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I’ve never seen the dress or the earrings or the face currently staring at Oliver’s door as though she has every right to expect him to open it.

She shifts the bakery box to her other hand and knocks harder. “Come on. You’re not answering my calls, and you didn’t show up last night.”

Last night.

Is that why he was in such a hurry to leave after reading? So much that he sipped his fucking coffee?” He was supposed to be having dinner with a pretty woman I’ve never seen.

I know which coffee shop he prefers and that he buys groceries on Thursday unless he teaches late. I know he forgets his dry cleaning often enough that the woman behind the counter knows his name.

I didn’t know he had a silver bar through his nipple. That had been fun. This isn’t.

The woman reaches for the doorknob and tries it. The deadbolt is locked. The knob stops and she lets go. “Nate?”

I don’t like that name. Nathaniel is bad enough. Nate is something else. Nate sounds like she’s allowed to have him.

She puts the bakery box on the floor beside her and starts typing on her phone.

For a few seconds, everything’s quiet.

Then, from the hallway, “What the fuck?”

At least we agree on something.

When I return to the peephole, Juney has stepped back from the door. The annoyance has gone out of her face. She’s worried.

She tries calling again. After a few seconds she lowers the phone and swears under her breath.

Maybe she’s a student, although she seems too comfortable standing outside his apartment for that. A colleague wouldn’t call him Nate or turn up carrying dessert because he missed dinner. Girlfriend makes more sense.

I look at her dress again. Oliver hasn’t mentioned a girlfriend, but Oliver hasn’t told me much of anything voluntarily. I should have seen her.

Eleven months should have given me something. Dinners. Weekends. Her car outside. Oliver leaving with her. Her coming through this door.

Juney bends to retrieve the bakery box, and for a moment I think she’s finally leaving. Instead she pulls a small notebook from her bag, tears out a page and writes against the top of the box. She presses the note to Oliver’s door and stands there looking at it.

“Call me, okay?” Her voice is softer now.

I wait until her footsteps disappear down the hallway, then stay where I am until I hear the elevator doors open and close in the distance. Only then do I unlock the deadbolt.

The note is stuck just below the peephole.

Nate,

You missed dinner and now you’re not answering. Please call me. You’re freaking me out.

J ♡

I stare at the heart. A fucking heart. I tear the note off the door and lock myself back inside.

The apartment looks exactly as it did five minutes ago. Everything is neat. Everything is where Oliver left it.

Somewhere in this apartment is an explanation for Juney.

I tear the heart off the note and put the rest in my pocket.

Oliver can explain every word when I get home.

I crumple the heart in my fist and walk to his desk. If Juney has left part of herself in his apartment, I’m going to find it. If she hasn’t, I’m going to take the apartment apart until it admits where she belongs.