I stormed past him without replying.
It took me three attempts to get the damn thing to stop, partly because the touchpad was more of a punchpad and partly because I was still furious and shaky that Andrew had caused the problem in the first place.
“Nice space. A little bigger than mine, I’m jealous.” I heard his voice echo behind me, which meant that he’d let himself inagain.
“Can you please leave?” I turned around to where he was peering at photos of recent graduates that lined the wall. “I’m trying to reset the alarm,” I lied. It was going to stay off until Mike fixed it once and for all.
The space was dark and I didn’t like being in the stillness with him. I didn’t like beinganywherewith him. The forced civility between us was making me feel unbalanced and I wasn’t prepared to fake it with him any more than I had to.
“Okay, sorry,” he said. “I’ll wait in the parking lot.”
“You don’t have to wait for—”
The door slammed shut behind him and I followed shortly after without setting the alarm.
“All good?” Andrew was leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed when I came out, looking around like he was doing surveillance or something. Why couldn’t he understand that I didn’t need him to do anything for me?
“It’s fine. It happens all the time, not a big deal.”
I fished my keys out of my pocket with my good arm and jangled them so he’d get the hint that I was ready to leave.
“Well, seems like it would be pretty annoying to me, getting dragged out at night in your pajamas,” Andrew said, pointing at my outfit and lingering on the Birkenstocks and socks part of it. I braced myself for a comment that thankfully didn’t come. “Is the landlord an asshole? He seemed okay the few times I met him.”
I sighed, remembering that Andrew was never one to take a hint. “He’s pretty absentminded. Cuts corners. Raises the rent every year. The usual commercial landlord stuff.” I took a step toward my car to make it even more obvious that I wanted to leave.
“Got it.” He nodded. “I’m sure you heard that Nolan and Samantha will be back for Christmas. Obviously they’re bringing Mia too.”
The news hit me like an unexpected dropkick. Ihadn’theard that my best friend, her husband, and their two-year-old were coming home from his assignment in Tokyo for Christmas because I hadn’t connected with her in weeks. Maybe months. I could blame the time zone difference for not picking up her calls. And she was busy with her toddler half a world away, so it was no wonder she was slow to respond to my texts. There were perfectly good reasons why I wasn’t the first person she told about the trip.
“Yeah, it’s great,” I answered vaguely, unwilling to give him a window into the way I was really feeling about it. “It’ll be good to see them. And little Mia.”
“You and Sam still talk a lot? Me and Nolan are in a Call of Duty league so it feels like he’s still around, you know?”
I felt a twinge of envy. “We connect when we can.”
“Maybe the four of us can hang out—”
It finally broke me. The fakeness. I couldn’t keep pretending that I was okay with him trying to take up space in my life after what had happened between us.
“Why are you here, Andrew?” I’d wanted to sound confident but my voice came out thin, almost whiny.
A shadow of confusion crossed his face as he pointed over his shoulder. “Unloading. Setting up. I still have a ton to do before I open.”
“No. Why are youhere?” I flicked my good hand to the ground beneath my feet emphatically, and I was tempted to stomp my foot like a child. “Of all the places you could’ve set up your business why did you have to choose righthere? This ismyspot.”
“Oh, okay.” He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and swiped his hands over his face. “So we’re going to do this now?”
“Yes, now. Because I’m very confused by your choices, Andrew.”
He fixed his black eyes on me with a glare that sent a shiver along my skin. The man had the most expressive eyebrows even when he wasn’t using them to furrow at me, with an arch that looked like it had been expertly threaded. Between the brows and the laser crosshairs of the Gibson Glare I felt paralyzed. I folded my arms over my chest and stood my ground.
“Not that I owe you an explanation,” he said, refusing to break off eye contact in his annoyingly intense way, “but after I left the Commanders I looked around for the right place to open my space. DC and northern Virginia were out because they’re too expensive and already packed with gyms, so I looked to come back north. Obviously the ’ville wasn’t an option.”
Andrew’s hometown was thirty minutes away and still mainly farmland.
“And I’ve always loved hanging out with Nolan around here,” he continued. “I’ve been searching for a while but nothing was quite right, until this space opened up. It’s perfect for me.”
“Well, it’s not perfect for me.” My voice cracked a little and I quickly cleared my throat to try to cover it.
