But I did, anyway.
I didn’t learn the secrets of the universe. I didn’t even find out his name. He’d mostly been scribbling and doodling, with a few chicken-scratch phrases I could read but didn’t understand here and there on the paper. Looking over it, I should’ve felt dirty. I only felt disappointed. But what had I expected, a hand-written autobiography listing his education, career and medical history?
Still, I smoothed out the creases as I finished my breakfast and folded the paper in half. Then half again. And again, until finally I’d turned a legal-size sheet of paper into a palmful of secrets. It wasn’t any of my business. I had no right to keep it. It weighed there as heavily as a handful of lead, and yet I couldn’t manage to toss it into the trash.
I did wish, though, that I’d lingered over the coffee. River-view Manor doesn’t have a doorman, and the front-desk staff was there to accept packages and take care of problems, not keep anyone from entering the building. The building had security cameras in the elevators and on every floor, but no real means of keeping anyone out who wanted to be in.
Part of me wasn’t surprised when I turned the corner of the hall to see Austin waiting for me in front of my door. Another part wanted to turn and run away. I lifted my chin instead, wishing again I’d at least bothered to wear makeup, though honestly he’d seen me look way worse.
“What are you doing here?” I bent to put my bags down so I could pull my key from my purse. When I stood, Austin’s eyes were on my face, not my ass. Now, that surprised me.
“You didn’t answer my calls.”
I fit the key into the lock, but didn’t turn it right away. “I meant, what are you doing here?”
“I called your mom.”
I unlocked and opened my door and pushed it, but didn’t go through. I turned to look at him. My irritation must have been clear on my face, because he held up his hands right away as though I meant to punch him. “My mother told you where I lived?”
“Your mom always liked me.”
I blew a sigh that fluttered the fringe of my bangs off my forehead and then pushed through the door. I left it open behind me, as much of an invitation as I could bear to give. He followed and shut the door. Softly, with a click, not a slam.
I put my bags in the kitchen and kicked off my shoes. Austin stood still and watched me without making any move to sit. He looked around the apartment with interest, then shoved his hands deep into his pockets and rocked on his heels while I took my time unpacking and putting away my groceries.
“Can I sit down?” he asked finally, when I’d made it clear I wasn’t going to offer.
“Do you have to ask?” I kept my back turned as I sifted through the change from my wallet. I found a Wheatie penny and set it aside to put in my collection, then washed my hands thoroughly with soap and hot water. Money is one of the filthiest things a person can touch.
When I turned to look at him, he was still standing. We stared at each other across the expanse of my unimmense living room until I nodded. He sat the way he always had, legs sprawled, taking up as much space as he could.
I took my time cleaning the kitchen, wiping the counters and scrubbing the sink with bleach-infused powder. I even emptied the garbage pail and took the trash out to the chute at the end of the hall. I expected Austin to be restless or irritated by the time I came back, but he’d found a copy of a Robert Heinlein novel inside the pile of books and magazines thrown into the straw basket next to the couch and was flipping through it.
“It doesn’t have any pictures,” I said from the doorway.
Austin put the book on the coffee table. “This is nice.”
He hadn’t risen to the bait, though I’d made a point of pushing one of his buttons. “The book?”
“The coffee table,” he said, still not rising.
“It was Stella’s.”
Austin nodded, like that made sense. “Glad I didn’t put my feet up on it.”
It took me an actual five seconds before I realized he was trying to tease me without pissing me off. He was actually just…kidding. I knew how to handle him trying to seduce me or piss me off. I didn’t know how to take that.
“I miss you,” Austin said.
The words were hard to hear, and I don’t mean because he spoke too low, or mumbled. They were hard for me to listen to because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want him to miss me.
I sat across from him, instead. The recliner’s springs sometimes poked through the faded material, though I’d tossed a fleece throw over it. One did now, and I winced as I shifted.
“I do,” he said, as though my expression had been in response to his statement and not a coil of wire in my butt.
“Austin.” Nothing else would come out.
He shrugged. I hadn’t fallen in love with him because of his way with words. Back then it hadn’t mattered if he spoke more with his hands than his mouth. Back then we’d both been young and dumb.
“You look good, Paige. This place,” he gestured, “it’s nice.”
“Thanks.”
His hair used to be bleached almost white by the sun, and he wore it so short I could see his scalp. When I ran my fingers through it, my nails scraped skin. Now it fell forward over his ears and forehead and was the color of wheat in a field, waiting to be cut. His eyes, moving over my face, made me think he was waiting to be cut, too.
I almost couldn’t do it. I mean, the night before I’d let him put his tongue down my throat and his hands all over me. When the warmth of him wafted over me, I wanted to close my eyes at how familiar it was. How easy it would have been to take him by the hand and lead him to my bedroom.
I kept my eyes open, a lesson I’d been taught a long time ago but had taken me a long time to learn. “I don’t miss you, Austin. Last night was a mistake.”
“C’mon, Paige. Don’t say that. We were always good together.”
“We haven’t been together for a long time,” I said, not quite as evenly as I wanted.
“It’s not just the sex.” Austin leaned forward, too, his hands on the knees of his dirty denim jeans. A white spot had worn through just below his kneecap, not quite a hole, but on its way to becoming one. “I didn’t just mean that. I can get laid anytime I want.”
“I’m sure you can.” I got up, my arms folded across my chest.
He got up, too. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
I wasn’t going to bend. Not over the chair, not over the bed, and not over this. “It doesn’t matter how you meant it. I think you should go.”
“Same old Paige,” he said with a shake of his hair. “Still hard as nails, huh? Hard as a rock. Can’t ever give me a break.”
“You don’t need a break from me. Besides, you can just get laid whenever you want. Look, Austin,” I said when it looked as though he meant to speak. “We can’t keep doing this.”
“Why not?”
I studied him deliberately until I couldn’t hold in the sigh any longer and it seeped out of me like air from a nail-punched tire. “You know why not. Because fucking doesn’t solve every problem. And we had a lot of problems.”
He crossed his arms and looked stormy. I didn’t point out the arguments we’d had about money, about religion, about monogamy. I didn’t remind him of the nights he’d gone out for a few beers with friends and had come home smelling of perfume and guilt, or that it didn’t matter whether he had or hadn’t fucked anyone else, it was that he was content to