“Can I help you?” The girl’s nose was freckled and peeling, her auburn hair pulled back in a careless ponytail. Her green eyes widened, waiting for me to say something. I checked the number beside the door, even though I recognized the furniture and posters inside.
“Is Julian here?”
Her sun-kissed forehead wrinkled as if she was trying to place me. She held the door open and moved to let me by. “Go ahead in. He’s in his room.”
I thanked her and stepped inside. Open pizza boxes covered the kitchen counters and crushed cans overflowed the recycling bin on the floor. The sofa and love seat were crammed with bodies. A few heads turned from the flat-screen TV as the door shut behind me. The girl’s curious stare was heavy on my back, watching me pick my way to Julian’s bedroom. The fact that she hadn’t pointed out which one was his felt like a test, but it was too late to pretend I hadn’t been here before.
His door was cracked. I held up my hand but couldn’t make myself knock. I couldn’t get past the idea that he’d locked down his accounts. That there were things about his life he didn’t want me to know. I turned, ready to slip quietly out of his apartment, when his door opened.
“Hey!” I spun around as Julian dragged a T-shirt over his head. His curls were wild and slept on, his bare feet poking out from under the shredded hems of a faded pair of jeans. He rubbed his eyes, as if he’d just woken up. “I wasn’t expecting you. What are you doing here?” He drew me in for an awkward hug. His T-shirt smelled faintly of sun lotion, and his eyes were a mix of whisky and sea-foam against the sun-bleached streaks in his hair.
Tucked in the hollow of his chest, I met the curious gazes of his friends. My cheeks warmed, and I pushed out of his embrace. “Sorry,” I said over the blare of the TV, “I would have called, but I lost my phone. I thought maybe you were trying to reach me.” I shook my head. How stupid did that sound?
Julian took my hand and led me into his bedroom, closing the door behind him so it was barely cracked. I took in the disarray of his room: his rumpled sheets and the stacks of law books on his dresser. A duffel bag lay open at the foot of his bed, its sand-crusted contents spilling onto the floor.
“I was trying to call.” He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I dropped by your place when I rolled into town last night. I left you a note.”
“I saw.”
“I would have knocked, but I was afraid I’d wake you. Besides, I couldn’t stay. The bar was short-staffed and my boss asked me to cover. I left your place and went straight to The Lush.” His frown deepened. He brushed my hair back from my face. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.” I couldn’t make my smile hold a convincing shape. There was a dead guy in my washing machine （or, at least, part of one, which might actually be worse）。 Someone was trying to murder my ex, there was a suntanned girl in Julian’s kitchen, his social media accounts were set to private, and he wanted to have a talk.
A sudden cheer erupted in the living room. Someone pounded on the wall and shouted, “Get out here, Baker! You’re missing the second half of the game!” Julian rolled his eyes. Murmurs rose over the dimmed volume of the TV commercials, followed by laughter. “Who’s the cougar?” one of them asked.
“She’s kind of hot,” said another.
“She’s no one,” a female voice chimed in. “Just someone he met at the bar. They’re not serious.”
I pulled out of Julian’s arms, my cheeks flaming. “I didn’t know you were having a party. I can go.”
He held fast to my hand, turning my face to his. “Don’t pay any attention to them. My roommate invited a few people over to watch the game. They’re just trying to get under my skin.” He toed the door shut, inciting another round of laughter from the next room. These were probably the same friends he’d gone to the beach with. An uncomfortable feeling I wasn’t ready to name left my stomach unsettled when I pictured Julian spending the week with the cute redhead who’d answered his door.
“I can come back when you don’t have company.”
He shook his head as he backed me gently against the wall. His mouth grazed mine and his eyes drifted closed. “They have really short attention spans. Two more minutes and they’ll forget you’re even here.”
I tried to relax into him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be. The closed door. Their stares and laughter. The fact that none of them knew my name or who I was. It all pointed to the fact that I didn’t belong here. For all the same reasons I hadn’t invited him to my house to meet my kids—because we were both compartmentalizing this. Us. The pieces of our lives that didn’t fit in the same box.