Why Was I Still Soft for Him?

I sent the text while the elevator climbed toward the eighteenth floor. Suite 1808. Coming? The little blue bubble appeared beneath my message. Then nothing. I checked the screen again at the next floor, as if Julian Vale might have been waiting for the elevator to reach eighteen before answering. The doors opened onto the quiet corridor of the Harborlight, all cream carpet and framed black-and-white photographs of the coast. I stepped out with my phone in my hand and my shoulders drawn tight beneath my coat. The room key in my pocket was not mine. I had borrowed it from the night manager, who owed me a favor from the week I'd rescued a charity dinner after the florist sent six hundred white roses to the wrong ballroom. I'd told him I needed to check a guest complaint. It wasn't even a convincing lie. My phone buzzed. Julian: ? I stopped outside the suite. That was all. One punctuation mark, perfectly capable of making me feel both ridiculous and hopeful. I had tried this fifteen times before. Not always with a room number. Sometimes I'd sent a song, a photograph of the harbor, or a sentence I pretended didn't mean anything. He had answered all but two. We'd met up, we'd argued, we'd slept together, and by morning one of us would find a reason to leave first. Then we'd be finished again until one of us missed the other badly enough to make another mistake. The last time had been eight months ago. I'd been the one to end it. I'd said I couldn't keep being a private part of a public man's life. Julian had gone very still, then nodded as if my leaving were a decision he could respect without trying to change. That should have been the end of it. My thumb hovered over the screen. I could tell him I'd made a mistake. I could pretend the invitation was for someone else. I could say I was in the building for work and had accidentally sent him the room number. The lock turned behind the door as someone inside opened it. Julian stood there with one hand on the handle. He wore a dark suit with no tie, and his hair was still damp from the rain. For half a second, we simply stared at each other. "You came," I said. "You asked a question." "I sent a room number." "That was the question." His eyes flicked to my phone. "What does 1808 mean?" I tried to smile. "You used to know." "I used to assume." He stepped back to let me in, but he didn't touch me. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was that the room looked untouched: no wine, no open suitcase, no clothes on the chair. He hadn't been staying there. He'd come because I asked. I closed the door and leaned against it. "I thought we could talk." "Then you could have asked me to talk." "I could have." "But you didn't." "No." He looked at me with the kind of patience that made my excuses sound childish before I even said them. I had wanted him in this room so badly that I'd skipped the part where I decided what I actually wanted from him. "You can leave," I said. "I can." He didn't move. "Do you want me to?" I let the silence sit between us. His eyes were a clear, familiar gray. I knew what it felt like to kiss him in that room. I knew how his hand rested at the back of my neck when he was trying to be gentle and how he went quiet when he was trying not to ask for more. I still wanted him. That wasn't the problem. "I don't know," I admitted. Julian looked down, briefly, then back at me. "That's honest, at least." "I didn't mean to send it as a trap." "What did you mean?" The right answer was that I'd missed him. The more honest answer was that I'd had a horrible afternoon, and the person I wanted to call had always been Julian. I hadn't wanted to think about what that meant. I'd wanted the old pattern: him showing up, me making a joke, the difficult things disappearing until morning. "I got the call today," I said. His expression changed. "About the Harborlight?" "They want my proposal for the residency program." The Bellwether Foundation had offered me a yearlong contract to run a new artists' residency at its coastal property in Bellwether Cove, six hours south. It was the biggest opportunity I'd ever been offered. It was also a project the Harborlight wanted to partner with, which meant Julian's family and my work had found another way to share the same room. "Congratulations," he said. "Thank you." "You've wanted this for years." "I know." He looked at me as if there were something he could say about that, but he was choosing not to. I wished he would stop being so careful. I wanted to push him into one of our old arguments, where desire and anger were easier to tell apart. "Do you ever get tired of me?" I asked. "I'm trying not to answer that in the wrong way." "Meaning?" "Meaning I don't get tired of you. I get tired of pretending that this is all we can be." My heart gave one hard, stupid kick. I looked away. "That isn't what I asked you here to talk about." "I know." "Then don't." "Okay." He moved toward the door. His restraint, which I'd once mistaken for indifference, had become harder to bear than any of our fights. "Julian." He paused. "Don't go yet." "Tell me what you want." I couldn't. Not without risking an answer that would change things. So I walked to him and kissed him instead. For a moment, the old familiarity took over. His mouth was warm, and his hand rose to my cheek before he seemed to remember himself. Then he drew back. "Is this what you want?" he asked. "I want to stop thinking for a minute." "That isn't the same thing." "I know." He didn't kiss me again. He didn't leave, either. He sat in the chair by the window, and I sat on the edge of the bed. We watched the rain turn the harbor lights into wavering gold. After a while, he said, "How long will you be in Bellwether Cove?" "I don't know yet." "When do you have to decide?" "Friday." "Then decide for yourself. Don't make that decision based on me." It was the sort of answer I had asked him for years ago, when I wanted him to fight for me without being able to say so. Now that I heard it, it hurt. I stood and put on my coat. At the door, he said, "Mara." I looked back. "Don't send another room number unless you know what you're asking." I nodded as if I understood. Then I went downstairs alone, holding my key to a room I had no right to use.