After the Kiss (17 page)

Nothing.

“That’d be nice,” she heard herself say as she lifted her hand to hail a taxi. “Call me?”

“Absolutely, babe.”

Babe
. Blech.

Julie lunged for the door handle as soon as the cab pulled to a stop in front of her, but Keith moved too fast, gently grabbing her hand and sliding another hand up her back. His eyes fixed on her lips, and for a moment the old Julie felt a little thrill of triumph.
Landed this one in your sleep, didn’t ya, old girl?

But the new Julie felt like barfing.

She didn’t know this man. She certainly didn’t want to be kissing him.

“Goodnight, Keith,” she said, giving him a firm shove on the chest. She tried for a saucy wink, but she assumed from his puzzled frown that it might have looked more like a grand mal seizure.

Julie gave the driver her address without glancing back at Keith. She hadn’t bungled a date that badly in years. She waited for the stab of regret and the sense of failure.

Nothing.

The restaurant was mercifully close to her apartment, and within minutes Julie was throwing a twenty at her cab driver, not bothering to wait for her change.

I need to get inside
. Why had she thought she’d be able to handle this? Today of all days. A strangled sob escaped. She should have listened to Riley and Grace and given herself the day off. She
always
took June 30 off. Off from work, off from dating. A day off from living. It was the one day of the year where Julie allowed herself to wallow.

She fumbled through her purse for her keys.
Crap
. The sheen of tears made the contents of her purse one big blur. She was totally about to lose her shit in the middle of the sidewalk.

She thought of calling Riley and Grace, but she was determined to stick it out alone. She
always
went it alone. No need to burden anyone else with her baggage.

“Julie.”

The voice was so unexpected that her shaking hands dropped the purse to the ground, sending everything scattering.

She knelt down without looking at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been calling you. Your phone’s been going straight to voicemail all day. I’ve been worried.”

“Did it occur to you that it went to voicemail for a reason? That I didn’t want to talk?” Her nasty tone was intended to scare him off.
Go away. Don’t see me like this. Nobody’s allowed
to see me like this
.

But instead of walking away or snapping back, Mitchell crouched beside her to help her pick up her purse as though he hadn’t noticed her waspish tone and bitchy words. He scooped up her keys before she could snatch them and held them out of reach. “Let’s get you inside.”

She wanted to dig her heels in. Wanted to tell him that he had no place here. That she didn’t need him. Didn’t
want
him. But when he took her hand and gently pulled her forward, she let him. And when he opened the door to her building and to her apartment and ushered her inside, she let him do that too.

And when she collapsed into tears the second the door had closed behind them, she let him take her in his arms, holding her tightly as though he could put her back together again.

Maybe he could.

Julie had no concept of how long she sobbed on his shoulder, one of his big palms moving over her back in soothing strokes while the other cradled her damp face to his neck.

Eventually her wet sobs turned to dry hiccups, and, like the kindest of friends, he washed her face with a warm washcloth and rummaged through her drawers until he found an oversized T-shirt and her ratty boxers.

Gentle hands peeled off her tight, slinky first-date dress and dropped the soft shirt over her head, not making a single comment about the sexiness of the dress.

She stood there like an exhausted child as he pulled the covers back and tucked her gently into bed. Julie tried to say thank you. Tried to say she was sorry. Nothing came out but a dry croak.

“I’ll get you some water,” he whispered, his hands playing with the tips of her hair before disappearing to the kitchen.

Julie closed her eyes, which were so dry they wanted to crack, and curled up on her side. It was like this every year. Every year she told herself that
this
would be the year she wouldn’t cry. That
this
would be the year she’d handle it like an adult. This was not to be that year.

Although it did mark one very unexpected first: it was the first time she hadn’t gone it alone.

Mitchell came back into the room, and she eagerly accepted the water, its cool wetness easing the rasp of her throat. He watched her drink and then quietly took the empty glass from her, setting it on the nightstand as though she were a sick child needing to be coddled. And
maybe for tonight she was.

