She didn’t know this man. She certainly didn’t want to be kissing him.
“Goodnight, Keith,” she said, giving him a firm sh
ove on the chest. She tried for a saucy wink, but she assumed from his puzzled frown that it might have looked more like a grand mal seizure.
Julie gave the driver her address without glancing back at Keith. She hadn’t bungled a date that badly in years. She waited for the stab of regret and the sense of failure.
Nothing.
The restaurant was mercifully close to her apartment, and within minutes Julie was throwing a twenty at her cab driver, not bothering to wait for her change.
I need to get inside. Why had she thought she’d be able to handle this? Today of all days. A strangled sob escaped. She should have listened to Riley and Grace and given herself the day off. She always took June 30 off. Off from work, off from dating. A day off from living. It was the one day of the year where Julie allowed herself to wallow.
She fumbled through her purse for her keys. Crap. The sheen of tears made the contents of her purse one big blur. She was totally about to lose her shit in the middle of the sidewalk.
She thought of calling Riley and Grace, but she was determined to stick it out alone. She always went it alone. No need to burden anyone else with her baggage.
“Julie.”
The voice was so unexpected that her shaking hands dropped the purse to the ground, sending everything scattering.
She knelt down without looking at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been calling you. Your phone’s been going straight to voicemail all day. I’ve been worried.”
“Did it occur to you that it went to voicemail for a reason? That I didn’t want to talk?” Her nasty tone was intended to scare him off. Go away. Don’t see me like this. Nobody’s allowed to see me like this.
But instead of walking away or snapping back, Mitchell crouched beside her to help her pick up her purse as though he hadn’t noticed her waspish tone and bitchy words. He scooped up her keys before she could snatch them and held them out of reach. “Let’s get you inside.”
She wanted to dig her heels in. Wanted to tell him that he had no place here. That she didn’t need him. Didn’t want him. But when he took her hand and gently pulled her forward, she let him. And when he opened the door to her building and to her apartment and ushered her inside, she let him do that too.
And when she collapsed into tears the second the door had closed behind them, she let him take her in his arms, holding her tightly as though he could put her back together again.
Maybe he could.
Julie had no concept of how long she sobbed on his shoulder, one of his big palms moving over her back in soothing strokes while the other cradled her damp face to his neck.
Eventually her wet sobs turned to dry hiccups, and, like the kindest of friends, he washed her face with a warm washcloth and rummaged through her drawers until he found an oversized T-shirt and her ratty boxers.
Gentle hands peeled off her tight, slinky first-date dress and dropped the soft shirt over her head, not making a single comment about the sexiness of the dress.
She stood there like an exhausted child as he pulled the covers back and tucked her gently into bed. Julie tried to say thank you. Tried to say she was sorry. Nothing came out but a dry croak.
“I’ll get you some water,” he whispered, his hands playing with the tips of her hair before disappearing to the kitchen.
Julie closed her eyes, which were so dry they wanted to crack, and curled up on her side. It was like this every year. Every year she told herself that this would be the year she wouldn’t cry. That this would be the year she’d handle it like an adult. This was not to be that year.
Although it did mark one very unexpected first: it was the first time she hadn’t gone it alone.
Mitchell came back into the room, and she eagerly accepted the water, its cool wetness easing the rasp of her throat. He watched her drink and then quietly took the empty glass from her, setting it on the nightstand as though she were a sick child needing to be coddled. And maybe for tonight she was.
She waited for the questions to start.
What was that about? PMS?
Want to talk about it?
She didn’t. She didn’t talk about it with anyone, not even Riley and Grace.