The Collector
Page 66

She went to the door, opened it, waited. No point having Julie ring the bell and wake up the dog.
It wasn’t until she heard the elevator ping, saw its doors begin to open, that the thought jumped into her head. What if it wasn’t Julie, but HAG using Julie’s name to gain access? On the heels of it, as she started to slam the door, Julie stepped out.
“It’s you.”
“Of course it’s me. I said it was me.”
“Mind tricks.” Lila tapped her temple. “Did you get off early?”
“I took off early. I needed a little mental health time.”
“You’ve come to the right place.” She swept her arm. “Amazing view, huh?”
“It really is.” Taking it in, Julie dumped her work bag in a tufted-back armchair. “I went to a party in this building last year, but the apartment wasn’t nearly as wow as this—and it was pretty wow.”
“You have to see the third-floor terrace. I could live out there all summer. You brought wine,” she added when Julie pulled a bottle out of her bag as slickly as a rabbit from a magician’s hat. “This is a wine visit.”
“Definitely.”
“Good, because I have to tell you something that goes with wine.”
“Me, too—you,” Julie said as she followed Lila to the wet bar. “Yesterday was crazy and awful, and then—”
“I know! That’s just it.” Lila used the fancy counter-mounted corkscrew. “It’s all about the then and then.”
She pulled the cork out.
“I slept with him,” they said in unison.
They stared at each other. “You did?”
“You did?” Julie echoed, pointing.
“You mean Luke, because I slept with Ash, so if you’d slept with him I’d have noticed. You slept with Luke. Slut.”
“Slut? You’re more qualified as slut here. I used to be married to Luke.”
“My point exactly. Sleeping with the ex?” Amused, Lila clucked her tongue as she reached for glasses. “Definitely slut territory. How was it? I mean, was it like a stroll down memory lane?”
“No. Well, yes, in a way. Knowing him, being comfortable with him. But we’ve both grown up, so it wasn’t like a rerun. I thought it was maybe, I don’t know, a kind of closure we didn’t really have. We were both just so sad and mad when we split. So young and stupid. Looking back, I understand we just saw it like playing house, didn’t consider being mostly broke, scrambling to pay rent—and with his parents still nudging him toward law school. No direction for either of us,” she added with a shrug. “Just run off, get married without a thought toward reality, then we were both like what do we do about all this real?”
“Real’s hard.”
“And has to be dealt with, but we couldn’t seem to figure out how we could want each other and want other things, too. How we could have each other and have other things. I guess— No, I know I decided it was his fault, and it wasn’t. He probably decided it was mine, but he never said it. Which was my other issue. He’d just say whatever you want, and it made me crazy. Say what you think, damn it.”
“He wanted you to be happy.”
“He did, and I wanted him to be happy—and we weren’t, and it was mostly because we just kept fumbling the real. Little fights, piling up to one big one until I walked out. He didn’t stop me.”
“You wanted him to.”
“God, I wanted him to. But I hurt him, so he let me go. And I’ve always . . .”
“Regretted it,” Lila supplied. “The split, not Luke. You told me that once after two chocolate martinis.”
“Chocolate martinis should be illegal, but yes, I guess I’ve always regretted how it ended, and maybe I’ve always wondered what if. And now . . .” She took the wine Lila offered. “Now it’s all messed up and tangled up and confused again.”
“Why? Don’t answer yet. Let’s go up. Bring the bottle and we’ll sit outside.”
“Sit outside, but leave the bottle,” Julie qualified. “I still have paperwork to do at home since I left early. One glass is all I get for skipping out early.”
“Fair enough.”
She let sleeping dogs lie and took Julie up to the terrace.
“You’re right, you could live out here. I need to move,” Julie decided. “I need to find an apartment with a terrace. I need a raise first. A really big one.”
“Why?” Lila repeated, and sat, lifted her face to the sky. “On Luke, not the raise.”
“He baked me a muffin.”
Lila looked at Julie again, smiled and said, “Aw.”
“I know. It means something. It’s not just ‘Here’s a baked good.’ He baked for me. At dawn. Before dawn, probably. It means something.”
“It means he was thinking of you, before dawn, and wanted you to think of him when you woke up. It’s so sweet.”
“Then why didn’t he say that when I asked him?”
“What did he say?”
“That it was just a muffin. I went to his bakery, and he’s down in this”—she circled a hand in the air—“this baking cave working with this big mound of dough. Damn it, why is that sexy? Why is it sexy when he’s up to his elbows in dough in this baking cave?”
“Because he’s sexy anyway, and a man in any kind of cave adds another layer of sexy. Add working with his hands, and it’s a triple threat.”
“It’s not right, that’s all. Sex, then muffin, then sexy baking cave. I went there for a simple answer.”
“Oh.”
“What do you mean, ‘Oh’? I know that ‘Oh.’”
“Then I shouldn’t have to elaborate, but okay. He baked you a muffin, which, I agree, has meaning. And you went to his work space and asked him what it meant.”
“That’s right. What’s wrong with that?”
“Maybe you could’ve just eaten the muffin and thanked him later.”
“I wanted to know.” Julie dropped into the chair beside Lila.
“I get that. But from his perspective—do you want my take on his perspective?”
“I probably don’t. No, I definitely don’t. But I should, so go ahead.”