Page 128 of Fluke
“How was your day?” I ask her.
She pulls away, grinning. “You have to ask? We texted all day.”
“It’s the polite thing to do.”
She rolls her eyes, still smiling, and leads me into the apartment. Empty cardboard boxes are stacked next to the television. A box sits beneath her little bookcase with half of the books gone. I spy another box in the kitchen with items all around it on the floor.
“I like the look of this,” I say.
“I thought you would.” She heads into the kitchen. “Are you wanting to start moving stuff tonight?”
“We might as well, right? At least get some of it and then we can come over tomorrow with Maddox’s truck and get more.”
She takes a deep breath and looks at the floor.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.What’s wrong?
“I didn’t have time today to get with my landlord,” she says. “So I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that. It might be a good idea not to move everything just in case.”
“Why would that matter?”
She picks up a mint green colander. “If I’m paying for an apartment, I might as well get some use out of it.”
My brows pull together as I try to make sense of this.
“Until I get out of my lease, I could just stay at your house sometimes,” she says, lifting her gaze to mine. “And you could stay here too.”
“Pip …”
She places the colander on the table—not in the box.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing is going on. Everything is great.” She smiles at me, but something is slightly amiss. “I still love you and want to live with you. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to take things a little slower. I mean, what does it matter if I officially live with you now or six months from now?”
“Six months?” I ask, my eyes popping out of my head. “What the hell happened today? I dropped you off yesterday, and things were one way. They seemed fine today. And I come here now, and it’s like you’re …six months?”
“That’s the length of my lease. And it’s not that long, really.”
My head is ready to explode. “I’ve waited for you for fifteen years and just got you. Six months feels like a punishment.”
“Jess,no. It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
I cross my arms over my chest as my heart threatens to pound its way out of it. I can’t believe this is happening.
“Nothing has changed between us,” she says. “I’m still madly in love with you. I still want things to be the same. I’m just saying that I have this apartment and—”
“No, what you’re saying is you want to keep an out.”
I wait for her to argue with me. She doesn’t.
“Have you not listened to anything I’ve said over the past week?” I ask her. “You think you need to keep a way out of a relationship withme?”
“I don’t mean it like that,” she says, her eyes widening.
“I don’t care how you mean it. That’s what it is. We both know it.”
