31. Josh
Chapter thirty-one
Josh
Her lucky suit is still in my guest room.
I see it late in the afternoon, after spending most of the day not thinking about Liv’s doorway.
The guest-room door is half open, and I push it the rest of the way. The bed is already made. The pillow is back where it belongs. Nothing is out of place.
Except me.
The dry-cleaning sleeve hangs from the hook behind the door, black and narrow against the white paint. Liv’s suit. The lucky one. It is the one she wears when she needs the room to underestimate her.
She might need it.
I should text her, but texting means asking if she wants me to come over.
Knocking with dry cleaning is an errand.
The suit is the errand.
The errand gets me six steps across the hall.
She said later this morning.
It is later.
I cross the hall before I can talk myself out of it. Six steps. The dry-cleaning sleeve brushes my leg with every one.
I knock.
For a second, nothing happens. Then there is movement inside, a chair maybe, footsteps, the small pause of someone checking the peephole.
The door opens.
Liv stands there in black pants and a soft blue sweater, her hair pulled back in a low knot that is already losing one piece near her cheek. Work Liv, mostly. Apartment Liv around the edges.
Her eyes come to my face first.
Then the suit.
Then back to me.
“Oh,” she says. “My lucky suit.”
“Figured you might need it.”
“I forgot it was still there.”
“I didn’t.”
The words come out too fast.
I hold up the sleeve a little. “I wasn’t sure if tomorrow was lucky-suit level.”
Her mouth shifts. “Carter is involved.”
“Oh. You might need more than a lucky suit.”
The rhythm comes back for a few seconds, quick and easy. Hers and mine.
I hold out the dry cleaning before I can forget why I knocked with it in the first place.
She reaches for it, but stops before her hand reaches the hanger. “You remembered it was the lucky one.”
“You call it your lucky suit.”
“I do not say it often enough for you to know that.”
“You said it in my kitchen.”
Her eyes come back to mine.
I do not add that she said it while Iris was in the bouncer and the bottle warmer was beeping and my apartment still sounded like a place people came back to.
Liv’s smile shows up.
I have to look at the suit instead of her mouth.
Liv reaches again. Her fingers close over the hook just below mine, and for one second, we are both holding it, the suit suspended between her doorway and the hall.
“Thank you,” she says.
“Sure.”
I let go.
The hanger leaves my hand.
Her suit is not behind my guest-room door anymore.
Liv shifts the suit over one arm. The plastic slides against her sweater with a soft, thin sound.
“This was very responsible of you,” she says.
“I have moments.”
Her smile is still there, but not as easy now, and mine probably is not either.
I have no reason to still be here.
That is not true, because I have one.
I am just not saying it.
Liv looks down at the suit. “You know you can knock without bringing me something.”
She says it like it is nothing. Her hand tightens on the doorframe like it is not.
For the first time since I knocked, there is nothing in my hands. No mug. No hanger. No useful thing to explain why I am standing at her door.
Just me.
Coffee this morning.
Dry cleaning now.
Safe things.
Things that let me cross six steps without saying the sentence.
I wanted to see you.
And I wanted you to want me here.
My fingers curl once at my side. Then my hand finds the doorframe, because apparently, I need something to hold after all.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” I say.
Even I know that does not answer her.
Liv’s hand tightens on the hanger. For half a second, it looks like she might say, That is not what I asked.
“You’re not interrupting.”
My foot shifts toward her apartment. One step, and I would be inside. One step, and there would be no suit, no coffee, no errand to stand behind.
“I know,” I say.
I stay in the hall.
“I just didn’t want to assume.”
Her fingers tighten around the hanger.
“Right,” she says. “Of course.”
Of course.
I hate those words.
I earned them.
Liv looks down at the suit. “Thank you for bringing this.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Tomorrow is probably lucky-suit level.”
“Carter?”
“Carter. All morning. Case prep.”
“That bad?”
“He used the phrase ‘just circling back’ twice in one email.”
The banter is thinner this time, like both of us are holding it up from opposite sides and neither one wants to be the first to let go.
Her phone buzzes somewhere behind her, and her eyes flick toward the sound before she stops them.
I still say, “You should get that.”
Her gaze comes back to mine. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”
She is trying to stay here.
I can see it.
That is what makes me careful.
“You have work,” I say.
“I always have work.”
“That doesn’t mean I should interrupt it.”
My hand is still on the doorframe. I make myself take it down.
“I should let you get back to it.”
Her smile holds for half a second before it changes into something polite.
“Okay.”
Liv stays in the doorway, the suit still over her arm. One piece of hair has come loose by her cheek.
I want to tuck it back.
But I am in the hall because I chose the hall.
“Josh,” she says, “I’m glad you knocked.”
“Me too,” I say.
It is true.
It is also not enough.
Her face softens again, and this time I am the one who looks away. I make myself turn toward my door and count the six steps back because apparently that is what I do now, measure the distance between what I want and what I can justify.
Behind me, Liv does not close her door right away.
I want her to.
I want her not to.
When my hand reaches my doorknob, I look back. She is still there, one hand on the edge of her door, the suit over her arm like she has forgotten she is holding it.
“Good luck tomorrow,” I say.
“With Carter?”
“With not committing a felony.”
That gets a real smile, small and brief and worse because it is proof of what is still alive between us.
“Thank you,” she says. “I’ll do my best.”
I nod once. It passes for an answer.
Inside, my apartment is too quiet. No monitor. No bottle warmer. No Liv on the couch with one foot tucked under her, telling me my system for washing bottle parts was close, but not admissible.
Just my apartment.
My hand stays on the knob after the door closes.
Across the hall, Liv’s door does not open again.
Good.
That means I did not push.
That means I respected what she asked for.
Next time, if I knock, it cannot be because I have something to hand her.
It has to be because I have something to say.