16. Kai #2
My attention sharpens. What the fuck are they talking about? Julia shakes her head. Tessa grins. Julia says something longer this time, gesturing once with the wineglass in her hand. Tessa appears delighted by the answer.
Michael.
The name appears in my head like an insult. Of course it could be Michael. Respectful, attractive, professionally appropriate Michael, who apparently understands boundaries well enough to accept rejection without becoming a problem.
Asshole.
The fact that I have absolutely no legitimate reason to dislike him has never made disliking him particularly difficult.
Maybe Tessa is encouraging Julia to reconsider.
Maybe they are discussing the fact that he asked her out.
Maybe Julia is explaining why she said no or maybe none of this has anything to do with him.
The letter could have made her blush too.
That possibility slides through me differently.
I watch Julia take another drink of wine and her eyes move briefly toward the hallway, toward the console table.
My pulse changes. Is that where she put it?
She looks away again almost immediately, and I have no way of knowing whether the movement meant anything.
Ghost doesn’t need certainty. He likes the possibility.
She kept it.
I already know that much, or at least I believe I do.
She didn’t mention the letter during therapy.
She arrived distracted, gave me several opportunities to notice something was wrong and then deliberately kept whatever occupied her thoughts to herself.
The clinical interpretation is easy enough.
People with Julia’s history often protect information until they understand their own response to it.
She may not yet know whether the letter frightened her enough to report, whether it represents an isolated event or whether giving it attention risks making it larger than it is.
Ghost’s interpretation remains considerably simpler.
Good girl.
I stay until Tessa falls asleep on the sofa.
Julia notices before long and takes a photograph of her.
I know because I see the flash of her phone screen, followed by the expression of someone deeply satisfied with having acquired future blackmail material.
Then she covers her friend with a blanket.
The gesture is so instinctive that she barely seems aware of doing it.
I think of what she told me in therapy, how quickly she sees what other people need and how naturally she gives.
My chest tightens again. Eventually Julia turns off the television and walks upstairs.
I leave only after the bedroom light goes dark.
Sunday should be enough. Three nights in a row would qualify as a pattern even if the behavior itself didn’t already qualify as stalking.
I spend most of the day finding reasons not to return.
Laundry. Groceries. Notes that need updating.
A long call with someone from the safe house regarding funding for a security-system upgrade.
I go to the gym later than usual and stay until my shoulders ache, then make dinner rather than eating at Mara’s because I have no interest in answering questions about why I’m distracted.
At nine forty-seven, I’m on the motorcycle.
Apparently self-awareness is not the same thing as self-control.
Tessa’s car is gone when I reach Julia’s street.
The house is quiet again. I settle into the trees and immediately notice the difference.
Last night, almost every downstairs light was on. Tonight there is only the warm lamp beside the sofa, a smaller light farther toward the kitchen and the flickering television.
Julia is alone. She wears another oversized shirt, dark this time, with bare legs tucked beneath a blanket on the sofa.
Her hair is loose and slightly messy, as though she ran her hands through it instead of bothering with anything more complicated.
She looks tired. Comfortable and absolutely beautiful.
I fucking hate that word because it doesn’t explain anything.
Beautiful is too polished for what draws me to her here.
Julia is attractive in my office. That is objective enough that pretending otherwise would be idiotic.
This is something else. There is flour dusting her hip on Saturday because she wiped her hand against her leggings without noticing.
There is the way she bites the inside of her cheek while reading something on her phone, the way she checks the refrigerator twice within fifteen minutes as if better options might spontaneously appear, the way she presses both feet beneath her thighs when she gets cold instead of getting up for socks.
Little things. Nothing anyone would photograph, nothing she would think worth mentioning.
Those are the things I come back for. The television light changes across her face.
For a while she watches without much interest, checking her phone twice and setting it facedown again.
Then her attention stays on the screen. Something shifts.
It takes me a moment to understand what I’m seeing.
Her posture changes first. She settles farther into the couch, eyes fixed on whatever is happening in front of her.
The blanket remains pulled over her lap, concealing everything below her waist, but her face becomes different enough that I stop breathing normally.
Fuck. I should turn away.
The thought is immediate, clear and absolutely correct.
But I don’t move because her lips part slightly.
One hand disappears beneath the blanket.
Heat tears through me so violently that I have to shift my weight against the tree behind me.
There is nothing to see. Not really. The blanket covers her completely from the waist down.
The distance and glass eliminate anything that could reasonably be called detail.
I don’t need fucking detail. Her face tells me everything.
Her eyes close for several seconds before opening again, unfocused now, attention no longer on the television.
Her head tips back against the couch cushion while her breathing changes in small movements I can see in her chest. My hands curl at my sides.
Leave.
I remain where I am. Because — fuck!