Julia #2
I debate for a moment, detouring to go say goodbye to my parents, but I decide against it. This is as much as I can handle right now.
Ricardo bends his head slightly as we reach the ballroom doors.
“You are shaking,” he says.
“I know.”
The doors open ahead of us.
The sound of the gala swells around us one last time. Music, laughter, silverware.
Ricardo’s arm remains steady beneath my hand as we step out of the ballroom together.
There is a car waiting at the curb, and Ricardo’s driver is standing at the door. He opens it as I approach. Ricardo helps me into the car, and slides in beside me. The door closes, and we pull away.
But not very far.
We turn the corner, and the car stops again.
Ricardo turns to me.
For a second, he says nothing. He only looks at me, as if he is trying to memorize me.
“I hate this,” he says.
“I know.”
“I should be the one taking you home.”
“But you’re needed somewhere else.”
His jaw tightens. “I am needed with you.”
I reach for his hand, and he closes his fingers around mine at once.
“Ricardo.”
His eyes hold mine.
“I'm going home, and you’re going… wherever you're going. Then after, you come to me. Now kiss me.”
For one second, he just looks into my eyes. Then he slides his hand to the back of my neck and kisses me, deep enough to steal the breath from my lungs, and leave me wanting more.
It is over too quickly, but when he pulls back, his eyes are darker than before, and his thumb brushes once over my bottom lip.
Then he pulls back and opens the door
Cool air slips into the car.
Ricardo steps out first, then turns back to me, one hand still on the doorframe.
His eyes hold mine for another second, too long and not long enough. Then he steps away.
Dante slides in and closes the door.
Dante looks straight ahead, one hand settling near his jacket, his body angled toward the window as the car pulls away from the curb.
“Seat belt,” he says.
I turn my head toward him.
He still does not look at me.
“Really?”
“Really.”
I stare at his profile for half a second, then reach for the seat belt and pull it across my lap.
The click sounds too loud in the quiet car.
“There,” I say.
The car turns away from the hotel, and the gala disappears behind us. No music. No laughter. No green silk under warm lights. Only the dark windows of downtown Chicago and Dante beside me, close enough to touch and farther away than he has ever been.
I fold my hands in my lap.
“You don’t have to do this like I’m cargo,” I say quietly.
His jaw shifts.
“I know you’re not cargo.”
“Then you can look at me.”
For a second, I think he won’t.
Then he turns his head.
His eyes meet mine, and everything I thought I was ready to say vanishes. He looks tired. Angry.
“I’m looking,” he says.
I swallow. “Hi.”
Something flickers across his face.
Gone almost at once.
“Hi.”
Silence fills the car again so quickly it feels like a third person sitting between us.
I fold my hands in my lap.
Dante sits beside me, one arm resting near the door, his gaze angled out the window. His profile is all hard lines and restraint. He looks older tonight. Or maybe I am just seeing him for the first time as the Dante everyone else sees.
Chicago at night moves past us. Wet pavement. Streetlights. A woman in a silver coat stepping out of a restaurant. A man holding a cigarette between two fingers while he watches traffic with vacant boredom.
I should say something else.
I have wanted to say something for weeks.
Every time my phone stayed silent, every time I drafted a text and deleted it.
Now he is six inches away from me, and my throat feels closed.
My stomach turns with a sudden, sharp wave of nausea.
I breathe through my nose.
The smell of the leather is stronger back here than I remember. So is the faint scent of champagne from the party, though I didn’t even drink any. Perfume swirls around me.
I press my fingers lightly against my abdomen.
Dante’s gaze moves to me, then away.
“You’re pale,” he says.
His voice is flat.
Still, it’s something.
“I’m just tired.”
“You barely ate.”
I look at him.
He keeps staring out the window.
“How do you know that?”
He doesn't answer.
The only way he could know that is if he was watching.
And if he was watching… maybe there's a chance?
“I was nervous.”
“You had nothing to be nervous about. Everything was perfect.”
Outside, traffic slows at a light. Red washes briefly over his face.
He reaches to the small console beside him, opens it, and pulls out a bottle of water. He holds it toward me without looking.
“Drink.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“I didn’t ask.”
The words are automatic.
Too close to something we would have said before, back when he could irritate me across my kitchen table, and I could throw a dish towel at his head without wondering whether it would be the last normal thing between us.
His mouth tightens as if he realizes it too.
I take the bottle. The cap cracks loudly in the quiet car. I take a careful sip, then another. The cold settles my stomach a little.
“Better, thanks,” I say.
I look out the window.
The city blurs beyond the glass.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.
His body goes still.
I keep my eyes on the window because looking at him might make the words impossible. “I know you don’t want to hear it. I know saying it doesn’t fix anything. But I am sorry.”
He does not answer.
The tires hum over the road.
I twist the water bottle in my hands. “I miss you.”
That gets him.
I feel it before I see it. The slight change in his breathing. The tension that pulls through him and then locks down.
“That’s enough,” he says.
“No, it’s not,” I say. “I know you don't want to hear it, but if this is the last chance I'm ever going to have to make you hear it, I'm going to take it.”
He is looking at me now, and the coldness is there, but it’s not as strong now. It’s tired and worn now.
“You don’t get to say you miss me like this is something that happened to both of us from the outside.”
The words cut, but there is no cruelty in them.
Only hurt.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
His eyes search mine.
I force myself to stay still under his gaze.
“I made choices,” I say. “So did Ricardo. We should have told you right from the start. Before anything had ever happened. I should have told you the second I started feeling something for him.”
His mouth presses into a hard line.
“I keep going back over it,” he says. “Every conversation. Every time you said his name strangely. Every time he asked about you like he was being casual. Every time I thought I was imagining things because I trusted both of you too much to suspect anything.”
My eyes sting. “I hate that I broke your trust or made you feel foolish.”
“You didn’t make me feel foolish.”
He looks away.
“You made me feel outside.”
“Dante—”
“If I meant so much to both of you, how could you both shut me out like that?”
My throat tightens at the pain in his words.
“I didn’t want that.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“I know.”
He exhales roughly, and I know it costs him.
“I was angry that you told me alone,” he says.
“He didn't want that,” I say. “I insisted.”
“But he let it happen.”