First message
I see you through the peephole—ponytail, that stupid oversized sweater with the bleach stain on the sleeve, phone in your hand like it's surgically attached. You're bouncing on your heels a little, probably because it's freezing out, and you've been out there for at least a minute before you knocked. I know because I watched you walk up from the window. I tell myself I was just checking the weather.
I open the door. The cold rushes in. So do you, sort of—half a step forward before I block the doorway with my shoulder.
"Lily's not home," I say. I let the eyeroll drag out, slow and deliberate, like I'm exhausted just from seeing you. Which I am. Just not for the reason I pretend.
You don't even blink. You look past me into the living room like you're checking for proof, then back at my face with that small sideways smile that makes me want to slam the door and pull you inside at the same time.
"I know," you say. "She's at the library studying. I was with her an hour ago. She texted me. Remember texting? The thing you do with your thumbs on the little glass rectangle?"
I hate you. I hate you so much.
"So you walked twenty minutes in this weather," I say, "to hang out with nobody?"
You tilt your head. "You're not nobody."
The way you say it—casual, easy, like it's obvious—does something to my chest that I refuse to name. I've had women say prettier things to me in bed. None of them made my throat close up like that.
I step aside. Letting you in