20. Zoey
Zoey
By the time I reached my building, my feet had moved past irritation and into open hostility. Wearing heels had definitely been a mistake. Right now, they mostly made me feel like I was being punished for vanity.
Two police cars were parked outside the building.
I slowed on the sidewalk, my stomach tightening.
Two police cars seemed excessive for a broken window or a stolen package.
I pushed open the front door and ran up the stairs, my feet screaming the whole way.
Two officers stood near the stairwell, and sitting on the hallway bench between them was Liam.
He looked terrible, his shoulders pulled tight and his hands carefully still. His head was slightly lowered while the officers talked quietly beside him.
For a moment, something inside my chest reacted before my brain caught up with the situation.
Concern.
Protectiveness.
Then Markie’s voice echoed from down the hallway. “BAD DOG. INTRUDER.”
Right.
I closed my eyes briefly. “Fuck,” I muttered.
I leaned against the wall and bent down to pull off my heels.
“Let me take these damn things off before I deal with whatever the fuck is going on here.”
The first one came off easily. The second took effort. I flexed my toes against the floor. Relief moved through my feet immediately.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
One of the officers cleared his throat.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Do you know this man?”
I looked at Liam, and he finally lifted his head. The expression on his face landed somewhere uncomfortable in my chest.
Shame.
Regret.
And something heavier underneath both of those.
“Yes,” I said. “I know him.”
“We received a call from your residence reporting a break-in,” the officer said.
From down the hall, Markie shouted again. “INTRUDER.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Of course you did.”
The officer looked at Liam. “Sir?”
Liam sat very still, then he cleared his throat and said, “I brought you flowers.”
Both officers looked confused.
I blinked. “You brought… flowers.”
“Yes.” He nodded slightly toward the hallway. “They’re in your apartment now.”
One of the officers shifted his stance and looked between the two of us.
“Ma’am,” he said, “we just need to confirm what’s going on here.”
I rubbed my forehead again and glanced toward the apartment where Markie was still yelling his interpretation of events. I would invite the cops to have this discussion there, but I needed my apartment to be my safe place. This would taint that.
“INTRUDER. BAD DOG.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
The officer’s attention moved back to Liam.
“Sir, can you explain why you were inside the apartment?”
He didn’t rush the answer or try to soften the situation. His shoulders stayed tight and his hands rested on his knees in that careful, contained way he used when he knew he had already made a mistake.
“Like I said, I brought her flowers,” he said.
Both officers blinked.
I stared at him.
He glanced toward the stairwell behind us. “And chocolate.”
The second officer tilted his head slightly.
“And how did you end up inside the residence?”
“There were several packages outside her door,” he said. “One of them was blocking the hallway, and anyone walking past could have taken them.”
He paused again.
“I was concerned about that.”
The officer nodded slowly.
“I used the spare key she keeps outside.”
I felt my shoulders tense at that, not with anger, but awareness.
The officer looked at me again. “Ma’am, are you comfortable sorting this out with him or would you like to press charges?”
“Yes,” I said.
That part was not in question.
“Yes, you’d like to press charges, or?”
“No! I mean… yes, I’m comfortable sorting this out myself. Thank you, officers.”
“INTRUDER. BAD DOG.”
The second officer glanced toward my apartment. “Is that the bird?”
“Yes,” I said. “That is the bird.”
“Well,” he said calmly, “he seems very committed.”
That was accurate.
“Everything appears fine here. If anything else comes up, you can contact us.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Silence settled over the hallway as the officers descended the stairs.
Then Markie screamed again. “INTRUDER.”
I stared at the ceiling.
“Please stop helping,” I muttered, then turned my attention back to Liam.
Up close, the damage to his composure was obvious.
His shoulders were still tight, and his posture had that careful stillness of someone who knew they had crossed a line they couldn’t easily uncross.
The earlier flash of concern returned, then the reality of the situation settled back into place.
I crossed my arms. “What happened?”
Liam exhaled slowly and looked down at his hands.
“I finished work this afternoon,” he said. “And you hadn’t responded to my message.”
My stomach jittered slightly.
“I told myself that was information that I should respect.” He glanced up briefly.
“Correct,” I said.
“But I kept thinking about you being alone in the apartment, still sore from the fall.”
