, smoother, as if they’ve been waiting on the tip of my tongue for years. Even if my heart is flip flopping in my chest. Even if I’m looking around for help and finding none. “You don’t get to be outside my building waiting for me. You don’t get to watch when I come home. You definitely don’t get to keep tabs on who drops me off.”
