Chapter 4

Halfway through dinner, Miles decided everyone was getting too comfortable.

"Alright, let's see how well the happy couple actually knows each other." He pointed at Julian. "What's Elena's favorite flower?"

Julian thought for a moment. "Roses?"

My fingers tightened slightly around my glass.

"Lisianthus," I said.

"Okay, terrible start." Miles laughed. "Her birthday?"

"March…" Julian paused. "Ninth?"

He got it right eventually.

"And what's she afraid of?"

Julian didn't even have to think about that one.

"Nothing, really." He smiled. "Elena's fearless."

Everyone laughed. I smiled too.

I was afraid of the dark. I'd told him that during our first year together.

We'd been walking home late one night when a power outage blacked out half the neighborhood. I'd grabbed his arm before I could stop myself. I'd been embarrassed enough to explain why.

He'd teased me about it then.

At some point, he'd forgotten.

Miles shook his head. "Julian, you're embarrassing yourself. Let's try Rosalie instead."

He turned to her. "What's Julian's coffee order?"

"Latte. One sugar. Warm, not too hot."

"What scares him?"

"Thunderstorms. Lightning hit the old oak behind his house when he was little, and apparently he cried for an hour."

Julian groaned. "You didn't have to tell them that."

Rosalie laughed.

Miles was already enjoying himself far too much. "Last one. What's the phrase he says all the time?"

Rosalie didn't hesitate. "Good enough."

The whole table burst out laughing.

Miles slammed his hand against the table. "Rosalie knows Julian better than his own fiancée."

"Well, we've known each other for ten years," Rosalie said with a smile.

Ten years. She'd had ten; I'd had five. For a second, I almost found comfort in the difference—five years was only half as long, and maybe that explained it.

Then I looked at Julian.

He leaned toward Rosalie, laughing as he protested the thunderstorm story. She reminded him of some detail he'd forgotten, and his expression changed immediately.

"No, no, that's not what happened."

"It absolutely was."

"The tree didn't even fall."

"You still cried."

"I was nine!"

An ease settled between them, and something inside me ached far more than the necklace had.

Rosalie knew he was afraid of thunder; I didn't. She knew how he took his coffee, what embarrassed him, what stories would make him laugh before she even finished telling them.

I knew what time he left for work. Which shirts he reached for most often. That he kicked the covers off in his sleep and always forgot to charge his phone. For five years, I'd thought knowing those things meant I knew him. Maybe I'd only learned how to live around him.

It wasn't that I'd never tried to know more. I'd asked, over and over.

I'd asked him what he wanted for dinner, and he would say, "Whatever."

I'd asked him where he wanted to go during weekends, and he'd reply, "Anywhere's fine."

I'd asked him what he was like as a kid.

"Nothing interesting," he had said.

I'd asked him to tell me something I didn't know about him, and he'd merely said, "There's nothing to tell."

Eventually, I'd stopped asking. I'd thought that was simply who Julian was—quiet, undemanding, not sentimental, a man who didn't care about birthdays or gifts, who hated a fuss and thought most things were good enough.

But sitting there, watching him argue with Rosalie over a childhood story, his face animated and his eyes bright, I finally understood.

Julian wasn't difficult to know. He had simply never let me know him.

The dinner was almost over when I excused myself to use the restroom.

Rosalie followed me in. "Elena."

She leaned against the counter and touched up her lipstick in the mirror. "Can I tell you something? Don't take it the wrong way."

I waited.

"Jules can be thoughtless sometimes, but he isn't a bad person. You can't take every little thing he does so personally."

"I'm not."

"He told me you've been pretty emotional lately. That you kept arguing because you're uncomfortable with how close he and I are."

For a moment, I said nothing.

So he'd told her.

The arguments we'd had behind closed doors, the questions I'd asked him, the things that hurt me—he had taken it all and handed it straight to the one person we were arguing about.

Rosalie capped her lipstick. "Elena, I'm going to say something you probably won't like. If you can't trust him over something this harmless, I'm not sure getting married is going to fix anything."

"He goes to Valeria with you every year. What exactly am I supposed to trust?"

For the first time that evening, Rosalie faltered—only for a second, before she smiled. "Those are work trips."

"Work doesn't take you to the same town every winter, or the same hotel. It doesn't leave hundreds of carefully taken photos of the same woman behind."

Her smile stayed in place, but the warmth disappeared from her eyes.

"Jules and I are friends, Elena. That's all we've ever been. If you're determined to turn it into something else, that's your problem."

She picked up her purse and headed for the door, then stopped.

"Oh, one more thing." Her eyes met mine through the mirror. "That wall in your new living room? I told Jules you should've gone with warm gray. He agrees. He thinks it works much better than the cream you picked."

Then she left.

I stood there staring at the closed door.

The living room wall.

I'd spent days choosing that shade of cream.

I'd gone to the apartment myself and watched the painters put on the first coat, decided it wasn't even enough, and stayed until they'd finished the second.

Julian hadn't come once. But somehow Rosalie knew what color I'd chosen.

Somehow Julian had found the time to discuss it with her.

And somehow, when the two of them disagreed with me, it was her opinion that mattered.

I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water over my face before walking out.

Julian was waiting by the door. "Come on. We're taking Rosalie home."

"Can't she get home herself?"

"It's on the way."

Rosalie lived on the east side of the city; we lived on the west. In what world was that on the way?

"You can take her. I'll get a cab."

"Don't start. Just come with us."

In the car, Rosalie sat in the passenger seat while I sat in the back. She flipped through the radio stations until she found one playing Valerian music.

"Jules, remember this song? They played it at that pub in Bellmont last year."

"Yeah. You started singing along."

They both started laughing.

Sitting in the back, I felt like an extra passenger in someone else's car.

When we pulled up outside Rosalie's building, she got out, then bent down to look at me through the open door. "Get some rest, Elena."

Then she turned to Julian. "Jules, don't forget about next week."

"I won't."

She shut the door and walked away.

I moved from the back seat into the passenger seat. "What are you doing for her next week?"

"Helping her move a cabinet."

"She can hire movers."

"Why waste money on that?"

Last year, I'd asked him to help me move a single box of books, and he'd said his back was bothering him and told me to hire movers. But when Rosalie needed a cabinet moved, he was going over to do it himself.

"Julian, have you ever noticed that you treat Rosalie better than you treat me?"

He sighed. "We grew up together. Looking out for her is just a habit. But you're the one I'm marrying. Isn't that enough?"