I watched him carefully.
The muscles in his jaw jumped slightly. “Possibly forgetting to eat.”
That was uncomfortably accurate.
“I decided I would bring flowers and chocolate,” he said. “I planned to leave them outside your door.”
“That would have been normal.”
“Yes.” His gaze dropped again. “But when I got upstairs, there were several packages sitting there.”
I pictured the pile immediately.
“One of them was a large box with a chair printed on it,” he continued. “It had fallen across the hallway. People were stepping over it.”
I could see that happening very clearly.
“So, I stood it up against the wall.”
“That was thoughtful of you.”
He paused. “But the flowers and the chocolate were still outside the door.”
“And that bothered you?”
“Yes.”
Silence stretched for a moment.
“I kept thinking someone would take them,” he said.
“That is a risk with hallways.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I remembered the spare key.”
My chest tightened. “And you used it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought I would just open the door,” he said. “Set everything inside. Lock it again.” He lifted his head. “I wasn’t going to step inside.”
That part sounded exactly like something Liam would believe counted as restraint.
“And then Markie called the police.”
Markie screamed again. “INTRUDER.”
I pointed down the hall. “He’s going to talk about this forever.”
Liam nodded. “I deserve that.”
I studied him for a moment. His explanation had been straightforward. He hadn’t made any excuses or attempted to twist the situation.
He knew exactly how it looked. He also hadn’t asked me to make it easier for him or given me the burden of carrying the emotional weight.
That made it harder to stay angry.
Unfortunately, my brain was already heading somewhere else.
Old territory.
The place where one bad decision could turn into my problem in under thirty seconds. The place where my body never seemed entirely convinced that mistakes stayed small.
I trusted Liam. That was part of the problem.
If this had been some random man with bad intentions, anger would have been simpler.
Instead, I was standing there with someone I felt safe with, trying to figure out how much of my reaction belonged to what had happened, and how much of it was old panic showing up in my nervous system with a clipboard and a flashlight. I needed time to figure that out.
I straightened slightly. “Liam.”
He looked up immediately.
“Entering my apartment without permission is not okay.”
“I know.”
“Even if the intention was good.”
“You’re right.”
“I need you to understand that.”
“I do.”
He didn’t argue, didn’t make me manage his feelings on top of my own. He just accepted it.
That made the next part harder.
“I need some time to think about this,” I said.
He held still, then nodded. “I understand.”
“And while I’m doing that,” I continued carefully, “please don’t reach out to me. This triggered something bigger than just tonight. And I need a little time to sort out what is reasonable to be upset about here, and what my body is reacting to because it’s working off old information.”
The words were heavy as they left my mouth.
“I’ll contact you if I decide I want to talk.”
He absorbed that quietly. “Okay.”
The regret on his face had deepened. The apology was still there too. And underneath both of those sat something that looked dangerously close to heartbreak.
Guilt moved through my chest immediately. Old, fast, familiar guilt. The kind that wanted me to smooth this over before his expression could turn into something I would feel responsible for.
I pushed it down.
This boundary mattered.
“I’m not saying this to punish you,” I said.
“I know.”
“I just need space.”
“It’s okay, Zoey. I understand.”
He stayed where he was. No bargaining. No attempt to explain himself again.
No pressure. It only made it harder to ignore that this was not the same kind of situation my body was reacting to.
Not the same kind of person either. Just a real mistake from someone I trusted.
A line crossed by someone who actually cared that he had crossed it.
“Goodnight, Zoey.”
He stood and walked toward the stairwell.
I stayed where I was while he descended the stairs.
For a moment, it looked like he might stop, but he didn’t.
“BAD DOG. INTRUDER.”
Picking up my shoes, I went into my apartment.
I stopped just inside the doorway and looked around.
Nothing appeared disturbed. The lights were still on in the living room.
My laptop sat on the desk where I had left it earlier that morning.
The stack of packages that had been outside my door had been moved inside and lined up neatly along the wall. Very neatly.
My gaze shifted across the room.
The large box with the office chair was gone. Instead, the chair itself sat at my desk, fully assembled. The height had been adjusted. The plastic wrapping had been folded into a tidy square and placed beside the recycling bin.
I stared at it.
Liam had assembled my furniture while he waited for the police. Of course he had.