Perfect Strangers

Or is that my imagination, sculpting dragons out of passing clouds?

Either way, my mouth is dry and my palms are sweaty, and I find myself backing up a step in growing alarm, aware that I’ve left the door open and fighting the urge to turn and run through it. To where, I don’t know, but the irrational urge to flee is overpowering.

Very softly, James says my name. When I glance at him, he simply shakes his head no.

He’s reading my mind again. He knows I was about to bolt.

That doesn’t make me feel any better.

I exhale in an enormous gust. Then, my patience—never saintly in the first place—breaks. I holler at the top of my lungs, “What the fuck is going on?”

Chris says tightly, “Jesus, Livvie, calm down.”

Hearing Chris call me my nickname, James shoots him a poisonous glare. Then his eyes focus back on mine, and they’re burning. He says, “I knocked on your door. He opened it. When I asked for you, he said you were his wife and demanded to know how I knew you. Apparently my answer didn’t satisfy him.”

“What was your answer?”

The faint smile again. “Go fuck yourself.”

I glance at Chris, who’s staring at James in livid silence. That makes no sense. Chris was never the jealous type before. “How did you get in my apartment?” I know for sure my door was locked, because I made sure to check it when I left.

Chris says, “I told the building manager I was your husband and that I was here to surprise you for your birthday. He let me in.”

I make a mental note to yell at Edmond later.

James says, “It’s your birthday?”

I send Chris a hard stare. “No. But my ex-husband thinks that anything is a fair means to whatever end he’s pursuing.”

He stares back at me, his eyes wild. In a throbbing voice, he says, “The one and only end I’ve ever pursued since the day we met is keeping you out of harms’ way, Olivia. You’ll never know all the sacrifices I made to ensure your safety.”

Before I can process how stunned I am by those words, James chides softly, “Maybe you should tell her. See what she thinks of the choices you made.”

Chris turns on him and roars, “Fuck you, you sanctimonious prick! One more word out of you and I’ll tear out your fucking heart with my bare hands!”

James replies evenly, “Pipe down before you get hurt, frat boy. You country club types are always big bleeders.”

The old fashioned. It must the old fashioned I had with dinner that’s messing with my head. I can’t be hearing what I’m hearing and intuiting what I’m intuiting, if that’s even a real goddamn word.

Here are the facts: James is an artist. He’s sensitive. He’s also dying of ALS. Somehow also freakishly strong despite it, but still, dying. This is an act he’s putting on in front of Chris, a macho, Hemingway-esque, I’m-a-scary-bullfighter act. The kind of posturing men—and apes—do in front of their competitors.

Right?

Right.

That settled, I turn my attention to Chris, reigning in my temper with an enormous effort of will. “We’ll have lunch tomorrow. We can talk then. Now, please leave.”

When he hesitates, his gaze darting back and forth between me and James, I say, “Christopher.”

He looks at me.

“It wasn’t a request.”

To his credit, James doesn’t smirk. He simply stands in silence, observing. He’s still calm and in control, but he’s watching Chris carefully, and I know he’s ready to take him down if he even so much as scowls in my direction.

I also know he could.

Though Chris is athletic and in great shape, his build is slim. He’s inches shorter and at least forty pounds lighter than James. He’s Mikhail Baryshnikov to James’s Muhammad Ali. It would be no contest…especially with the added cherry on top of James’s scary serial killer vibe.

Right now, he’d make a serial killer faint in fright.

Touchy Subject Land be damned, we’re going to have a nice, long talk as soon as my ex-husband is out of here.

Chris huffs out a frustrated breath and drags both hands through his hair. “Fine. I’ll come by at noon and pick you—”

“I’ll meet you at Café Blanc,” I interrupt, because I don’t know what this is, but it definitely isn’t a date. “Google it. Don’t get a table in Jean-Luc’s section.”

“Livvie—”

“For once in your life, Christopher, please listen to me.”

I say it through clenched teeth while a carousel of images plays in my head of all the times he dismissed me to do whatever the hell he wanted. All the times I asked him for something, only to be ignored.

Things like: love me. Hold me. Don’t leave me to survive this nightmare all alone.

Chris holds my gaze for a beat. I’m astonished to see tears shining in his eyes. For a moment his throat works and he seems as if he’s about to say something, but then he nods curtly and strides out of the apartment.

He doesn’t look back.

The first thing I do after he’s gone is retrieve the bottle of bourbon from the kitchen table and pour myself a drink. I gulp it down as James goes to the front door and closes it. He returns to the kitchen and stands across from me, his hands resting on the back of a chair.

He says calmly, “So that was your ex-husband. Interesting guy.”

I wag a finger at him. “Oh no. I’m starting. And you’re gonna talk. Sit.”

When he arches his brows, I point at the chair in front of him and pretend he’s a misbehaving dog. “Sit.”

Amused, he says, “And you say I’m bossy.” But he lowers himself into the chair without further comment, then watches as I shoot the rest of my drink.