Julia #3
“I thought it would be best if it came from just me. I thought if we both approached you, it would feel like we were ganging up on you or something.”
He snorts. “Yeah, you really avoided that one.”
“I didn’t know how to do it,” I say. “I kept trying to find a way that wouldn’t hurt you.”
“There wasn’t one,” he says. “It was too late by that point.”
The car turns, and the motion makes my stomach roll again. I press the water bottle against my lap and take a slow breath.
Dante’s gaze drops.
“You going to be sick?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
Then he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a mint. He places it on the seat between us instead of handing it to me.
A small offering.
I stare at it for half a second.
Then I pick it up.
“Thank you.”
He shrugs, eyes back on the window. “You always get carsick when you’re stressed.”
I do.
Once, years ago, after a donor boat event on Lake Michigan, I threw up in a rideshare while Dante held my hair and told the driver to keep his eyes on the road if he wanted to keep them.
He bought me ginger ale from a gas station afterward and slept on my couch because he didn’t want to leave me unsupervised.
I unwrap the mint with clumsy fingers and pop it in my mouth.
The mint is sharp on my tongue. I think it helps.
Or maybe it’s Dante.
“I didn’t tell him your private things,” I say.
Dante’s eyes close for a second.
“Julia.”
“I didn’t.”
“I believe you.”
That makes me look at him.
He is still turned toward the window.
“I do,” he says, quieter. “I know you wouldn’t do that.”
My chest aches with the relief of it.
“Then what—”
“That doesn’t mean it’s the same.”
I stop.
He looks at me again.
“You are with my father now. You go home to him. You hear his side. He hears yours. Even if neither of you says a word about me, I am still different in both of your lives.”
His voice roughens on the last part, and he hates it. I can tell by the way his jaw clenches.
“That’s not true,” I whisper. “I don’t feel like that at all.”
“I do,” he says quietly.
I look down at the mint wrapper in my hand and smooth one corner with my thumb because I do not know what to do with my hands.
“I don’t want to take your place with him,” I say.
A bitter sound leaves him. “You couldn’t.”
I flinch.
Regret crosses his face immediately.
He looks away.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know what you meant.”
He drags a hand over his mouth. “I mean no one can take my place with him. I’m his son.”
He pauses.
Then, quieter, “But with you, I had somewhere that didn’t come with all of that.”
I grip the water bottle harder.
“You still do.”
His eyes cut to mine. “Do I?”
When I don’t answer, he turns back to the window.
I cannot fix this in the back of a car.
I cannot fix weeks of silence, a punch that split Ricardo’s mouth, and everything that Dante thinks is different now with one conversation.
So I tell him the only thing I can.
“I’m still the same person,” I say quietly. “I let my last relationship change who I was, change us. I won’t do that again.”
Dante’s gaze returns to me slowly.
For a moment, he only looks at me. The anger is still there. So is the hurt. But beneath both, I see the part of him that knows exactly what I mean.
“I hope that’s true,” he says.
The words should sound harsh.
“It is,” I say with conviction.
I lean back against the seat, suddenly exhausted. My body aches from standing in heels, smiling at donors, holding myself together under my father’s stare, Dante’s coldness, Ricardo’s worry, and the knowledge that Evan Rusk is still somewhere behind us being dealt with.
“I’m tired,” I say, mostly to myself.
Dante turns his head.
For one wild, half-conscious second, I think he might call me Jules.
He does not.
“Almost there,” he says.
I close my eyes for a moment.
The car is warm. The mint lingers on my tongue. My stomach settles, then flips lightly again. I press one hand over it and tell myself I need food, sleep, and a morning without schedules and lists and charts.
Beside me, Dante shifts.
When I open my eyes, he is watching my hand.
“What?”
“You sure you’re okay?”
There is something different in his voice now.
Concern, stripped of anger now.
I nod. “I think I just need to eat something.”
“You have food?”
I shrug. “Probably.”
His look says he doubts that.
“I have crackers.”
“That is not food.”
“It is food adjacent.”
His mouth almost tilts into a smile.
Almost. But not quite.
Then he reaches for his phone. “I’ll have something sent.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m hungry. Three mini courses do not count as dinner.”
I look at him, then away.
That means he plans to stay. In the apartment, with me. Not just outside somewhere until Ricardo gets here.
The car makes the last turn onto my street, and my building comes into view ahead, warm light spilling over the sidewalk beneath the awning. Dante shifts beside me, already scanning the curb, the parked cars, the lobby doors.
Whatever softness the conversation opened between us folds back beneath focus and duty.
The car pulls up in front of my building and stops.