His eyes narrowed in thought. “Okay, I think I understand, but give it to me straight.”
“It’s been eight years, Nate,” I said. “That’s not nothing at our age. We spent our entire twenties apart. That’s as good as a lifetime when you’re as young as we are.”
He didn’t argue with me, thankfully. “So that’s what you’re worried about.”
“We’re not the same people we were back then and we shouldn’t pretend like we are. There’s no guarantee that our marriage will work out. It might have, if we had gotten married when we were dating, but now, we just don’t really know each other anymore and I don’t want her to have to go into another marriage with an… acquaintance.”
Nate held my gaze for another second before he moved his slowly toward the windows. “That’s fair. No one ever has a guarantee that it’s going to work out, but it does seem like you’ve got a better shot when you know the person you’re saying yes to.”
The door opening interrupted us and Alex walked back in, his head shaking as he strode toward the table. “She’s not coming.”
Everything in me clenched, but Nate beat me to the punch in actually voicing the question. “What?”
“She’s not coming in to sign the papers today,” Alex repeated, swiping the folder he’d been reviewing earlier off the table when he reached it. “Apparently, she’s sick, so I’m sending a runner to her apartment.”
I pushed my chair back and stood just as Alex turned to leave again. “Give me the papers. I’ll go.”
He looked at me, nodded, and held the folder out toward me without argument. “Call me when it’s done.”
“Yeah. You got it.” I took the thick folder hanging between us, immediately wondering why it felt so much heavier than it should.
Technically, it was just a contract, but it held a weight that had nothing to do with paperwork, ink, and legalese. Nate leaned back in his chair, watching me leave with a worried expression on his face, and I knew that he was going to talk to Alex about it as soon as I left,
Let them gossip. For now, I was focused on getting to my sick ex-girlfriend to deliver papers she’d been waiting a year for. Even I couldn’t believe that the divorce was finally over—and I hadn’t even been in it for a month yet.
As I left our building, it wasn’t lost on me that up until this moment, the full extent of my knowledge or involvement with Adeline’s living situation had been sending a driver to pick her up. At least that meant I had her address, but I’d never even seen her building until I pulled up in front of it thirty minutes after leaving HQ.
It was a medium-sized block on the outskirts of downtown, in a quiet but slightly industrial neighborhood. After double-checking that I’d locked my car, I headed up to the front doors, surprised that there was no barrier to entry.
I didn’t even need to be buzzed in. The doors were propped wide open. A narrow stairwell led up to the apartments from a tiny room masquerading as a lobby. The faint echo of someone’s television two floors up drifted to my ears as I headed to her apartment on the third floor.
There was no elevator though, but I made it up the stairs without dying, a personal victory considering that the faint scratch in my throat had upgraded to a definite, persistent tightness in my chest on the drive over.
When I finally reached her door, I took a moment to catch my breath, which was ridiculous after only climbing three flights of stairs. I knocked. There was a brief moment of nothing from the other side. Then fast footsteps thundered against the floor.
“Me first!” someone yelled, and it sounded like it might’ve been Jennifer.
“No,me!” That had definitely been Lu. “I saidIget to open it!”
“I’m older!”
“You’re not the boss of me!”
The door swung open to reveal that Lu had gotten her way. She looked up at me, her face pale and her eyes glassy, but as soon as she registered who I was, she closed the door directly in my face.
I stared at the wood for a second, not really sure what to make of it, but then I heard Adeline’s voice. “Lu, no. We don’t slam doors in people’s faces. What did I say about manners?”
The door opened again with Jennifer standing on the other side this time. She was equally pale, but her cheeks were slightly flushed and her nose was bright red underneath. She smiled up at me through it all, looking genuinely not unhappy to see me.
“We have germs,” she announced almost proudly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand as if she was trying to prove her point.
“Clearly.” I smiled back at her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded like I’d passed some kind of test and stepped aside. “You can come in, but you’ll probably get sick.”
“That seems likely,” I agreed, crossing the threshold into the equivalent of a runaway Influenza A laboratory, but doing it without hesitation.
The apartment was small, but not uncomfortably so. Just compact. It was also lived-in, though. Toys were tucked into corners and there was a blanket draped over the back of the couch, empty bowls and mugs on the counter in the kitchen and the coffee table in what appeared to be the living area.
