“Come on. Don’t be mad about that. You were heading out. I figured you wouldn’t want me explaining that you spent your birthday with me after I found you crying alone out here.”
The memory of that night stung. “So you ignored me for my benefit? Thank you for that. Let me repay you.” I turned and walked down the hall—away from Dad’s apartment. I made it only a few steps when I slowed. That direction didn’t hold many more options for me than the other one did.
“I wasn’t ignoring you. I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of your boyfriend.”
“Adam’s not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever you say, Jolene.” Then he stepped to the side, leaving the door to his apartment wide-open. “You want to come in or...?” His gaze slid past me to rest on the door to Dad’s apartment.
What I wanted was to hang out with Adam, but that door had literally been shut in my face. My other option wasn’t an option at all. And Guy knew that.
It would have been awkward to explain how Guy and I had met. Plus, Adam’s dad might have gotten the wrong idea, and it wasn’t like I needed to give him another reason to dislike me. Adam might have gotten the wrong idea, too, and I definitely didn’t need that.
Sometimes, when I thought about it,Igot the wrong idea. Even though Guy hadn’t done anything besides feed me and listen to me. He hadn’t tried to touch me or anything. The whole thing was innocent. And I needed his help if I was going to submit my application for the film program. Still, it nagged at me that I had to mentally tell myself that it was okay for us to hang out.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
We ended up watching a movie. It was an old black-and-white film that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Guy loved it. He kept commenting on the brilliance of a camera angle, or a line of dialogue that I had to admit was impressive. He wanted me to watch another movie after that, and when I said sure, he pushed himself off the couch by putting one hand on the armrest and the other on my knee. The touch lasted like two seconds tops. He didn’t look at me or let his hand linger or anything. But I still jumped a little. I mentally shook myself, grateful he hadn’t noticed my reaction, as Guy busied himself switching the movies.
Remote in hand, Guy joined me back on the couch, where I was still sitting rather stiffly despite telling myself to relax. “Cold?”
I shook my head.
“You look cold.” His upper body leaned over mine, against mine, and my breath strangled in my throat. Guy didn’t pull back. He turned his head and flicked his eyebrows up at me. “I’m just grabbing you the throw.” He drew my gaze to a fuzzy gray blanket that I hadn’t noticed. He was already fisting it in his hand when I looked, had been since the second he leaned—not over me, but past me. I tried to shrink back into the cushion, worried that he’d suggest I leave because I kept freaking out over nothing. But he didn’t.
He dropped the throw, and his hand sank into the cushion by my thigh. He was still leaning across me, so we were face-to-face when I looked up. “Jolene. You don’t have to be scared around me. I have an idea of what your life is like. I get it, okay?” He shifted, and my leg rocked against his wrist. “I know what it’s like to feel like no one wants you, like you don’t belong anywhere. You don’t have to feel like that. I don’t care what’s going on out there.” He jerked his head toward the hall. “It never gets past that door. You can always come here. Do you believe that?”
No. It was stupid. He was trying to force a bonding moment between us. He was being so serious, like I was fragile or something. He barely knew me. I belonged everywhere. Wherever I wanted to be.
He stayed just as close to me, but I stopped worrying about it. He was acting concerned about me, which, maybe he was. Maybe I’d given him reason to be, considering my birthday meltdown. He didn’t know that had been a onetime thing. A weird convergence of events that had erupted in a never-to-be-repeated way. But the concerned look on Guy’s face, and the way he’d lifted one hand to my shoulder and rubbed tiny circles on it with his thumb, made me realize he wasn’t going to take my word for it. He’d been nice, or what passed for nice to me, and even though I was growing uncomfortable, it would make him uncomfortable if I said anything; that was the last thing I wanted.
“You’re offering your apartment as a neutral zone. Got it.” Then I pointed toward the TV. “We should probably start the movie though, before it gets too late.”
“Right,” Guy said. “Wouldn’t want you to miss bed check.” He tried to soften the sting of his words by smiling, but I regretted sharing some details with him the other night when I hadn’t had my usual filter on. I’d told him plenty. He knew no one was going to come check on me.
I shrugged his hand off my shoulder.
“Hey, hey.” He sighed, and his breath ruffled my hair. “That wasn’t directed at you, okay? People should care enough about you to wonder where you are. That’s all I meant.”
“Sure, fine, but can we please watch the movie now?”
He relented, eventually, after pulling the almost forgotten throw over me, then he left one arm across the back of the couch.
I had the weirdest thought while the opening credits started. There I was with a near stranger, and he was taking better care of me than my parents. My own dad didn’t even know where I was. He didn’t care, so long as he kept me away from Mom for the exact same window of time every month. And she was no better.
Guy had to wake me up when the movie ended. His arm had slid around my back, because I’d slumped onto him. He said he didn’t mind, and I got the sense that he was telling the truth. Nothing I’d done had bothered him. Maybe he really was a nice guy.
I didn’t stiffen when he hugged me at the door. I was starting to get used to the fact that he was a touchy-feely kind of guy.
“So,” he said, still in mid-hug. “Next time I run into you with a bunch of people, what do you want me to say?”
“Hiusually works.”
“Is that it?”
I pulled free from his hug easily. He was talking about more than proper greeting etiquette. It made my skin prickle uncomfortably that this was something we had to have a conversation about. “What do you think?”
Guy looked me straight in the eye before answering. “I think that there are lots of different kinds of people with lots of different kinds of ideas. We don’t always consider things from all angles before we make judgments.”
