“You sent Gerald home.”
“He’d been sitting out here for hours, Julian. I didn’t want to?—”
“To be an inconvenience? To accept help?” My hands tightened on the wheel. “That’s hisjob, Alyssa. You sent away my coverage for you and stood out here alone so amanwouldn’t have to do the job Ipayhim to do?”
“It was fine, Julian. I didn’t need?—”
“I don’t want to hear that.” It came out sharp enough to cut. “Every single time I reach for something, you’ve already got it, you don’t need it, you’refine. Tonight I’m fine meant a dark parking lot and two men doing math on you while you looked at your phone.”
She looked around the lot, at the men she hadn’t noticed, then dropped her head.
“Do you understand what went through my head when Gerald texted? Do you know what it’s like to picture you out here, exposed, because you’re too proud to accept basic safety measures?”
She flinched but lifted her chin. “I can handle myself, Julian. I’ve been doing it my whole life. You can’t expect me to just?—”
“Expect you to what? Let me cover you? Let me make sure you’re safe?” My voice rose before I could stop it. “I take care of the people I care about, Alyssa. That’s who I am. And if being together means I’m supposed to sit back and let you walk into the dark alone, then what the hell are we even doing?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying are we in this or not? Because I’m all the way in it, further than I’ve ever let myself be in anything, and you keep handing me back every part of myself I try to give you.”
She didn’t fire back the way I expected. Her voice came wet but level, lips trembling. “I know who you are, Julian. How you care for people is one of the best things about you. It’s bone-deep. But you do it for everybody. Your family. That label. Half this town. I don’t want to be one more person you carry. I want to be the one standingnextto you carrying things too.” She took a breath that shook. “Sometimes I worry that you think giving is the only thing you’re worth. And that’s not us.”
Part of what she said hit a floor in me, and for half a second I had nothing. She’d found a seam. Any other night I might’ve let her work it open, just to feel her hands that close to the thing.
But not tonight. I knew exactly what she was doing, because I do it too. When the heat comes for you, you point it at the other person and make them defend instead of answer. She’d just done it to me, clean as ever, and if I let her I’d spend the drive home talking about me, she’d never once have to look at the lot she’d been standing in.
“That’s a hell of a speech. Maybe there’s even something in it. But it is not what tonight is about, and you know it. This is you standing in the dark because you’d rather risk your neck than let one person do one thing for you. That’s not mine to carry. That’s yours.”
The fight drained out of her. “It’s not on purpose,” she said, quiet. “Sending him home, any of it. I don’t sit there and decide I don’t need you. It’s just what my hands do. It’s older than you.” A tear slid down and she let it. “I scared you and I wasn’t trying to. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t answer. I wanted to. There was a whole answer in me. But I was still up in it and I couldn’t make a single right word come out without it being a lie or a dig. So I said nothing, and I put the car in drive.
We rode back without a word. Somewhere on the highway she turned to the window and wiped her face with the back of her hand, fast, like she didn’t want me to see. Everything in me wanted to reachacross the console. I left my hand on the wheel, still too angry to be gentle, and she’d had enough fake-fine for one night. So had I.
At the condo,I walked her to her door. She got it open and turned around, and I watched her expect me to come in the way I always came in. Micah was in New Jersey for Spring Break with Simone, Raschad and their kids, and our plan was to spend every night of that week and a half tangled together. I watched the moment she understood I wasn’t coming in.
“Get some sleep, Alyssa.”
Her face started to fall and she folded it away before it finished. “Okay. Goodnight, Julian.”
I waited until the door closed and the lock turned. Then I rode up to the penthouse alone, with the whole night still riding in the seat she’d been in.
By morningmy anger had cooled into the memory of her face when I told her to get some sleep. I’d left her at a door, alone, because I was upset and spent the first half of the day deciding how I’d make it right that evening. I’d go to her, say I shouldn’t have left you like that, and mean it, and we’d start digging out of the rest of it together.
First, I had a day of back-to-back meetings ending with a four o’clock offsite with Cheryl. Cheryl had been one of my go-to realtors for five years. The kind who traded information like social currency but knew how to keep it just professional enough. We’d finished touring commercial properties when she paused by the door with that careful hesitation that meant she was fishing.
“Oh, before you go. Such a shame about that Main Street suite.”
I turned. “What about it?”
“The one Alyssa Carter was looking at.Beautifulspace, perfect size for a small practice.” She adjusted her portfolio, watching me. “The landlord ended up wanting more upfront than initially quoted. Due to her… um…credit. She seemedsodisappointed, poor thing.”
My throat tightened. Alyssa hadn’t mentioned that.
“I did wonder, when she pulled out, whether something had… changed between you two.”
“Changed?”