She waited for the questions to start.

What was that about? PMS?

Want to talk about it?

She didn’t. She didn’t talk about it with anyone, not even Riley and Grace.

But the questions didn’t come. He just quietly watched her, his blue eyes silently asking what he wanted to know.
Stay or go?

She should tell him to go. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

Instead she reached out her hand, letting the tips of her fingers brush his.

Stay
.

Wordlessly he stripped down to his undershirt and boxers and crawled into bed behind her. He drew her back against his firm chest, the front of his thighs cradling the backs of hers. A tiny sigh of contentment slipped out, feeling as though it had been ripped from the deepest, most private part of her.

It’s not like she hadn’t slept over with a guy before. She had. Once.

But never before had she slept with a man without sex. This was the first time that cuddling had been for comfort instead of post-coital habit. Julie was surprised by how right it felt. She’d always thought that if she let someone try to take care of her, it would feel like pity.

Instead it felt like she’d found a sense of home in someone else.

The last time she’d felt that was twenty years ago today, when her mom had lovingly pulled Julie’s hair into its little-girl ballerina bun and sent her off with her ballet carpool, with the promise that she and Daddy and Addie would be watching her from the audience.

It was a promise her mom hadn’t kept. The police had shown up instead.

Every year since then, on the anniversary of her family’s death, Julie had spent as much of the day and night as possible alone, determined that nobody would ever lure her into a sense of false promise.

Rationally she knew, of course, that it wasn’t her mother’s fault that she hadn’t kept her promise. The car accident hadn’t been anyone’s fault, really. But rationality didn’t stand a chance against self-protection.

Julie didn’t realize she’d spoken everything aloud until she felt Mitchell stiffen briefly behind her before he pulled her even closer, his hand splaying over her stomach before it slid up
between her breasts.

Over her heart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her hair.

The rightness of his simple response rocked through her, and she almost sobbed with regret at the way she was treating him. Not only had she dragged him into a sham relationship, but she’d gone on a date with another man as though what they’d shared was disposable.

She swallowed nervously. That last part, at least, she could come clean about.

“I went on a date tonight,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

The hand that had been idly stroking her hair paused for the briefest of seconds, and she braced herself for him to pull away. To leave her. Instead, he resumed his slow, comforting strokes on her head.

“Say something,” she begged.

“Did he kiss you?”

She licked her lips nervously. “No.”

“Did you want him to?”

Julie started to turn to face him, but he held her still. “No!”

“And you came home early. Alone.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then I’d say I have nothing to worry about.”

“But Mitchell—”

“Shh. Go to sleep now.”

Julie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the sheer kindness of this man. And when she thought she heard him whisper “I love you,” she blocked that out too.

Because he couldn’t love her. Or at least he wouldn’t. Not for much longer, anyway.

Julie padded quietly out of her bedroom, her eyes so puffy from a night of crying and fitful sleeping that she could barely see.

She halted when she registered that Mitchell was in her kitchen. He was wearing the same dark jeans and gray polo shirt he’d had on the night before, but his hair was damp and she smelled her own cucumber soap. He’d showered in her bathroom.

For some reason, the thought made her heart do a little happy dance.

His hair was curly when it was wet. It should have made him look completely rumpled, but other than the unrulier-than-usual curls, he looked completely tidy and polished. She felt a rush of affection for the sheer orderly perfection of him. It was strange to think that the same structured persona that had drawn her to him for professional needs now appealed to her in the most personal of ways.

“You’re a nice guy, Mitchell Forbes.” She walked into the kitchen and slid an arm around his waist as she nuzzled the hard plane between his shoulder blades.

He tilted his head down, adjusting his glasses to look at her. “I certainly didn’t feel like a nice guy when I copped a feel at six a.m.”

Julie gave a slow grin. He’d copped a feel and then some. “I liked it,” she said quietly.

He planted a quick kiss on top of her head. “Sit. I got us bagels.”

