Page 35 of Leverage & Obedience

This time I stop and crouch down. I stop with a fingernail under the corner of the tape.

I don’t pull it open, but I spend the next hour wondering if it would really be that bad to unpack.

Chapter 10

It’s 2 a.m., and I’m on the couch reading Rachel’s texts again.

You weren’t just a temp to him. And you weren’t just a temp to us.

I’ve read them at least twenty times. It hasn’t gotten easier.

Bren’s voice is in my head. The one from Wednesday when he told me his wife died, and that they’d been trying for a baby. That he hasn’t let himself want anything since.

Weeks. All those weeks, he was showing me the man he used to be, and I called it an arrangement. I called it the best temp job I’ve ever had.

I suck.

I pull my knees in tight. The apartment is dead quiet; my heartbeat is loud in my ears with nothing to drown it out. I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding the fact I’m not the staying kind. I joke that people find me charming in small doses, but I never give them the chance to like more.

It’s all bullshit. Every word of it.

And then when a man I actually want asks me to stay, I set his anklet on the desk and walk out because I can’t let myself say yes.

And I want his kitchen.

Not—okay, I want him too, obviously. I want him so much it qualifies as a medical condition. But that’s not what’s keeping me awake. I’m awake because I want to know which mug is the one he reaches for when he’s groggy and hasn’t had his first cup of coffee. I want to cook pasta on his stupidly expensive range and have him come up behind me and kiss my neck.

That’s how I know I’m done for. It’s 2 in the morning, and I’m aching to know which mug is his. A mug.

But Bren already fought for me. He told me the whole bleeding truth of himself, and I left. This is the man who fed me protein bars like they were his love language and made sure I drank more water before bed.

He hasn’t texted me. The silence means he’s letting me go.

I have to fix this if it’s not too late. God, what if it’s too late? What do I even say?Sorry I walked out, can I have my anklet back, I’m an idiot.Ugh, I don’t know. I just know I have to try.

Since I don’t want to storm over there at 3 a.m. like a crazy person, I try to sleep. It doesn’t really work, and by morning, I’ve written six texts to Bren and deleted all of them.

By 10 a.m. I’m done being the woman who can’t compose a coherent message. I need to see him. I just hope I figure out the perfect thing to say by the time I get there.

I toss on the nearest pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt. Right before I walk out of my apartment, I look at the boxes one more time. They’re fear with packing tape on them, and I’ve spent years calling that freedom and feeling proud of myself for packing light.

I want to take a box cutter to every single one. And I will. No matter what happens at Bren’s, I’m going to unpack them.

I have never been this brave in my life, and I might throw up, but I’m doing it anyway.

My hands shake the entire twelve-minute drive. I park and sit there longer than I’d admit to anyone, white-knuckling the wheel. The elevator in his building takes twenty-seven seconds. I count all twenty-seven, like that’s going to help.

His door is solid wood. My mouth is so dry it clicks when I swallow.

I lift my hand to knock and pause.

What if he slams the door in my face? Or worse, stares at me coldly and listens to whatever I’m going to say that I definitely didn’t figure out yet, and then tells me to leave?

I fight the urge to turn around and run, and I’m not going to be that person. It’s my turn to fight.

I knock.

Nothing happens for ten seconds. I count those too. He’s not coming. Or he saw it was me through the peephole and decided not to come. Or—oh god—what if he’s not even home, what if he’s at the office on a Saturday because he can’t be here either. What if I drove twelve minutes to knock on an empty door? My lungs quit on me. I’ll wait until I’m in the car to cry. I can make it to the car, I think—