Page 23 of Made For Me

“Why do you do that?” he asks, and the lump builds in my throat.

“Do what?” I ask, knowing full well what I’m doing, but shocked he picked it up.

“You are avoiding everything with jokes.” He points out exactly what I was doing.

“I was not.” I try to sound offended. “I was just wondering what we would do if we can’t talk.” I shrug. “But, I mean, if you want to come up, we can see if we can do other stuff.”

“We can’t cross that line.” For the second time in two minutes my stomach gets tight again, but this time for a whole different reason.

“We can’t cross that line,” I repeat his words because every other single word is tied up in my tongue. I want to ask him why we can’t cross that line.

It’s like he can read my mind because he answers my silent question. “It would be complicated.”

“It would be complicated.” I emphasize on the words would be. “The lines would totally be blurred.”

“The lines would be very blurry.” He repeats my words as the two of us have a face-off in the warm night air. His neck is cranked back looking at me.

“Well, then, you came here to see me.” I put one hand on my hip. “Did you bring food?”

“No.” He laughs and shakes his head, and the sound of his laughter makes my stomach lurch up as I let my guard down for a minute to admit I like the sound. It only lasts a minute before I put it back in the box and lock it up. It’s a box in my mind, where I keep my most prized possessions. It has memories of my father smiling. It has memories of meeting Max for the first time and then him hugging me. I swear it felt like my father was right there. It had the first time I held Jamieson, Bianca, and Bailey in my arms. The way my hand tingled the first time I shook Chase’s hand and now his laugh. “I don’t have any food.”

I gasp out, “You show up at my house”—I put my hand on my chest—“in the middle of the night, and you don’t even bring me doughnuts or, I don’t know, cookies. Ice cream, anything that you are supposed to bring a woman who is having a hard day. I thought you knew better, Chase.”

His laughter fills everything in me. The coldness that was in my veins starts to warm. “It’s not even eleven, I don’t justify this as the middle of the night.” He finally hangs up this phone as he puts his hands on his hips. “I can order whatever it is you want.” I want to roll my eyes at that but I don’t. “What did you eat for dinner?”

“Nothing,” I admit honestly. I don’t put in that I didn’t eat because I was too busy having a mental breakdown in my bath. “I wasn’t hungry.”

His head snaps back as he looks up at me. “Maury said, that’s a lie.” The minute the words leave his mouth, I can’t help but throw my head back and laugh.

“God, you act like just because you’ve known me for five years, you know me,” I huff.

“It took five minutes with you to know you never pass up eating,” he jokes with me.

“Oh my God, are you ever going to let me live that down?” I put my hands on my head.

“You grabbed the burger from Jamieson and ate it,” he reminds me.

“I was checking if it was too hot for him.” I roll my eyes. “And he wasn’t even hungry.”

“He went to Michael and moaned that you stole his food.” He laughs now.

“Anyway,” I try to change the subject, “I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat.”

He just nods his head and looks down at his phone. His fingers are doing something and from this height I can’t see what it is. He presses the buttons and then looks up at me. “Food is going to be here in twenty minutes.” My mouth hangs open in shock. “So do you want me to wait out here until the food comes or are you going to let me up?”

“Wow. I never saw how annoying you were.” He chuckles.

“What’s it going to be, Julia?” he asks, and if I was closer to him, I would be able to see the lightness in his eyes when he laughs.

“Fine,” I huff, trying to be annoyed, “but I’m watchingSister Wives.”

“I was hoping you would say that,” he fires back and turns to walk to the front door of the building, and I hear the buzz come from inside.

“Did you just ring my bell?” I ask shocked, and he presses the button again.

“No,” he says. “I rang Suzie Wong’s bell.”

I shake my head as I walk back into my apartment, closing the door behind me. The doorbell buzzes again as I make my way to the speaker. I press the button at the same time that he buzzes again. “Who is it?” I ask and then press the listen button.

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