Julie shook her head and accepted the foil package he handed her. “This is what I mean. Nice guy. You hold me when I cry, don’t bat an eyelash when I tell you I went on a date with someone else, and then you go and fetch me breakfast.”

He unwrapped his own bagel sandwich without looking at her, his expression unreadable. After a long moment blue eyes flicked up to hers. “I didn’t sleep much last night. All I could think about was you. With someone else. I didn’t like it.”

The bite of bacon, egg, and cheese that had tasted deliciously greasy seconds ago turned rancid. She forced herself to chew methodically and then took a small sip of the coffee he’d set in front of her. She should have known she wouldn’t be let off the hook that easily. Just because he was sweet didn’t mean he wasn’t human.

“It didn’t mean anything.” It sounded weak even to her own ears.

“Then why’d you do it?”

Julie fiddled with the foil, her appetite completely gone.
Do it. Confess now. This is your chance
. She knew now that she had to tell him. But she kept hearing his whispered words as she drifted off to sleep:
I love you
. She couldn’t hurt him. Not yet. She wanted these last few precious days before she had to ’fess up.

There was no guarantee that he would forgive her, but she had hope. Especially when she told him the decision she’d made this morning.

She wasn’t going to write the story.

Mitchell meant too much to her. And even if it wouldn’t break
his
heart to have their relationship splayed across
Stiletto
’s shiny pages, it would break hers. What they had was too precious to share with the world. It was theirs and theirs alone.

Of course, not writing the article meant that she technically didn’t have to tell him at all.

Except that she did.

Julie might not know much about relationships, but she knew that the good ones weren’t founded on secrets and lies.

But first she had to explain away last night’s mistake. “Mitchell, I really am sorry. I wish I could explain exactly why, but the truth was I freaked out about whatever this is and thought a backward step might help.”

“Did it?”

She answered with her eyes.
No
.

He studied her for several moments before reaching across the table and taking her hand. He rubbed a thumb over her knuckles. “So we’re not seeing other people?”

Julie blinked in surprise at how much the thought of Mitchell with someone else hurt.

“No,” she breathed. “I don’t want us to see other people.”

He raised her hand to his lips. “Me neither.”

“So we’re good then?”

He let go of her hand and dug into his bagel. “We’re good.”

Thank God
. Appetite restored, Julie reached again for her bagel.

“You up for a little run around the island?” Mitchell asked.

Julie’s sandwich paused halfway to her mouth. “
The island?
Please tell me you’re not
talking about the island of
Manhattan
.”

He took a gulp of coffee, apparently completely unaware that he’d gone off the deep end. “Yep.”

“It’s a city, Mitchell. Not a damned track.”

“Still an island. And a small one at that. Thirteen miles long, only two across.”

She held up an objecting hand as she stuffed her bagel in her mouth. “Human bodies are not meant to do that. I mean, why don’t we just swim to Staten Island when we’re done?”

“I’d love to.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she said with a full mouth. “I have a better idea. How about we walk two blocks to an air-conditioned movie theater and split a big-ass bag of popcorn?”

“Or …” He caught her eye and held it, and she struggled to swallow her sandwich. She knew what that look meant.

“Now?” she asked. “But I’m all puffy and gross and—”

Julie didn’t get a chance to finish her protest as he scooped her up, Rhett Butler style, and carried her the few feet into her bedroom.

She expected him to pounce, but instead he laid her gently on the bed, crawling over her with deliberate slowness. Julie’s tiny bedroom window got exactly fifteen minutes of direct sunlight each day, and they were right in the middle of it. The room was otherwise dark except for the soft morning sun shining on her bed, and Julie smiled at the picturesque perfection of it. As though someone up there was smiling on this particular moment. On her and Mitchell’s moment.

His eyes never left hers as his palms slid up her rib cage in deliberate slowness. She framed his face with her hands. It should have felt familiar by now, but something was different this morning. Julie swallowed nervously.
What now?