Chapter 15
fifteen
OLEANDER
Rowan had leaned over the bar and told me the address. He didn't ask if I was free. He didn't ask if I was ready. He simply stated that I should be there at eight, then turned away to finish a conversation with a regular that I hadn't even noticed was happening.
I stood on the sidewalk outside their building. The fog was sitting heavy and low, hugging the base of the Victorian rowhouses. I expected a confrontation.
When Rowan opened the door, the air that hit me was cool and smelled faintly of cedar and rain.
The apartment was a shock of white space and hard lines, monastic, almost startlingly sparse for a man as physically loud as Rowan.
A bed in the corner, neatly made with dark grey linens.
A table with three chairs. Books stacked in towers against the far wall, organized by height rather than subject.
"You're exactly on time," Rowan said. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just a pair of dark trousers that hung low on his hips, his skin a map of scars and muscle. He stood there, waiting for me to choose to walk past him.
I stepped into the room. Julian was sitting on the kitchen counter, his long legs dangling, a book open in his lap. He didn't look up immediately, but the set of his shoulders was relaxed, making it clear this wasn't a secret meeting.
Rowan closed the door and the click of the latch felt final. He walked into the center of the room and looked at me. "We aren't going to dance around this, Oleander. I don't have the patience for it, and Julian doesn't have the stomach for it."
"Dance around what?" I asked, though the answer was already burning in the back of my throat. Julian raised his head. His dark eyes were calm, but there was a weariness there that mirrored my own.
"I want you," Rowan said. He said it like he was reporting the weather.
"I want you in this bed. I want you in this life.
And I want you knowing that Julian knows exactly what I'm saying.
I want you knowing that Theo is already halfway under your skin, too.
I don't do things halfway, and I don't do them in the dark. "
I thought of the notebook hidden under my mattress. I thought of the shadows in my apartment and the cologne that clung to the curtains. Rowan was offering transparency and I was built out of half-truths.
"You don't even know me," I whispered. I moved toward the stack of books, needing something to do with my hands. "You met me in a bar. We had one night. That isn't a life."
Julian spoke then, without looking up from his page. "What he's not saying is that he hasn't slept properly since your night together. He paces. He watches the door. He's been driving me absolutely insane for a week, and frankly, I'd like my quiet apartment back."
There was a flicker of humor in the corner of his mouth. He was extending an opening with one hand while keeping his guard in place with the other. He wasn't rejecting the chaos I brought. He was just tired of the waiting.
"You're offering me honesty," I said. "And I'm standing here with a closet full of things I haven't told you." My pulse was loud in my ears.
Julian closed his book and slid off the counter, walking toward me until he was inches away. He reached out, his fingers hovering near my wrist. "Then tell us when you're ready. But don't leave because you think you don't deserve to be here."
Rowan was behind me now. I was caught between them, and the part of me that wanted to collapse into it was winning.
"Make a choice," Rowan said, close enough that I could feel his breath on my temple. "Stay and have a drink. Talk to us. Or walk out that door and keep pretending that you're just a visitor passing through."
I looked at the door, then back at Julian's face. The apartment was still. No ghosts. No phantom scents. Just two men offering me something I was terrified of: a version of the future that didn't require me to be a martyr for the past.
"Not tonight," I said. It wasn't a no. We both knew it.
Julian nodded. He stepped back. Rowan didn't move for a long second, then stepped aside, clearing the path to the door.
"The door isn't locked," Rowan said. He walked back to the table and sat down. He didn't watch me leave.
I walked out. The air was colder in the hallway. I made it to the sidewalk and stood there, breathing in the fog, and I knew I was going to come back. Not tonight. But soon.
I called Liliana from the sidewalk. She answered on the first ring and the first thing out of my mouth was about the men I was slowly falling for.
I told her about Rowan's bluntness, Julian's music, Theo's camera.
I told her about the apartment, the way they looked at me like I was a person and not a tragedy.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "Oleander. Dominic has been dead for seven months."
"I know that."
"Do you? Because you moved into his secret apartment in his secret town, and now you're falling for three men at once while you're surrounded by his ghosts. None of that sounds like a person who knows their husband is dead. It sounds like someone trying to stay married to a corpse."
I didn't have an argument for that. She was right. If I was haunted, I wasn't alone. If I was haunted, I didn't have to decide what my life looked like without him.
"Go home, Oleander," she said. "Just be careful. Those men might be real, but the town isn't on your side."
I hung up and started the walk back. Halfway home, I heard footsteps behind me. They matched my pace exactly. When I sped up, they sped up. I spun around at the corner and the street was empty. Just fog and the wind through the broken steeple.
I ran the rest of the way.
Inside the apartment, Dominic's cologne was waiting for me. I locked every bolt and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark. The door Rowan had opened was still there. So was the cage Dominic had built. I was somewhere between the two, and for the first time, I knew which direction I was leaning.